ABSTRACT
The Relapse Prevention Model was designed not only to assist treatment providers, clinicians, and criminal justice practitioners in helping offenders to become more aware of early signs that could lead them to a reoffense, but also to help those supervising these offenders in the community. By detecting warning signs that an offender is at risk of reoffending, the Relapse Prevention Model is intended to prevent escalation and a subsequent reoffense (e.g., Laws, 1989; Laws, Hudson, & Ward, 2000). The current book supports this goal by further examining the offense chain leading to a reoffense and by describing offenders’ modus operandi and the offending processes of different types of adult male sexual aggressors. More specifically, throughout this book, within specific subgroups of sexual aggressors, distinct profiles of offending processes have been described. The multiple routes taken by sex offenders to initiate and conduct their crimes are reflective of the heterogeneity characterizing sex offenders. The current chapter examines whether, as suggested by the Relapse Prevention Model, the offending pathways of extrafamilial sexual aggressors are associated with differential recidivism rates. The goal here is not to determine whether offending pathways are stable across time, but whether they carry information about the risk of violent and sexual recidivism.
