Restructuring Sex Offender Sentencing: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Approach to the Criminal Justice Process

Abstract

Although the notion of providing specialized treatment to sex offenders has been widely, and at times enthusiastically, embraced by lawmakers and criminal justice professionals, the larger criminal justice system often maintains and fosters policies and mandates that act as disincentives for offenders to seek out or participate meaningfully in specialized sex offender treatment. This article employs the therapeutic jurisprudence perspective in examining many of the issues and problems associated with adjudicating and treating sex offenders and presents a “treatment track” or deferred sentencing model, which while primarily focusing on offender adjudication, prioritizes the therapeutic needs of offenders and emphasizes the interrelated nature of various criminal justice system components associated with sex offender cases and each component’s potential therapeutic impact on the others.