Victoria's Serious Sex Offenders Monitoring Act 2005: Implications for the Accuracy of Sex Offender Risk Assessment

Preventing Terrorism and Controlling Risk

“…A commonly cited example is the serious sex offender legislation enacted in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and most Australian states. 30 A variety of conditions tailored to the offender's circumstances may be imposed by the court, including treatment, limitations on employment, curfews or prohibiting contact with certain individuals (Wood and Ogloff 2006). Any breach constitutes an indictable offence.…”

“…Despite the imposition of such measures on a convicted offender, serious concerns with regard to human rights have been raised, not least since these intensive supervision orders may last for up to 15 years in some states. 31 Served in the community, these intensive supervision orders impose similar restrictions to control orders on the individuals, including curfews, restrictions on movement and employment and electronic tagging (Wood and Ogloff 2006). Opponents of such measures argue that the principles of due process are not observed, since the offender, having served his or her sentence, is subjected to further supervision or detention.…”

“…Even predictions based on extensive expert testimony have been found to be ''prone to very significant degrees of error when matched against actuality'' (Stephens J in Veen (No 1) at 464, quoted in McSherry 2002, p. 38). 32 Moreover, studies show that preventive laws have only a minor impact on the total number of sexual offences (McSherry and Keyzer 2009;Mercado and Ogloff 2007;Wood and Ogloff 2006). This may in part be due to the limited application of such laws, which were never intended to be applied broadly, but only in exceptional cases.…”

An Analysis of Dangerous Sexual Offender Assessment Reports: Recommendations for Best Practice

“…The number of publications concerned with the role of risk assessment under preventive detention legislation is considerable and continues to grow (i.e., Keyzer, Pereira, & Southwood, 2004;McSherry, 2005;McSherry et al, 2006;Mercado & Ogloff, 2007;Mullen & Ogloff, 2009;Scott, 2008;Sentencing Advisory Council, 2006;Smallbone & Ransley, 2005;Vess, 2009aVess, , 2009bWood & Ogloff, 2006). Despite this attention being paid to the issue, to date, there has been no empirical evaluation regarding how such assessments of risk are being conducted under these laws.…”

Justifications and Rationalizations for the Civil Commitment of Sex Offenders

“…In these cases the science of risk prediction could be of assistance in devising a plan to mitigate risk, despite the high error rate. 20 Scales for the prediction of further sexual offending are particularly hard to establish because of the low base rates of the outcome being measured and dependence on reconviction to measure outcome, which substantially underestimates offending behaviour. 21 A combination of detailed actuarial and clinical approaches may produce more accurate results, 22 but the fact remains that all current forms of assessment, whether based on actuarial or clinical findings, will have high rates of false positives and no assessment method can predict the offender's future circumstances in any detail.…”