RAPE AND RAPISTS - THEORY AND TREATMENT

The sexual assault of adult women is noteworthy by its huge social and personal cost to the victims, their families, and ultimately society as a whole. The past decade has seen burgeoning research and clinical interest regarding child molesters but a lack of equivalent effort con cerning rapists. Rapists are significantly different from child molest ers. While considerable heterogeneity exists within this group, there is a lack of distinctiveness when compared to the wider population of serious criminal offenders. These two features of rapists have implica tions both for research and treatment. We also argue that despite the advances of the last decade this has been in terms of theory prolifera tion rather than integration, and that major explanatory gaps remain. In particular; there is a need for more middle-level theory that artic ulates mechanisms and can underpin treatment. Current treatment approa ches have typically been developed for child molesters, and while ther e has been a significant increase in comprehensiveness and sophisticat ion, the evidence for treatment efficacy with rapists remains tentativ e. Treatment programs need to be tailored to the specific needs of rap ists and to the issues of treatment engagement and completion. We conc lude with a variety of suggestions for the research agenda over the ne xt decade. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.