Assessing Risk for Violence in Adolescents Who Have Sexually Offended

Abstract

As the youth justice system has evolved, clinicians have been increasingly asked to make judgments about the likelihood that a youth who has committed a sexual offense will reoffend. However, there is an absence of well-validated tools to assist with these judgments. This study examined the ability of the Juvenile Sexual Offense Recidivism Risk Assessment Tool—II (J-SORRAT-II), Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY), and Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol—II (J-SOAP-II) to predict violent behavior in 169 male youth who were admitted to a residential adolescent sex offender program. Total scores on the SAVRY and J-SOAP-II significantly predicted nonsexual violence but none of the instruments predicted sexual violence. The J-SOAP-II and SAVRY were less effective in predicting violent reoffending in youth aged 15 and younger than in older youth. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Assessing risk of reoffending in adolescents who have committed a sexual offense: the accuracy of clinical judgments after completion of risk assessment instruments

“…Further, a modified scale consisting of eight of the nine J-SOAP-II Impulsive/Antisocial Behavior items has been shown to significantly predict general rearrest (Waite et al, 2005), and a total score consisting of 26 of the 28 J-SOAP-II items has been able to predict sexual reoffense in both preadolescents and adolescents (Prentky, 2006). Other studies, however, have reported difficulties in predicting sexual reoffending with this instrument (Caldwell, Vitacco, & Ziemke, 2008;Viljoen et al, 2008).…”

“…First, how accurate are clinical judgments of risk made after completing two risk assessment instruments, the JSOAP-II and the SAVRY? Based on the findings of previous work (Viljoen et al, 2008), we hypothesize that clinical judgments of nonsexual violence made after completing the instruments would be accurate, as these instruments predicted serious nonsexual violence. However, as the instruments did not significantly predict sexual violence (Viljoen et al, 2008), it is uncertain whether clinical judgments of sexual violence made after using these instruments would be accurate.…”

“…Data for the current study are part of a larger study on the predictive validity of the JSOAP-II, an instrument designed to assess risk of sexual and nonsexual violence in adolescents who have sexually offended, and the SAVRY, an instrument designed to assess risk of violence more broadly (Viljoen et al, 2008). The current study builds on existing research by examining three questions.…”

“…A large literature has focused on how clinicians should use risk assessment instruments (e.g. Borum, 1996;Viljoen, Elkovitch, & Ullman, 2007); however, little research has examined how clinicians actually utilize instruments when formulating risk judgments. Elbogen, Huss, Tompkins, and Scalora (2005) emphasize that it ''will not matter whether a particular risk factor predicts violence if no effort is made to determine whether or how those risk factors actually are used in practice'' (p. 134).…”

The Adolescence–Adulthood Transition and Desistance from Crime: Examining the Underlying Structure of Desistance

“…Policy recommendations are also significantly limited by the multiple definitions and operationalizations of desistance used in the scientific literature. In fact, several scholars have stressed the fact that there is limited consensus over the operational definition of desistance (e.g., [42,57,83]), with definitions including, among others, the absence of a new arrest in adulthood, the absence of a new arrest in the past 2 years, no (selfreported) offending in the past year, the absence of a new conviction in the past 10 years, and so on (for a review, [39]). The limited consensus over the operational definition of desistance remains a critical issue that will be addressed in the current study.…”