6: Social work interventions

Restricted access
Rights and permissions Cite this chapter

In this chapter, we explore the various approaches to direct intervention with people who commit sexual offences and some of the systems used to manage their behaviour. We look at the importance of who we, the social workers, are and how this can affect our work with people, and we argue for a reflexive approach that asks us to think about our knowledge and values. The ways in which sexual offending has been understood has affected the ways in which the behaviour has been responded to, and we look at these changes to gain some perspective on current practices. As we have already seen in this book so far, sexual offending is complicated and we explore some of these complexities through discussion and reflective exercises.

As an example, during the writing of this book, there was recognition of sexual offending by some high-profile individuals in the UK during previous decades. Contemporary reports of investigations into this behaviour demonstrated a lack of willingness to recognise the seriousness of it, often dismissing it as young women and girls developing their sexual interests or as men simply behaving as expected. The predatory and exploitative nature of these relationships and assaults was not clear to observers, and victims were often viewed as active participants in their abuse. This has echoes of the controversy around the seduction theory of Freud, where the sexual abuse of girls by their fathers was reframed as a developmental psychic fantasy (Masson, 1984) following what appears to be shock and denial at the scale and implications of such behaviour.

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 235 167 13
Full Text Views 6 0 0
PDF Downloads 2 0 0

Altmetrics