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Failed policies: US sex offenders registration, public notification, and civil commitment

Elizabeth Letourneau

Sex offender registration and notification are failed policies. My research and that of virtually all others who publish in this space find that sex offender registration and notification laws fail to improve community safety in any way. Instead, these policies make it diffi­cult for ex-offenders to find and maintain housing, employment, and pro-social positive relationships – the three keys to successful community re-entry following prison. These barriers may increase the likelihood that registrants will commit new crimes in service of meeting basic needs. Registration and notification policies fail in part because they are based on misunderstandings about sex crimes, including that people with sex crime convictions present a high and homogenous risk of sexual recidivism on an immutable trajectory towards more and more severe offending that is undeterred by time free of offending or by age of the individual. The published literature on adult-focused registration and notification most often documents no imipact of these policies on sexual recidivism. The published literature on youth-focused registration and notification without exception fails to find any public safety effect and instead finds severe harms to the children subjected to these policies. Ancillary studies indicate that these policies exert unintended consequences that put the public at greater risk, such as more sex offenses being pled down to non-sex offenses to avoid the onerous consequences of the registry, and lower conviction rates for those cases that were not pled down but went forward to trial as sex crime cases. Rather than wasting resources on costly, harmful policies governments could instead implement evidence-based interventions known to decrease the risk of violent recidivism and interventions known to prevent initial offenses from happening in the first place.

Elizabeth J. Letourneau, PhD is the endowed Moore Family Professor with Tenure in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she established MOORE, a center focused on child sexual abuse prevention. Her disciplinary training is in clinical psychology, and she has led a program of research, policy, and practice efforts focused on the prevention of child sexual abuse for 37 years. This work has informed more than 150 publications, appeared in dozens of media outlets including TEDMED and The New York Times Magazine, and attracted more than $30 million in federal, foundation, and philanthropic funding. She currently advises or has previously advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, European Commission, Google, Meta, National Academy of Sciences, World Bank and International Finance Corporation, among other governments, corporations, and civil society organizations. Her research has influenced state and federal laws and been cited in five U.S. state supreme court cases and the U.S. Revised Model Penal Code. Her policy and advocacy efforts were instrumental in achieving annual federal funding to the CDC in support of child sexual abuse prevention research; to date, US$13.5 million has been appropriated to the CDC in support of nine outcome evaluations of child sexual abuse prevention programs across the country. She is past president of ATSA and a recipient of the ATSA Significant Lifetime Achievement Award.

Abstracts

Abstract Submission is closed! Thank you for your numerous contributions! 

The deadline for abstract submission is April 30^th, 2025.

The official language of the conference is English and abstracts have to be submitted in English. 

Abstracts will be reviewed by members of the IATSO Organizing Committee. Authors will be informed about the decision of this committee not later than May 31^st, 2025. The committee reserves the right to allocate papers either for oral or poster presentation. 

The author giving the free communication is required to register and pay for an on-site attendance not later than June 15^th, 2025. If registration and payment is not made by the deadline, the abstract cannot appear in the abstract book or in the conference schedule. 

In case your abstract is not accepted and you are already registered, we will contact you regarding a refund of the registration fee. 

If registration and payment is made, your abstract will be published in the Official Book of Abstracts (Zeitschrift für Forensische Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie). There will be no proofreading or editing by IATSO, so any error in the submitted abstract will appear in print. Authors transfer the copyright to IATSO.

Authors agree that their free communications may be stored in our video gallery and if so, will be accessible for three months (until November 29^th, 2025) to all registered participants of the 18^th IATSO conference, 2025. IATSO does not provide any option for downloading and distributing them. However, it is obvious that IATSO cannot completely rule out abuse or fraud.

Original papers written in English and presented at the conference may be submitted for possible publication in the IATSO e-Journal (Sexual Offending: Theory, Research, and Prevention; https://sotrap.psychopen.eu)

General Guidelines:

Please check all the guidelines before submitting the abstract. If guidelines are not followed, we may not be able to take your abstract into account for our upcoming conference. 

• Use the template for your abstract: Click HERE to download the template! Please, do NOT change font or font size of the template but use it exactly as it is!

• For an easier identification of the abstract-file during the process,the filename should include the author's name and an abbreviation of the title (e.g. Eberhaut, S._Cognitive Disortions).

• Abstracts should be written double-spaced and not exceed 200 words in length. 

• The title of your abstract should not exceed 25 words in length. Except for proper nouns, only the first word and the first word after a colon should be written in capital letters.

• Add the affiliation of EVERY author and co-author (see template)

• Add the email address of the first author (see template).

• The name of the authors in the template should be "first name last name" and NOT "last name, first letter of the first name" (see template)

• Submit astracts by filling out this form and uploading your WORD file. 

Note that all the authors will be mentioned in the abstract book but only the speaker will be mentioned in the program! 

Guidelines Oral presentations: 

Speaking time is presumably between 15 and 20 minutes (depending on the final number of presentations per session). Standard power point projection will be provided in all lecture halls.

Guidelines Symposium:

It is essential to enter the title of the symposium. We need an abstract for each talk of the symposioum. An abstract of the whole symposium is not required. 

Guidelines Posters: 

The posters selected for presentation will be exhibited throughout the conference. The posters should be in A0 (90cm x 120) format.

Poster Award: 

Students (including graduate or Ph.D. students) presenting outstanding posters can be awarded the IATSO Poster Award. All first-author students presenting a poster at the 18^th IATSO conference in Poznań, Poland are eligible to compete for this award. If you hand in an abstract for a poster and want to be compete for the poster award, please tick the box. Successful students will be awarded financial support (1^st place: 500 € and 2^nd place: 250 €).

