Education/Experience

Dr. Jeffrey Abracen graduated from McGill University with his Ph.D. in Counselling Psychology in 1995. Dr. Abracen was employed on a full-time basis by Correctional Services of Canada (CSC) from 1995 until his recent retirement in 2021. Dr. Abracen has held a number of roles within the organization over his 26-year career with CSC. Dr. Abracen worked at the Regional Treatment Centre Sex Offender Treatment Program (RTCSOTP) from 1995 to 2002. The RTCSOTP was a high intensity, institutionally based, sex offender treatment program operated on the grounds of maximum-security institution location in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. From 2002 until his retirement in 2021, Dr. Abracen had been working at the Central District (Ontario) Parole Office where he occupied a number of positions including Director, Community Based Sex Offender Treatment Programs, and as the Chief Psychologist for Central District (Ontario) Parole. Dr. Abracen had been employed as the Chief Psychologist in Central District (Ontario) Parole for over 15 years when he retired from CSC in 2021. 

At present, Dr. Abracen holds an Adjunct Professor position at Ontario Tech. University located in Oshawa, Ontario in the Department of Forensic Psychology. Dr. Abracen has previously held an Adjunct Professor position at Ryerson University in the Department of Psychology. 

Research

Dr. Abracen has published over 60 articles related to the assessment and treatment of moderate and high-risk offender populations. A summary of this research can be found in the text that Dr. Abracen published with Dr. Jan Looman in 2016 titled Treatment of High-Risk Sexual Offenders: An Integrated Approach (Wiley-Blackwell). Most recently, Dr. Abracen and his colleagues have produced a long-term outcome study of the sexual offenders treated by psychology staff in the Central District (Ontario) Sex Offender Treatment Program between the years 2005 and 2009. Treated subjects were compared to a group of sexual offenders who received standard correctional treatment. Over an extended follow-up period (8.17 years for the treated group and 6.9 years for the comparison sample) results indicated that only one of the 89 treated sexual offenders recidivated sexually versus a significantly higher rate for comparison subjects. No differences were observed between groups on an actuarial instrument designed to assess risk for sexual offence recidivism.  

Trainings

Dr. Abracen presents training related to the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders. In specific, Dr. Abracen presents workshops related to the treatment of substance abuse issues in sexual offenders as well as the Integrated Risk Assessment and Treatment System (IRATS) Model developed by Dr. Looman and Dr. Abracen. Dr. Abracen also presents on issues associated with community management of sexual offenders.