Protective factors and mental illness in men with a history of sexual offending

- Protective Factors have the potential to usefully complement dynamic risk factors in the development of effective clinical services for sexual offenders
- The theoretical and clinical value of this construct is presently handicapped by insufficient analysis of how a protective effect is achieved and by an implicit assumption that protective operate in the same way for all clients
- The first issue is examined by analyzing protective factors using Thornton (2016)'s expansion of the propensities model of risk.
- The second issue is addressed by contrasting the operation of protective factors for mainstream sexual offenders vs. individual for whom problematic sexual behavior and major mental illness co-occur
- This allows a range of protective processes to be enumerated and “protective factors” emerge as arena within which these processes can operate
- To effectively analyze protective factors this two-tier analysis has to be supplemented by a third tier which specifies the need and responsivity profile of the individual

According to the Risk-Need-Responsivity framework dynamic risk factors play a central role in effective correctional services. Recently this risk-focused clinical response has been supplemented by attention to the development of protective factors. The theoretical and clinical use of these constructs has been handicapped by a failure to analyze how they work and implicit assumption that they work in the same way for all clients. This paper seeks to remedy the first difficulty by applying to protective factors a theoretical model originally developed to understand the processes underlying dynamic risk factors. It seeks to address the second difficulty by examining how the protective factors developed for mainstream sexual offenders differ from those developed when problematic sexual behavior co-occurs with major mental illness.What emerges is a need for a three-level analysis to understand protective factors. At the most abstract level, protective processes can be understood within the same theoretical model used to explicate the operation of risk factors. At an intermediate level, much of what are called “protective factors” can be better understood as arenas within which protective processes can operate. To this must be added, however, a third tier defined by the needs and responsivity of the individual. This tier determines the particular form that protective factors will need to take for them to constitute arenas in which relevant protective processes can operate.