The purpose of the study A Survey of Counselor Attitudes toward Sex Offenders was to question counselors attitudes toward sex offenders and the relationship of these attitudes and their experience, training, and personal characteristics. This study was written by Nelson Meredith, Barbara Herlihy, and Jeffery Oescher and published in January 2002, in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling. The study was conducted on 437 counselors who supplied personal information and were either mental health counselors or addiction and offenders counselors. The method used to find information was packet containing one standardized scale and a questionnaire. The scale was taken from the ATP Scale (Attitude Toward Prisoners) and the word prisoner was replaced with "sex offender." This test is considered reliable and consistent. The results were broken down into personal and professional characteristics. Personal characteristics included sex, ethnicity, marital status, children, and sexual victim status. Professional characteristics included education, degree, and employment setting. In past researches, it had shown that the general public had negative attitudes toward sex offenders and counselors to have a positive attitude. In this study, the same was proven, part of the reason being the screening tests given before given a position and the counselors belief in respecting, not judging, and believing in change that can occur in a client. .
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Implications.
I was curious to know the way that counselors deal with sex offenders because I feel most people have such negative feelings toward sex offenders, including even other type of offenders. This was an interesting study because it shows counselors as being nonjudgmental and respectful toward people that we might feel do not deserve a second chance at all. It was good that the study used a reliable scale, and that both personal and professional attitudes were taken into account.
