ISSUES IN FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
Sex Offender Assessments

1. Twenty states, and the federal govenment, provide for the civil commitment of previously convicted sex offenders. The offender subject to commitment must exhibit a personality or mental disorder, interfering with his behavior control, making it likely that he will sexually reoffend.
   
   
2. Committed offenders are termed "sexually violent predators," or "sexually violent persons" (SVPs). The relevant statutes necessitate addressing an offender's current diagnostic status. Too often, SVP evaluators assume that diagnostic history amounts to diagnostic destiny.
   
   
3. Hanson and Thornton (two generally recognized and accepted figures in the sex offender field) have emphasized: "Events that happened twenty years ago cannot compel future crimes." Indeed, diagnoses or mental or personality disorder regularly shift, change, and resolve themselves over time.
   
   
4. Offender age is an exceedingly important factor when assessing the risk of sexual reoffending. As offenders age, their recidivism risk progressively declines.
   
   
5. The Static-99 has been the most frequently used instrument for assessing the recidivism risk of previously convicted sex offenders. The original Static-99 (peer-reviewed in 2000) is now obsolete. The Static-99 Advisory Group (www.static99.org) has acknowledged that the original Static-99 overpredicted sex offense recidivism.
   
   
6. In October 2008, the Static-99 Advisory Group recommended using new norms, selecting one of two norm groups. By October 2009, however, the Advisory Group indicated that the October 2008 norms were also overpredicting recidivism risk.
   
   
7. As of October 2009, the Advisory Group recommends relying on norms from any one (or more) of four different norms groups. Nonetheless, there is no well-defined decision-making guidance for selecting which of the four groups to rely on. This procedure is termed the Static-99R.
   
   
8. For offenders characterized as "high risk" by virtue of their Static-99R score, classifying them as recidivists is mistaken in 58% to 82% of cases.
   
   
9. Classifying these same offenders as non-recidvists is accurate in 74% to 95% of cases. If you are interested in learning more about assessing sex offenders, you may want to read any of the following e-journal articles, or order Dr. Campbell's 2007 book.

Campbell, T. (2007). Assessing sex offenders: Problems and pitfalls-2nd Ed. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas

Campbell, T. & DeClue, G. (2010) Flying blind with naked factors: Problems and pitfalls in adjusted-actuarial sex offender risk assessment. Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology, 2, 75-101

Campbell, T. & DeClue, G. (2010). Maximizing predictive accuracy in sexually violent predator evaluations. Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology, 2, 148-232.

DeClue, G. & Campbell, G. (2010). Still maximizing accuracy in sexually violent predator evaluations. Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology, 2, 322-336.

Campbell, T. (2010). Maximizing accuracy and welcoming scrutiny: An additional response to Wilson and Looman. Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology, 2, 337-346.

© 2011 Dr. Terence W. Campbell, Ph.D., ABPP