What is it about?
Sexual offending is a critical issue in society. We develop a revised reliable 21 item scale to measure attitudes towards sexual offending. There were three aspects of attitudes to sexual offenders that are likely to impact on how sexual offenders are viewed in society and the judgements made about them.
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Why is it important?
We identify three areas (trust, intent & social distance) which reflect differing attitudes to sexual offenders. It is important to understand the impact such attitudes have on developing government policy, criminal justice decision making and the public acceptability of rehabilitation and social reintegration initiatives.
Perspectives
The ATS-21 provides a reliable and easy to use short measure of attitudes towards sexual offenders which makes is easier to undertake quality research in the area. Insufficient weight is given to the effect that individual attitudes to sexual offenders have in impacting on how sexual offenders are managed in society; ranging from the development of social policy and the law through to making forensic risk decisions. I hope this article facilitates better future research in the area.
Professor Todd Hogue
University of Lincoln
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Development of a 21-item short form of the Attitudes to Sexual Offenders (ATS) Scale., Law and Human Behavior, December 2018, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/lhb0000308.
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