Risk Assessment, Prepared by R. Karl Hanson, Ph.D., January 2000 – ATSA (Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers)
Risk assessment is one of the most important and most frequent tasks required of those working with sexual offenders. Formal risk assessments are needed for many important decisions, including sentencing, family reunification, conditional release, and civil commitment. Risk assessment can also assist in the case management and treatment of sexual offenders. Community supervision officers routinely look for signs of imminent relapse. Treatment providers wonder whether their clients are getting better or worse. Different types of risk decisions require the consideration of different types of risk factors (see Table 1). Static or historical variables, such as criminal history, can be useful for the assessment of long-term recidivism potential, as in civil commitment hearings. Those interested in treating sexual offenders, however, need to consider dynamic (changeable) risk factors (e.g., sexual preoccupations). Dynamic factors can be divided into stable factors that endure for relatively long periods of time (months, years; e.g., alcoholism) and acute, rapidly changing factors that may be present for weeks, days, or even minutes (e.g., intoxication, victim access). Treatment providers are most interested in stable dynamic factors that, once changed, are associated with an enduring reduction in recidivism risk. Community supervision officers are particularly sensitive to acute dynamic factors that signal when offenders are most at risk.
Predicting whether sexual offenders are going to recidivate is difficult. There is no shortage of studies in which expert evaluators failed to distinguish between low risk and high risk offenders (e.g., Dix, 1976; Rice, Quinsey & Harris, 1989; Sturgeon & Taylor, 1980). The predictive accuracy of the typical clinical judgement is only slightly above chance levels (r = .10; Hanson & Bussière, 1998). Despite the dismal performance of many of risk assessments, evaluators knowledgeable about recent research have the potential of providing risk assessments that are worthy of consideration in many applied contexts.
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