Understanding Sexual Offending

1. Introduction: Sexual offending: an elusive phenomenon in criminology's blind spot.- 2. The postwar sociolegal (de-) constructoin of sexual offending.- 3. Myths, false claims and erroneous conclusions about "sex offenders".- 4. The "sex offender" under the microscope: Are they different?.- 5. Why sexual offending?.- 6. The stepping stones to sexual offending.- 7. The Scarlet letter in the digital age: the impact of public sex offender registries.- 8. Correctional moneyball? Lessons learned from correctional risk management.- 9. The slippery slope of rehabilitation: science, common sense or social justice?.- 10. Conclusion: toward a reasonable, scientifically grounded, developmental perspective.

Patrick Lussier is a Full Professor of criminology at the School of social work and criminology at Université Laval, in Quebec city, Canada. After completing a Ph.D. in criminology at the University of Montreal, he completed postdoctoral studies at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. David P. Farrington. He was Professor at the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University for 8 years. Professor Lussier is currently a regular researcher at the International Center for Comparative Criminology (CICC). His field of expertise is at the intersection of criminology and criminal justice and includes, among other things, the etiology of antisocial and criminal behavior, sexual offending, risk assessment and management as well as quantitative research methods. He has published five books and about 150 publications, including several scientific articles in leading criminology/criminal justice scientific journals, including Criminology, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Psychology, Public Policy & Law, Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment. Professor Lussier is the Editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Criminal Justice. He has also been a member of the American Society of Criminology for more than fifteen years. In 2005, Professor Lussier received the Academic Gold Medal from the Governor General of Canada for the excellence of his doctoral dissertation on the origins and the development of sexual aggression.

Evan McCuish received his PhD in Criminology in 2016. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, Canada. He is the Principal Investigator of the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study, which is a longitudinal study on young offenders in Canada followed through adulthood. His research