Policies that differentially apply to sexual offenders at different risk levels require defensible procedures for classifying offenders into risk categories. The current study examines the reliability and validity of Static-99 and Static-99R sexual offender risk assessment tools as implemented in the State of California. California is a valuable case study because it is a large jurisdiction that has devoted considerable resources to the implementation of risk tools. Download (pdf)
Related posts
-
Sheriff and Deputy Magazine: Big data software helps allocate resources to managing sex offender registry
Excerpt from the article: FOCUS uses complex predictive analytics to ana1yze more than 100 different... -
How ‘Pseudo-Science’ Turns Sex Offenders into Permanent Outlaws
A New York Appeals court has rejected the notion that risk prediction under the state’s Sex... -
California Re-Offense Rates Revealed
The overall re-offense rate for registrants in California is 4.8 percent, according to a recent report...
The validity should be questioned, especially since the state lists blatantly false information about the Static-99 on the Megan’s Law website. My wife checks it regularly. It has me as a Level 3 risk, stating this risk is a result of a Static-99 administered in 2010. However, not only was the Static-99 not administered in 2010, I have never taken this for the state in any year. The state is randomly putting this information on the website and assigning risk levels and blatantly lying to the public about risk of registrants.
Exactly…ttd777 if that’s the case of them listing level for registered then they are in the wrong …resentence…double jeopardy …due process violation ..lifetime parole is what they are doing…put that in the study and see how much static you get.
“Moderate success, may or may not work…right out of this paper! There’s no convincing me that a 10 question test is a valid predictor of anything. These people are messing with lives and applying pseudo-scientific methods that just aren’t valid (at least to me).
So what about the probation officer that scores it wrong, or decides your answer is not what he wanted to see? The chance of being in a lower tier, if it ever happens in California, is completely gone. More arbitrary decisions based on the mindset and emotions of the test administrator or test scorer. Total B.S.
Can someone convince me otherwise? The brain trusts that come up with this crap need to develop a test that is 100% accurate all of the time.
My CP felony conviction was in 2001. Sentence was 4 months at minimum security County time. Went to the court’s Dr. for an intensive evaluation that took over 2/3 hours of live tests and interview. I was deemed low risk. No STATIC-99 offered or taken. Is this a good thing or bad thing for me? Will I ever have to take the STATIC-99 test?
In the concluding pages the authors endorse a tiered system for registration, one in which low risk offenders would not register after ten years. That is one of the good results of this Static99 testing and I hope the state legislature is listening.
From my experience recently with the court and probation systems in CA, the Static-99 and Static-99R are not “taken”. Rather they are an assessment the courts and probation departments use internally in classifying offender risk. The assessment looks at a number of variables from offenders personal life (age, relationships, etc.) as well as circumstances of offense (age of victim, sex of victim, violent, etc.) and assigns 0 or 1 to each variable. The total “score” is then determined and risk level is assigned based on the range it falls in (i.e. 0-3 low, 4-6 mid, 7-10 high).
As time goes on and circumstances change, your score can be revised (favorably).
This is a criminal profiling tool, not a test of recidivism. No one has done the study yet that says this causes a person to commit a sex crime and thus does not. They are asking for a lot of trouble by pegging people into risk categories based on statistics which don’t accurately represent cause and effect. They represent rather generalized trends and maybe should be used for educational and therapeutic purposes only. Some possible lawsuits here: someone put on the registry for life, while a person with the same background, but who is older gets 10 years? Oh, and I like the part about the tool being more accurate for Europeans than some other groups. Statistics can be manufactured for any number of characteristics. One may ask why not score based on national origin or gender or race? Used as a formula for who gets restrictions placed upon them and who doesnt this becomes a tool for systematic discrimination.
Soo umm that Zero is gone and now is a blank in the area…. wtf
I want to be safe…safe from gang members, drunk drivers, burglars and armed robbers. I want a Static99 done on all these offenders. See what those numbers are and then lets apply some “regulations” to them.
A little clarification: The Static-99 is not a test to be given or taken. It is an evaluation tool that is scored by a “scorer”. Your presence or cooperation are not required at all because the answers to its 10 question are (theoretically) issues of fact that can be found through the examination of an individual’s criminal record. It is called “Static” because the answers to its 10 questions are (again, theoretically) not subject to variance or interpretation. They are what they are. There is but one correct score and that score should be consistently agreed upon by trained scorers.
