Risk Assessment and Culture

Abstract

Sexual offending against children is a global social problem. Prohibitions against specific sexual acts are commonplace, suggesting a universal understanding of the harms incurred by this behaviour. Although typically defined in legal terms, sexual offending behaviour occurs in a cultural context. Furthermore, despite great advances in risk assessment techniques, these activities are also culturally informed and shape consequent practice and research that reinforces power differentials between the offender and the assessor. It is argued that a culturally responsive understanding of sexual offending behaviour, especially committed by individuals from indigenous, non‐dominant, and/or marginalized communities, would add value to the comprehensiveness of assessments and the meaningfulness of findings, and contribute to broader discussions of community engagement and participation in offender management. This chapter provides an analysis of some of the diversity issues that are involved in the research and practice of assessing risk with sex offenders who are culturally different.