The Creation of the Center for Sex Offender Management
In November 1996, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), U.S. Department
of Justice, convened the National Summit: Promoting Public Safety through
the Effective Management of Sex Offenders in the Community. The summit
sought input from over 180 practitioners, academic researchers, and
other experts regarding the most effective management strategies for
this challenging offender population. Participants were also asked
about the information, training, and other needs of their colleagues
working in this field. In response to their recommendations, OJP, the
National Institute of Corrections (NIC), and the State Justice Institute
(SJI) created the Center for Sex Offender Management.
The National Summit:
Promoting Public Safety Through the Effective Management of Sex
Offenders
CSOM is a national project that supports state and local jurisdictions
in the effective management of sex offenders under community
supervision. NIC and SJI, in collaboration with the American Probation
and Parole Association, joined OJP in managing the project, and are
devoting additional resources to support corrections professionals and
the judiciary as they address this critical issue within their specific
disciplines. The project is administered through a cooperative
agreement between OJP and the Center for Effective Public Policy. A
National Resource Group has been
established to guide the activities of the project. The members of the
National Resource Group include some of the country's leading experts
and practitioners in the fields of sex offender management, treatment,
and supervision.
CSOM's primary goal is to enhance public safety by preventing further
victimization through improving the management of sex offenders in the
community. CSOM's goals are carried out through three primary activity areas: an information exchange, training and technical assistance, and support to
select Resources Sites and OJP grantees. Through these activity areas,
CSOM:
- Provides those responsible for managing sex offenders ready
access to the most current knowledge and effective practices by
synthesizing and disseminating knowledge and practices to the field.
- Captures the lessons learned from communities around the
country who have demonstrated-through collaboration between criminal
justice agencies and other stakeholders-that they can manage known sex
offenders and increase public safety, and to disseminate those lessons
so that others might benefit from them.
- Provides the opportunity for other jurisdictions to draw upon
these experiences, enhance their own practices, and create similar
results in their communities, by offering a variety of training and
technical assistance opportunities to agencies and jurisdictions.
These goals are carried out through the following activity areas:
Information Exchange
CSOM's Information Exchange Component represents CSOM's effort to
provide useful, current, and accessible information widely to the field.
The Information Exchange develops and distributes policy and practice
briefs on pressing issues; operates this web site; responds to
information inquiries from the field, provides quarterly updates to
members of the CSOM mailing list, and compiles and makes available
information collected from local and state agencies around the country.
Training and
Technical and Assistance
CSOM designs and delivers training programs across the country for
probation and parole agencies and officers, representatives from other
disciplines that share responsibility for sex offender management, and
cross-system teams. The project also provides intensive training
workshops and tailored seminars at national, regional, and statewide
professional conferences. CSOM is developing training curricula on a
range of topics that are related to sex offender management. Please
refer to the CSOM Training Curricula Home Page for a list of the curricula that
are currently available and under development.
CSOM is also providing technical assistance in a variety of forms to
support jurisdictions who have demonstrated their commitment to
establishing effective supervision strategies and who now want to
explore innovations in the delivery of those strategies. Agencies
requesting technical assistance must complete a brief application form.
Applications are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and responded to
within sixty days.
Resource Sites
CSOM has identified 19 jurisdictional, multidisciplinary teams from
around the country that have displayed promising practices and
innovative sex offender management and supervision techniques. CSOM has
inventoried, documented, and analyzed the accomplishments of the
Resource Sites and has made this information available to others through
a set of case studies. Through the documentation of each site's
experiences and peer-to-peer exchange opportunities, CSOM has enabled
these sites to share their experiences with their colleagues across the
country. CSOM has also assisted these sites in advancing their own
practices, through the exploration of new initiatives, information
sharing, training, and technical assistance.
Training and Technical Assistance to Sites Participating in the Office of Justice Programs' Sex Offender Management Grant Program
The Office of Justice Programs' Sex Offender Management Grant Program
addresses the critical needs of jurisdictions across the country as they
strategically plan and implement comprehensive, collaborative, and
effective approaches to managing sex offenders under community
supervision. In addition to encouraging jurisdictions to advance their policies and practices related to the management of adult and juvenile sex offenders under community supervision and the re-entry of offenders from institutions to the community, the grant program seeks to document and disseminate the lessons emerging from their experiences.
CSOM works in close collaboration with OJP to design and deliver
technical assistance to the grantee sites.
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