The preceding is, of course, the way things are supposed to be in some fairyland ideal world. The uncertainty of that world’s existence is the very raison d’etre of this study. It’s a self serving gesture by which this learned group of professionals can convince themselves to “believe” that their fairyland is just around the corner and still maintain their dignified self-respect. But I think we’ll see many more such studies, because deep down inside they still worry that their “leap of faith” is but a blind jump into some craggy, rock bottomed pit.
If the Static-99 is, in fact, static and based on unchanging, unalterable facts, why is an 80 page manual required to show how 10 questions should be answered? Would you like to be a scorer yourself? Check out the following and go to work:
http://www.static99.org/pdfdocs/static-99-coding-rules_e.pdf
And what are they doing about those of us heinous CP possessors and others who are specifically excluded from the population for which, by its own coding rules, the Static-99 can be used? I quote from page 5 of the above linked document:
“This instrument is not recommended for females, young offenders (those having an age of less than 18 years at time of release) or for offenders who have only been convicted of prostitution related offences, pimping, public toileting (sex in public locations with consenting adults) or possession of pornography/indecent materials…”
@george.
I took it once during the presenctence probation report, and after sentenceing with my treatment provider.
So yeah people do take it.
Scored low on both.
All any of us ask for is a 100% accurate tool for evaluating risk. This “tool” should be based solely on facts, not suppositions or educated guesses. This tool should also have a huge cross section of samples, not just a few hundred. Ten questions answered by someone else in your absence? That’s insane! Piss probation off and you’ll be a high risk I’ll bet. How can the “scorers” know your heart? How can they see the changes? Let this process involve witnesses that have seen the change in one’s heart and mind.
Static 99R: It’s a blind man in a dark basement, looking for a black cat that was never there.
We are talking the Static 99 test and exam. According to some of the most trained and experienced professionals in this field of study The facts are this. The static 99 has a major flaw it has the ability of giving many a false postives But, they all do agree to the exact same thing, The Static 99 can and does show without a doubt what offenders are the very lest to commit a violent sex act. But that is not what is wanted is it? They are not concerned with which offenders will not commit a sex act they are concernend with which offenders will!. So my thoughts are this, why don’t they use the test and exam in showing and helping with getting the state’s lawmakers the needed feeling of security with relations to making it a perminate law of allowing for a petition of Certification of Rehabilitation for Specific low level, low threat sex offences such as the PC 288.(a). One thing is that thoes persons who are making a living in the use of the static 99 would still be making money in its use and would push just as hard showing its ability to show who is less likley to commit a sex crime. But its just a thought and a suggestion.
I think that these brain-trusts that developed the Static-99 and 99R should also develop one called the Static-99 for Law Enforcement since law enforcement officers commit far more sex offenses than do registered citizens!
Static 99 & Static 99R are not accurate. No study is able to replicate even “modest accuracy” (as wrongfully claimed by the California Sex Offender Management Board [CASOMB] and the CA Department of Justice). It is described by its own “developers” as wildly unstable. Fact & common sense dictate that human behavior cannot be predicted with 10 unscientific “risk factors,” derived from mostly CANADIAN violent offenders from the 1970, and applied to American offenders (even the non-violent ones) in 2016. Static 99 accuracy and the top secret data behind it (the scam artists ‘developers’ behind it call it a “trade secret”) must be questioned!
Static 99 accuracy is only 29 percent. A random guess is 50/50. What’s most troubling is that the California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB) describes the Static-99R as “very accurate.” These so called psychological “treatment” experts, law enforcement, and politicians pitch — in late-night infomercial manner — that people labeled high risk sex offender (HRSO) must be treated with harsher penalties (as we see with the fictitious tiered registry — which will require lifetime registration for HRSO labeled people, regardless to underlying offense). It all sounds good; but the benefit is limited only to its superficial label. Unbeknownst to the public, the HRSO label relies on the Static 99 scam. A scam sold by the same people milking the CalPERS pension system and profiting from shady CDCR ‘treatment’ contracts. Happy Independence Day!