The Hawaii Academy for Sex Offender Management

The Comprehensive Approaches to Sex Offender Management Training and Technical Assistance (CASOM) Grant Program, authorized by 42 U.S.C. 13941, supports training programs to assist probation officers, parole officers, and others who work with released sex offenders in the areas of case management, supervision and relapse prevention.

The State of Hawaii, Department of Public Safety will focus on incorporating the National Institute of Correction's model of eight principles for recidivism reduction, and specifically the implementation of actuarial risk assessment in guiding individual supervision case and treatment planning. For more than a decade, the Department of Public Safety has coordinated the Sex Offender Management Team (SOMT), a multidisciplinary committee whose mission is to 'develop and implement, through a collaborative effort and legislative support, best practice standards statewide for the evaluation, treatment, disposition, ongoing assessment and supervision of adult sex offenders and youth with sexualized misbehavior.' One strategy implemented to accomplish this mission is the establishment of the Hawaii Academy for Training on Sex Offender Management (HATSOM). The objectives of the training academy are to: identify the core professional development needs for respective agency personnel and contracted providers, establish discipline and agency specific professional development requirements, codify a series of contemporary curricula modules, create and maintain a pool of skilled trainers through a train the trainers approach; and design and implement quality assurance monitoring of both the curricula and the trainers to ensure that the mission of the academy is met on an ongoing basis.

ca/ncf