Pharmacological Interventions

Introduction

The treatment of sexual offending behaviors is complex and involves multiple etiologies, individualized risk reduction and risk management needs, and heterogeneous biopsychosocial, interpersonal, and legal factors. Clinicians and researchers have attempted to identify approaches which promise the greatest success in addressing these behaviors. Findings from a meta-analysis examining the effectiveness of various treatment interventions for adult sex offenders indicated that, when used in combination with other treatment approaches, biological interventions like testosterone-lowering hormonal treatments may be linked to greater reductions in recidivism for some offenders than the use of psychosocial treatments alone (Losel and Schmucker, 2005). Other data, described below, suggest that non-hormonal psychotropic medications can also be effective supplements to standard therapeutic interventions for sex offenders as well.

This document is designed to provide an overview of key issues pertaining to the use of hormonal and non-hormonal agents to...