Public demands that sex offenders should be imprisoned as punishment for behaviour were not always appropriate, delegates at the Psychological Society of Ireland's annual conference heard.
If society was serious about protecting children, it had to deal more effectively with sex offenders, said Ms Olive Travers, senior clinical psychologist with the North-Western Health Board.
Child victims and sex offenders were two sides of the abuse coin. The desire to "lock them up and throw away the key" did not make them go away, she added.
Ms Travers and Dr Ann Moriarty, of Queen's University Belfast, presented the results of a 10-year community-based treatment programme for sex offenders in Co Donegal. They reported that only one of the 16 men who had completed the programme between 1987 and 1997 had since re-offended.