15 and 16 December 2016 | Symposium Sex Offenders: A Criminal Career Approach

Organizer: NSCR | Date: 15 and 16 December 2016 | Location: VU Amsterdam
On the occasion of publishing the volume , edited by Arjan Blokland and Patrick Lussier, the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Science (KNAW), is hosting a one-and-a-half day symposium: Sex Offenders: A Criminal Career Approach
Criminologists have been conspicuously absent in public and scientific debates concerning sex offenders and sex offender policies. Yet, many of these policies rest on assumptions about sex offenders’ criminal development that are in sharp contrast to insights from criminal career and life-course research on general offenders. The extent to which these insights also apply to sex offenders however is still unclear. Consequently, the empirical and theoretical basis for extant sex offender policies is alarmingly narrow. To fill this gap Arjan Blokland and Patrick Lussier edited an authoritative book, , of the latest research into criminal careers of sex offenders. This book demonstrates the merits of the criminal career approach to studying sexual offending in terms of describing and explaining sex offender criminal development, and illustrates the ramifications of taking a criminal career perspective for designing interventions and sex offender policies.
The first day of the symposium, December 15th, is aimed at introducing the criminal career and life-course approach to a broad audience of academicians, professionals, policy makers, students and others professionally interested in sex offenders, and will address the merits (and caveats) of the criminal career approach for studying sex offending in terms of describing and explaining sex offenders’ criminal behaviour, the effects of interventions on sex offender criminal career development, and the ramifications of taking a criminal career perspective for public policy on sex offenders.
The symposium will be followed the next day, on December 16th, by a workshop open for academic researchers involved in empirical research on sex offending only, and aimed at mapping out the available empirical criminal career and life-course data on sex offenders, charting the most important gaps in our present knowledge on sex offenders’ criminal careers, exploring the possibilities available data offer to bridge these gaps, and initiating collaborative research efforts to expand our knowledge of sex offenders’ criminal careers. The number of participants for this second day is limited and only open for those currently involved in longitudinal, empirical research on sex offending.
If you are interested in attending one or both days of the symposium you can register by sending an e-mail to dr. Chantal van den Berg. Please indicate whether you are interested in attending only the first day or also the second day of the symposium.
Date: Thursday December 15th 2016 | 09.00 to 18.30 hours and Friday December 16th | 09.00 to 13.00 hours
Place: VU University Amsterdam
Costs: there are no costs for attendance
Registration: dr. Chantal van den Berg, cvandenberg@nscr.nl, + 31 (0)20 59 85239