The Influence of Risk Assessment Instrument Scores on Evaluators’ Risk Opinions and Sexual Offender Containment Recommendations

Abstract

In Colorado, evaluators conducting sex offender risk assessments are required to assess 17 risk factors specified by the state’s Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB), in addition to scoring actuarial risk assessment instruments. This study examined the association between instrument scores, the 17 SOMB risk factors, and evaluator opinions concerning risk and need for containment in 302 Colorado cases. Evaluators’ ratings of risk indicated by noninstrument factors were often higher than their ratings of risk indicated by instrument results, but only their ratings of noninstrument factors were independently predictive of containment recommendations. Several of the most influential noninstrument factors (e.g., denial, treatment motivation) have been described by researchers as potentially misleading because they are not predictive of future offending. Findings highlight the need for more studies examining the validity of what risk assessment evaluators actually do, as opposed to what researchers think they should do.

Judicial gatekeeping on scientific validity with risk assessment tools

“…101 One reason may be evaluators' attempts to reduce their professional liability for potential false negatives. 102 The second type is a policy override. Here, a policy override exists if the agency recognizes that the risk tool's outcome should typically be overridden for a group of offenders.…”

Comment on “The Influence of Risk Assessment Instrument Scores on Evaluators’ Risk Opinions and Sexual Offender Containment Recommendations”

“…From the beginning, there is a significant error in the language McCallum et al (2017) use to describe the processes of the SOMB and the Adult Standards and Guidelines. The abstract purports that the 17 risk factors identified by the SOMB are required to be assessed by evaluators.…”

“…This is, in fact, not true. McCallum and colleagues (2017, p. 1216) also note, The SOMB standards state an evaluator “shall consider” a list of additional factors for estimating an offender’s level of risk. (see Table 1; Colorado SOMB, 2011, p. 25)…”

Exploring Heterogeneity Among Deniers: Does Denial Predict Sexual Offender Recidivism Among Distinct Groups of Deniers?

“…The data were analyzed utilizing SPSS v25 (IBM SPSS, 2017) for the initial stage of data analyses for descriptive and inferential statistics. Exploratory LCA models were estimated in Mplus, v8 (Muthen & Muthen, 1998-2017 statistical software. All models utilized the expectation-maximization algorithm of the robust maximum likelihood estimator (MLR) in order to estimate mixture model parameters (Muthen & Sheddon, 1999;Muthen & Muthen, 2008).…”

“…Research examining whether denial is a risk factor associated with sexual recidivism (Yates, 2009), and whether it poses a responsivity issue which impedes treatment efforts has produced mixed findings (Levenson & Macgowan, 2004;Schneider & Wright, 2001. Currently, risk evaluators assessing sexual offenders frequently include non-empirically validated risk variables, such as denial, in addition to standardized risk assessment instruments, overriding the risk instrument results (McCallum, Boccaccini, & Bryson, 2017;Miller & Maloney, 2013). In addition, 91% of treatment programmes in the United States have listed "offender responsibility" as a treatment target (Ware, Blagden, & Harper, 2018).…”