Background: There is an ongoing debate on whether consumers of child pornography pose a risk for hands-on sex offenses. Up until now, there have been very few studies which have analyzed the association between the consumption of child pornography and the subsequent perpetration of hands-on sex offenses. The aim of this study was to examine the recidivism rates for hands-on and hands-off sex offenses in a sample of child pornography users using a 6 year follow-up design.
Research in the area of predicting recidivism has produced several well-validated standardized risk assessment instruments. The question arises, which instruments best serve which purposes? The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare several actuarial and dynamic risk assessment instruments as to their predictive accuracy and their usefulness in forensic practice. The sample consisted of 109 violent and sex offenders who had been released from prison in Switzerland between 1994 and 1999, and for whom the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R); Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20; Level of Service Inventory-Revised; Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG); and the Swiss assessment instrument FOTRES were scored. Using bivariate logistic regression analyses, all instruments were able to discriminate between recidivists and nonrecidivists. The receiver operating characteristic analyses yielded area under the curve values between 0.70 (VRAG) and 0.84 (PCL-R). Furthermore, it was shown that solely examining AUC values does not suffice to determine usefulness. A comprehensive evaluation of an instrument's usefulness for forensic practice should also look at qualitative criteria such as area of application, specificity of risk assessed, and inclusion of dynamic items among others.Keywords risk assessment instrument, predictive validity, risk of recidivism, violent and sex offenders
Background: Research conducted with forensic psychiatric patients found moderate correlations between violence in institutions and psychopathy. It is unclear though, whether the PCL-R is an accurate instrument for predicting aggressive behavior in prisons. Results seem to indicate that the instrument is better suited for predicting verbal rather than physical aggression of prison inmates.
Studies on adult sex and violent offenders have found high rates of adolescent delinquency, while early delinquency has been shown to be significantly associated with adult offending. The examined subsample (n = 123) of a longitudinal prospective study (n = 6,315) includes all men who at the age of 19 had an entry in the criminal records. During the observation period of 34 years, 68.3% of the sample had been reconvicted as adults, 23.6% for violent or sex offenses. The odds of adult sex or violent offending were 2.8 times higher for those who had committed a violent offense in adolescence and 1.05 times higher for any offense committed before the age of 19. The characteristics of criminal history showed the highest discriminative values (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.61-0.65). The most important finding of this study was that characteristics of adolescent delinquency predicted adult violent or sex offending, whereas socioeconomic and psychiatric characteristics did not.
Studies on adult sex and violent offenders have found high rates of adolescent delinquency, while early delinquency has been shown to be significantly associated with adult offending. The examined sample represents a sub-sample of an age cohort of a longitudinal prospective study (N=6315) including all men who at the age of 19 had an entry in the criminal records (N=123). During the observation period of 34 years, 68.3% of the sample had been reconvicted as adults, 23.6% for violent or sex offenses. Of the adolescent delinquents who went on to adult violent offending the odds for adult sex or violent offending were 2.8 times elevated for those who had committed a violent offense in adolescence and 2.5 times elevated per type of offense committed in adolescence. Additionally, each offense committed before the age of 19 lead to a 5% increase in risk for violent or sex offending as an adult. The characteristics of criminal history showed the highest discriminative values (AUC: 0.61-0.65). The most important finding of this study was that characteristics of adolescent delinquency such as versatility, violence and frequency are better predictors of adult violent offending than socioeconomic or psychiatric ones.
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