Can treatment be effective with sexual offenders or does it do harm? A response to Hanson (2010) and Rice (2010)

In this paper we address issues raised by the talks Hanson and Rice gave at IATSO's 2010 conference in Oslo. Specifically they both indicated that in their views treatment for sexual offenders had not been satisfactorily demonstrated to be effective. Their basis for this claim was that treatment benefits can only be confidently inferred from Random Control Trials (RCT). Rice further suggested that until RCTs are conducted with sexual offender treatment, it may be that such treatment has negative effects (i.e., increases recidivism). We disagree with these suggestions and in this paper we outline the bases for our disagreement.