During the poster session at the conference, a scientific jury will select the winning posters. The decision of the jury will be based on scientific excellence of the abstract and on the presentation of the scientific information on the poster.

(Possible) Contents of free communications and posters: 

• Sexual offender treatment effectiveness
• Meta-analyses in sexual offender treatment
• Internet sexual offending
• Diagnosis of sex offence related disorders
• Comparing different methods in sexual offender treatment
• National programs of sexual offender treatment
• Risk assessment, risk calculation and risk communication
• Measuring change of risk
• Reducing risk by other means than by treatment
• The management of sexual offences in a context of cultural diversity
• The effectiveness of restorative justice systems
• Substance abuse and sexual violence
• Rehabilitation and treatment of young sexual offenders
• Sexual offending prevention policies
• Measurement of sexual deviance
• Neuroscience and sexual offenses
• Problematic and harmful sexual behaviour among children and adolescents (both online and offline behaviour)
• Multisystemic work in prevention and treatment of harmful sexual behaviour (both offline and online behaviour
• Policing sexual abuse online
• Online child abuse – new trends and challenges from a policing and treatment perspective
• Perceptions and stereotypes towards online and offline child sexual offending and offenders

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Psychoanalysis in the Treatment of Sexual Offenders: An Outdated Concept or an Underestmated Potential?

Sonja Etzler & Julia Sauter

Psychoanalytic approaches in the treatment of sexual offenders have long been marginalized in favor of cognitive-behavioral interventions. However, is psychoanalysis truly outdated, or does it hold untapped potential in forensic settings? This keynote critically examines the role of psychodynamic concepts in offender treatment, addressing their relevance, effectiveness, and challenges.

We begin by presenting findings from both non-forensic clinical psychotherapy research and forensic applications. These findings provide a foundation for reviewing the challenges and potential benefits of psychodynamic approaches in offender treatment. We discuss how psychodynamic concepts could contribute to offenders’ clinical diagnostics and risk assessment. Additionally, we review results from the implementation of psychodynamic treatment in forensic settings. Finally, we discuss directions for integrating psychodynamic approaches into forensic treatment.

To illustrate the clinical utility of psychodynamic diagnostics, we will present a clinical case formulation in forensic treatment using Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis (OPD-3). This case will demonstrate how psychodynamic conceptualizations can contribute to a deeper understanding of offenders’ psychological structures, risk factors, and treatment needs. By integrating these perspectives, we argue for a reconsideration of psychoanalysis in forensic settings and explore its potential to complement existing treatment approaches for sexual offenders.

Sonja Etzler, Ph.D. is a Senior Psychologist at the University Medical Center Freiburg. She works in the field of psychotherapy with a particular focus on psychodynamic approaches. Her research interests lie in forensic psychology, psychological assessment, and clinical psychology, with a special emphasis on the role of personality in deviant and criminal behavior. She has published extensively on these topics, contributing to the scientific understanding of risk factors, diagnostic methodologies, and treatment approaches for individuals with forensic and clinical concerns.

Prof. Dr. Julia Sauter heads the Department of Legal Psychology at the University of Kassel (tenure-track professorship). After studying psychology in Heidelberg, she worked as a therapist in the forensic psychiatric system and as a research associate at Charité Berlin. Concurrently, she completed her doctorate at the University of Mainz and obtained her license as a psychological psychotherapist. Before being appointed to the University of Kassel, she headed the Therapeutic Outpatient Clinic in Cottbus, Germany.

Treatment for Men who have Sexually Offended: Tips for Success

Theresa A. Gannon

Those who work with individuals who offend sexually are engaged in a challenging yet vitally important role. In this talk, I will combine research evidence and clinical experience to discuss the elements required to ensure treatment for men who have sexually offended is as successful as possible. The focus will be on treatment for men who have engaged in at least one contact offence against a child or an adult. This talk will include an examination of theory, meta-analyses, as well as therapist factors important for treatment of these individuals. The key factors for improving treatment success will be presented as best practice “tips”. Key areas for future research will also be highlighted with some outlined as being an urgent priority.

Theresa A. Gannon, DPhil, CPsychol (Forensic) is Professor of Forensic Psychology and Director of the Centre for Research and Education in Forensic Psychology (CORE-FP) at the University of Kent, UK. Theresa has also worked as a Practitioner Consultant Forensic Psychologist specialising in sexual offending and firesetting for the Forensic and Specialist Care Group, Kent and Medway Partnership Trust for over 15 years.

Theresa has published over 150 chapters, articles, books, and other scholarly works in the areas of male and female-perpetrated sexual offending. She is particularly interested in research relating to both the treatment needs and overall supervision of individuals who have sexually offended. This includes offence-related cognition and emotion, rehabilitation models (i.e., the Good Lives Model), offense-process models of offending behavior, polygraph-assisted supervision and truth facilitation, and attitudes towards individuals who have offended. Theresa is lead editor of several books including Sexual Offending: Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation (Wiley-Blackwell) along with Tony Ward, Aggressive Offenders’ Cognition: Theory, Research, and Treatment (John Wiley) along with Tony Ward, Anthony Beech, and Dawn Fisher, and Female Sexual Offenders: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment (Wiley-Blackwell) along with Dr Franca Cortoni. Theresa is also co-editor of several books that discuss or integrate sexual offending with other forensic topics and psychological factors.

In 2019, Theresa was awarded the Lifetime Significant Achievement Award by the British Psychological Society for her services to forensic psychology. More recently, she was also Nominated Fellow of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, USA.