The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is charged with improving the quality and availability of treatment and rehabilitative services in order to reduce illness, death, disability, and the cost to society resulting from substance abuse and mental illnesses. The Administrator of SAMHSA reports directly to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. SAMHSA's headquarters building is located outside of Rockville, Maryland.
Megan's Law is the name for a federal law in the United States requiring law enforcement authorities to make information available to the public regarding registered sex offenders. Laws were created in response to the murder of Megan Kanka. Federal Megan's Law was enacted as a subsection of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act of 1994, which merely required sex offenders to register with local law enforcement. Since only a few states required registration prior to Megan's death, the state level legislation to bring states in compliance—with both the registration requirement of Jacob Wetterling Act and community notification required by federal Megan's Law—were crafted simultaneously and are often referred to as "Megan's Laws" of individual states. Thus, federal Megan's Law refers to community notification, whereas state level "Megan's Law" may refer to both sex offender registration and community notification.
A behavior modification facility is a residential educational and treatment institution enrolling adolescents who are perceived as displaying antisocial behavior, in an attempt to alter their conduct.
Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13. A person must be at least 16 years old, and at least five years older than the prepubescent child, for the attraction to be diagnosed as pedophilia.
Martin Paul Kafka is an American psychiatrist best known for his work on sex offenders, paraphilias and what he calls "paraphilia-related disorders" such as sex addiction and hypersexuality.
Child sexual abuse, also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child, indecent exposure, child grooming, and child sexual exploitation, including using a child to produce child pornography.
A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. In some jurisdictions, registration is accompanied by residential address notification requirements. In many jurisdictions, registered sex offenders are subject to additional restrictions, including on housing. Those on parole or probation may be subject to restrictions that do not apply to other parolees or probationers. Sometimes, these include restrictions on being in the presence of underage persons, living in proximity to a school or day care center, owning toys or items targeted towards children, or using the Internet. Sex offender registries exist in many English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Israel, and the Republic of Ireland. The United States is the only country with a registry that is publicly accessible; all other countries in the English-speaking world have sex offender registries only accessible by law enforcement.
The California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP) was a California state agency concerned with substance abuse prevention and treatment. Created by the California Legislature in 1978, ADP brought together the Governor's Office of Alcoholism and the California Department of Health's Division of Substance Abuse to form the single state authority for substance abuse prevention and treatment, and is currently within the auspices of the California Health and Human Services Agency. In this capacity, ADP provided leadership and policy coordination for the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of a comprehensive statewide system of alcohol and other drug (AOD) prevention, treatment and recovery services. As of July 1, 2013, functions of ADP were transferred to the Department of Health Care Services.
Sexual Abuse is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles about the clinical and theoretical aspects of sexual abuse, including its etiology, consequences, prevention, treatment, and management strategies. It is the official journal of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. The editor-in-chief is Michael Seto. Ronald Langevin established the journal under the title Annals of Sex Research in 1988. It adopted the name Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment in 1995 and then its current name in 2015.
Research published from 2000 to 2020 illustrates increased prevalence rates of sexual violence against people with intellectual disabilities, compared to the general population.:61 The World Health Organization (WHO) funded a study which concluded that 15% of the adult population worldwide in 2012 had a disability, putting them at increased risk of physical, sexual, and intimate partner violence. Of that 15%, 6.1% or an estimated 7,008,716,704 adults worldwide had intellectual disability with 5.5% experiencing sexual violence. In another 2012 report, the WHO found that worldwide, children with intellectual disabilities experienced a 4.6 times greater risk of sexual violence than those without disability. In the United States, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in the National Crime Victimization Survey the rate of sexual violence for those with an intellectual disability is five times higher than for those without any disability. Both men and women with intellectual disabilities experience sexual violence that includes rape, sexual coercion without physical force, and sexual experiences without physical contact. Perpetrators of sexual violence are not only strangers but can be caregivers, acquaintances, and intimate partners. The perpetrator of the assault often determines if the crime will be reported.
Frederick "Fred" Saul Berlin is an American psychiatrist and sexologist specializing in sex offenses.
The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) is an American nonprofit organization that addresses the causes and impact of sexual violence through collaboration, prevention, and resources. Working in collaboration with state and territory sexual assault coalitions, representatives from underserved populations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women, and a host of community-based and national allied projects, NSVRC provides national leadership to address and prevent sexual violence.
The Prevention Project Dunkelfeld (PPD) is an effort founded in Germany to provide clinical and support services to individuals who are sexually attracted to children and want help controlling their sexual urges, but are otherwise unknown to the legal authorities. The term "Dunkelfeld" is German for "dark field". The project began in Berlin in June 2005 with a large media campaign to contact pedophiles and hebephiles who wanted help from clinicians to manage their paraphilia. The campaign pledged medically confidential treatment free-of-charge. It was initially funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, and has been financially supported by the German government since 2008. The project's slogan is "You are not guilty because of your sexual desire, but you are responsible for your sexual behavior. There is help! Don't become an offender!"
Robin J. Wilson is a Canadian psychologist, specializing in work on sex offenders.
The management of domestic violence deals with the treatment of victims of domestic violence and preventing repetitions of such violence. The response to domestic violence in Western countries is typically a combined effort between law enforcement, social services, and health care. The role of each has evolved as domestic violence has been brought more into public view.
The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) is a national civil rights and justice reform organization headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina with operations based in Albuquerque, New Mexico and with affiliated organizations, advocates, and contacts in the vast majority of states. NARSOL and its affiliates are part of the growing movement to reform sexual offense laws in the United States. NARSOL asserts that while sex offender registries in the United States were originally well-intentioned and for the most heinous and dangerous sex offenders only, their reach has exponentially widened to include petty offenses such as teen sexting and consensual relations between young people. NARSOL has generated media attention by arranging national conferences in multiple cities including Boston, Albuquerque, Los Angeles Dallas, Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, and Raleigh, and by being involved in numerous lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of sex offender registration and notification laws.
The American Academy for Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP) is a professional organization and an accredited Continuing Medical Education (CME) provider, based in East Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Its members are specialists in addiction psychiatry and other health care professionals who treat patients with addictions. AAAP provides medical education programs in the field of addiction psychiatry.
J. Paul Fedoroff is a Canadian forensic psychiatrist, sexologist, and researcher who specializes in treating individuals with paraphilic disorders and/or individuals with developmental delay. He is now the first director of the Sexual Behaviours Clinic (SBC) at the Institute of Mental Health Research at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre located in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a full professor of forensic psychiatry, criminology, and law at the University of Ottawa.
The Safer Living Foundation (SLF) is a British charity focused on reducing sexual offending and reoffending through rehabilitative and preventative initiatives. It operates in Derby, Derbyshire, Leicester, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.
