History of the Assessment of Sex Offenders
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Most forensic psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers involved in the assessment of sex offenders today have a good grasp of where the field stands. Many of their colleagues do not have an appreciation of why we are where we are. This book is an attempt to bridge that gap, to provide some historical background of sex offender assessment from 1830 to the present.
Topics covered in this book include early efforts to identify and describe criminal populations statistically; the introduction of phrenology as a description of brain function; the efforts of criminal anthropologists to develop criminal taxonomies; the technology of anthropometry to identify individuals by measurement of bodily structure; and the introduction of fingerprinting which replaced anthropometry and remains largely unchanged to the present day. The guiding principle of the book is to help the reader understand that all of this represents a continuous thread of development and, disparate as they might seem, all of them are connected.
This book is essential reading for undergraduates in psychology and sociology, as well as professionals in training and early stages of practice.
Topics covered in this book include early efforts to identify and describe criminal populations statistically; the introduction of phrenology as a description of brain function; the efforts of criminal anthropologists to develop criminal taxonomies; the technology of anthropometry to identify individuals by measurement of bodily structure; and the introduction of fingerprinting which replaced anthropometry and remains largely unchanged to the present day. The guiding principle of the book is to help the reader understand that all of this represents a continuous thread of development and, disparate as they might seem, all of them are connected.
This book is essential reading for undergraduates in psychology and sociology, as well as professionals in training and early stages of practice.
D. Richard Laws received his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois
University-Carbondale in 1969. He was
director of the Sexual Behavior Laboratory at Atascadero State Hospital in
California from 1970-1985; project director at the Florida Mental Health
Institute, Tampa, from 1985-1989; manager of forensic psychology at Alberta
Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta from 1989-1994; and as a forensic psychologist with
Adult Forensic Psychiatric Community Services in Victoria, British Columbia
from 1994-1999. Dr Laws has published widely in the area of sexual abuse and is
best known as a developer of assessment procedures and behavior therapies.