"This volume follows my recent book on pedophilia and sexual offending against children, also published by the American Psychological Association (Seto, 2008). After that endeavor, which took almost 3 years to complete, I thought I would take a break before assuming the (satisfying) challenge of writing another book. But after a plenary talk on online offending I gave at the 2009 Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) conference in Dallas, Texas, a colleague, Jean Proulx, asked me why I was not writing a book about this topic, given the demand for knowledge about this emerging problem. That was a good question. It was clear that there was a great deal of demand because of the increasing number of cases seen by law enforcement and by clinicians; it was also clear that there was a lack of research.

Online, the opportunity to commit a crime is never more than a few clicks away. Sex Offenders and the Internet explores the nature of online sex offenders in order to help practitioners understand and treat this new category of client. Kerry Sheldon and Dennis Howitt examine the research base by reviewing case studies and psychological profiles, with a particular focus on paedophilic Internet sex offenders. Issues covered include child pornography, the often overlooked ‘excuses’ for paedophilia, and how we can move forward. The result is a book that comprehensively details the nature of Internet sex offenders, bringing together the relevant research into one essential volume.

How to Work with Sex Offenders is a cutting edge, state-of-the-art book that provides mental health professionals best practice techniques on how to clinically evaluate, interview, and treat this challenging patient population. Successful models of individual, family, and group models of psychotherapy are provided for the reader. In addition, this handbook walks the reader through the investigation, arrest, prosecution and court hearing process, from start to finish. Thoroughly revised, this new edition builds on additional research data and new information, adding advanced chapters on female offenders, Internet offenders, pornography, sexual addiction, rape and child and adolescent sexual misconduct. This is a must-read work for undergraduate and graduate students, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, child protection service workers, therapists, and other professionals who work with sex offenders.

Internet Child Abuse: Current Research and Policy provides a timely overview of international policy, legislation and offender management and treatment practice in the area of Internet child abuse. Internet use has grown considerably over the last five years, and information technology now forms a core part of the formal education system in many countries. There is however, increasing evidence that the Internet is used by some adults to access children and young people in order to ‘groom’ them for the purposes of sexual abuse; as well as to produce and distribute indecent illegal images of children. This book presents and assesses the most recent and current research on internet child abuse, addressing: its nature, the behaviour and treatment of its perpetrators, international policy, legislation and protection, and policing. It will be required reading for an international audience of academics, researchers, policy-makers and criminal justice practitioners with interests in this area.

Over the last decade there has been dramatically increased interest in the ways that technology has been used in the abuse and exploitation of children, due in part to increasing numbers of convictions for child pornography-related offenses. Opinion swings between those who feel that there is a danger of distorting the threat posed to children by technology, and those for whom it appears that the threat has been grossly underestimated. Current literature surrounding the debate at times seems to create more questions than answers and what quickly becomes apparent is that the data we have to inform our understanding is partial, potentially context specific, and at times seemingly contradictory. This book broadens our understanding of the complex nature of online sexual exploitation of children and considers the risk that those engaged in Internet-related offences pose to children in both the online and offline environments. It focuses on cutting-edge research and conceptual thinking that views perpetrators within context, examines those impacted by such offending, describes emerging legal and policy issues, and proposes innovative strategies for prevention within a dynamic global environment. Understanding and Preventing Online Sexual Exploitation of Children responds to the growing call for help across all practice areas, from judicial to therapeutic, and will provide an invaluable resource for practitioners and policy makers working in the field, as well as students and academics studying sexual exploitation and cyber crime.

Sex Crimes and Sex Offenders: Research and Realities provides an overview of social scientific theory and research on sex crimes and sex offenders. Most other books on the market are focused on a single issue—such as treatment, rape, pedophilia, theory, etc. This book is unique in that it covers the most current theory and research along with individual cases of sex crimes (e.g., Kobe Bryant, Jerry Sandusky, and other case studies), effectively linking theory and research with the realities of sex crimes and sex offenders as well as their victims. Vandiver, Braithwaite, and Stafford are careful to dispel myths and to focus on the heterogeneity of sex crimes and sex offenders, and not on any one issue or population or theory. Instead, they weave a framework using a full range of theoretical concepts and research data to integrate their discussions of crimes, offenders, victims, treatments, and policy implications. The result is a valuable resource for students and early-stage researchers investigating sex crimes or offenders.

It has been over ten years since the release of the first edition. Over this time span, the dilemmas for the sexual offender - including their visceral and virtual manifestations - have captured the imagination of the public, have rewritten the subdiscipline of behavioral sciences and the law, and have led to new technologies in the assessment, diagnostic, and treatment decision sciences. These dilemmas circulate in the marketplace of conspicuous digital consumerism that stylizes and commercializes the sex offender industry through society’s ubiquitous infotainment-driven and carnival-like outlets. This second edition will act as the antidote to the voyeurism that addictively feeds on the dramatizations that caricature the victims, assailants, and predicaments that constitute the dilemmas for the sexual offender. The authors systematically probe and dissect the boundaries of their topic with erudition and insight. This acumen consists of psychiatric, legal, moral, and bio-social realms of inquiry and analysis. Old questions about the nature of evil, women in society, violence and mental illness, and treatment and recovery receive fresh attention based on the latest empirical evidence. New chapters address emergent forms of deviant sexuality (e.g., cyber-offending, erotic and sadistic psychopathy, and child-molesting clergy). New sections illuminate existing forms of aberrant sexuality (e.g., moral development and necrophilia, moral reasoning and sex offenders, and the psychodynamics of serialized lust murder). This state-of-the-art text, replete with cutting-edge case illustrations, demonstrates how medicine, law, and culture are inextricably (and sometimes inexplicably) bound together. It will serve as an outstanding resource for psychiatrists, lawyers, criminologists, policy analysts, and forensic mental health professionals as the authors expertly reveal the world of sexual offenders.