Citation

Reitzel LR, Carbonell JL. Sex. Abuse 2006; 18(4): 401-421.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA. lrreitze@mdanderson.org

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1007/s11194-006-9031-2

PMID

17136623

Abstract

Published and unpublished data from nine studies on juvenile sexual offender treatment effectiveness were summarized by meta-analysis (N=2986, 2604 known male). Recidivism rates for sexual, non-sexual violent, non-sexual non-violent crimes, and unspecified non-sexual were as follows: 12.53%, 24.73%, 28.51%, and 20.40%, respectively, based on an average 59-month follow-up period. Four included studies contained a control group (n=2288) and five studies included a comparison treatment group (n=698). An average weighted effect size of 0.43 (CI=0.33-0.55) was obtained, indicating a statistically significant effect of treatment on sexual recidivism. However, individual study characteristics (e.g., handling of dropouts and non-equivalent follow-up periods between treatment groups) suggest that results should be interpreted with caution. A comparison of odds ratios by quality of study design indicated that higher quality designs yielded better effect sizes, though the difference between groups was not significant.

Language: en