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Sexual Abuse and the Sexual Offender: Common Man or Monster? by Barry Maletzky (2016). London, UK: Karnac, 231 pages, $42.95

Sexual Abuse and the Sexual Offender by Barry Maletzky, MD, is presented as an overview of the current research, evaluation, and treatment of sex offenders who perpetrate against both children and adults. Maletzky founded the Sexual Abuse Clinic to treat both offenders and their victims in 1978 in Portland, Oregon. Since that time, the clinic has come to be one of the largest and most established of such centers in the world. Maletzky’s book aims to serve as an educational tool to the layperson, as well as practitioners who may not be as familiar with how experts who work with sex offenders’ diagnose, analyze, assess, and treat such a population. Through use of actual case examples, Maletzky describes how one might recognize a sexual offender, how a professional might assess the risk posed by an offender, and how one might avoid becoming a victim. Maletzky concludes by suggesting what steps one might take to prevent sexual abuse in the future. Maletzky is clear and concise in his professional summary and evaluation of the field of identifying, assessing, and treating sex offenders. In a field as taboo as sex offending, there are some commonly held inaccurate beliefs about these crimes and their offenders. Maletsky introduces the book by dispelling these myths. In Chapters 1 through 3, he defines and differentiates types of sex offenses and offenders, and offers a straight-to-thepoint evaluation of offense statistics, as well as the characteristics of those who commit them. In Chapter 6, he also goes in-depth with case examples of how different types of sex offenders are assessed and evaluated by professionals. Chapters 7 through 9 explain cognitive, experiential, and ancillary treatment procedures. Although presented with field-relevant terminology, these terms are subsequently defined to cater to the lay reader. While acknowledging the lack of research on certain unusual offender subtypes, such as female and juvenile sex offenders, Maletzky does dedicate some of his book to the conceptualization of these types of cases. Sexual Abuse and the Sexual Offender is not intended to serve as a political forum and does not address sentencing procedures. It does, however, discuss the common outcomes of being convicted of a sex offense and how these punishments may not always fit the offender’s crime. While the book does not minimize the role of the offender, nor the experience of the victim, it pursues a research-driven attempt at changing the common misconceptions surrounding sexual offenses and their perpetrators. As a treatment provider to hundreds of sex offenders, Maletsky’s experience comes through powerfully in his writing and the readers are left with a sense that they have obtained information that is professional and unbiased. As part of the Forensic Psychotherapy Monograph Series, published by Karnac, USA, this is a beneficial resource for an informative examination of the field of sexual offenses and sex offenders.