Implementation of a Treatment Program for Individuals Imprisoned for Sex Offenses in Uruguay: Achievements, Problems and Challenges.

Treatment for individuals convicted of sex offenses has substantially improved in developed countries in recent decades, providing practitioners with an extensive literature to guide the implementation of effective programs to reduce sexual reoffending. Nevertheless, sexual offending rehabilitation is still in its infancy in Latin American countries such as Uruguay, so little is known about the transference and implementation of evidence-based programs. The current study examines the strengths, barriers, and challenges of implementing a sex offenses treatment program in Uruguay.

[Recidivism risk assessment in sex offenders].

Violent behaviour risk assessment is one of the most relevant research areas in current Psychology of Crime. Various scales for violence risk assessment have recently been developed from research about crime careers and risk factors. One of these instruments is the Sexual Violence Risk Assessment-20 (SVR-20), translated and adapted to Spanish by the Group of Advanced Studies in Violence of the University of Barcelona.

[Study of empathy in a Spanish sex offender sample].

International research has emphasised that empathy is a relevant factor of sex offending. The main goal of this study is to explore, in a Spanish sex offender sample, the relationship between empathy deficits and sex crime for various types of victims. This study also analyses the positive effect that psychological treatment could have on empathy.

Efficacy of a psychological treatment for sex offenders.

The aims of the present paper are the following: firstly, to describe the psychological treatment administered to sexual offenders in Spain; secondly, to assess the effectiveness of the application of this psychological treatment in the prison of Brians (Barcelona). For this purpose, two equivalent groups were selected: a treatment group of 49 subjects who received the whole treatment program, and an untreated control group of 74 subjects. These groups were selected taking into account various risk factors in order to guarantee group comparability.