Sex Offenders and the Internet by K. Sheldon and D. Howitt and Assessing Risk in Sex Offenders

Chichester : John Wiley ( 2007 ) 296pp. £29.99pb ISBN 978-0-470-02801-8 Chichester : John Wiley ( 2008 ) 266pp. £29.99pb ISBN 978-0-470-01898-9 Both books provide a valuable and timely contribution to the literature. Clearly, both cover similar topics but are quantifiably different in focus. To address each in turn: Sex Offenders and the Internet is written using an engaging style. Although this borders on the journalistic on occasion this is not a criticism per se since it increases the accessibility of the text for a wider range of readers. This book also needs to be considered in light of how little research has been conducted in this area in comparison to the broader sex offender literature. Failing to account for this may lead to a conclusion of comparative ‘lightness’ with regards to academic content, when this is perhaps unavoidable. I would, however, have liked to have seen more reflection on whether or not Internet sex offenders are, indeed, a ‘new category’ of offender, or, rather, is the Internet not just another manifestation of offending behaviour. This is touched upon, although there is a tendency to lean towards typologies, which does suggest a certain amount of ‘grouping’ of offenders is taking place. Connected to this, the authors do touch upon the motivations of this ‘group’ of offenders which is very valuable. Other highly useful content includes an outline of the legal context, definitional challenges, the introduction of useful debates (for example, pseudo images), and the accessibility of some of the case material to illustrate learning points. This is such a rapidly growing area, however, that some more recently established developments have been missed (for example, the Child Exploitation Online Protection (CEOP) unit is worthy of a more significant mention), along with some recently published work. However, this is unavoidable, and fits with these authors' reflections on this area changing rapidly owing to the medium by which offenders seek to engage in offending or offence-parallel behaviour. It is, however, a highly commendable text. Assessing Risk in Sex Offenders: A Practitioner's Guide, by comparison, presents itself as a far more academically-weighted text. Although referring to itself as a ‘practitioner's’ guide, I do not think this should be mistaken for an under-developed atheoretical book of limited use to the scientist-practitioner. It is far from this. Indeed the authors have produced a text which will assist with defendable practice, which is why I feel it has a vital remit for use by expert witnesses. If I were to criticise this book, I would indicate that I thought more space should have been given to discussion of third-generation tools, and more focus on ‘Where do we go from here’. The author's introduction of the ‘MARA model’ does aim to begin this process, although I feel that a more critical evaluation of actuarial measures, as part of this model, should have been incorporated. A new model, as I see this, advances an area – not by solely pulling the research together into a framework, but by progressing it beyond what we already know, with a view to what should be considered in more detail. For example, ‘inhibitors of risk’ are touched upon in their MARA model, but an increased focus on protective factors for sex offending would have been a further avenue by which to present something more revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary. This is not to distract, however, from a very well compiled text which covers often missed areas such as developmental factors and functional analysis, with good inclusion of theory and empirical study. If anything, this text encourages readers to really think about how this area of research and practice is developing, and on what we need to focus our attention. It achieves this very well indeed, and I warmly commend it as a highly valuable source

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