Improving the quality of sexual history disclosure on sex offenders: Emphasis on a polygraph examination

Abstract

The increasing recidivism rate of sex offenders indicates potential problems in existing recidivism programs. The present study was conducted to determine whether the polygraph examination is a useful technique to obtain a sex offender's concealed past sexual history. We collected fifty-two sex offenders' data and analyzed it. Among the 52 participants, the court ordered 26 sex offenders to take the psychiatric evaluation and the polygraph test. The other half were prisoners at the hospital who were currently undergoing treatment. The participants in the polygraph group disclosed more deviant sexual behaviors and paraphilia interests/behaviors than the comparison group. Thus, the polygraph examination is a powerful tool that can encourage sex offenders to disclose hidden information to help create suitable psychological therapy programs for preventing recidivism in the future.