ACSOL filed a new lawsuit yesterday that challenges a CDCR policy which allows the agency to use a tool that has not been validated to assess the risk of re-offense for women required to register. The name of that tool is the Female Sex Offender Risk Assessment (FSORA).
The lawsuit was filed in Sacramento Superior Court and includes a declaration by Dr. Franca Cortoni, an expert in the re-offense rates of female registrants. According to Dr. Cortoni, there is no validated tool for assessing the re-offense rates of women required to register because females re-offend at such low rates.
“ACSOL is pleased to be working with Dr. Cortoni in this case,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “Dr. Cortoni has a great depth of knowledge in this area due to her extensive research.”
According to the lawsuit, a result of CDCR’s use of the FSORA is that many female registrants are being identified as high-risk offenders. Identification as a high-risk offender can result in homelessness because state law prohibits all high-risk offenders from living within one-half mile of a K-12 school.
State law limits CDCR to the use of validated tools in order to determine the risk of re-offense for both male and female registrants. A CDCR policy to use the Static-99 or Static-99R for male registrants is not being challenged in this lawsuit because that tool has been validated for more than two decades.
The lawsuit requests that the court immediately stop CDCR from using FSORA as a tool for assessing the risk of re-offense for female registrants. The lawsuit also requests that the court order CDCR to remove the designation of high risk for all women required to register.
Download the document:
Complaint and Exhibits - FINAL - July 2025
Well, that’s a step in the right direction.
“A CDCR policy to use the Static-99 or Static-99R for male registrants is not being challenged in this lawsuit because that tool has been validated for more than two decades.”
Validated to be used incorrectly according to the stats which have been shown for those males who have not re-offended at 17 years in the system are equal to those who have not offended at all (meaning they should be free of registration) and validated to be ignored when it comes down to it for those impacted under the guise of if it protects one child or in the name of alleged public interest of safety. Is there going to be a similar lawsuit for males showing the incorrect use of this test above against the CA male? What is the statistical correlation between this test and the actual daily findings in corroboration that it is a valid test to begin with?
Nice, going why not file a Daubert Standard test Daubert v. Merrell, petition changaging the SORNA LAW & Static 99 test. Since there’s 2 different, opinions best on bogus scientific rulings. The USSC Ruled if a law is not conclusive it cant not be applied Under California Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta,
New York has been fraudulently certifying people as high risk with a non-validated RAI for the last 30 years!
Invalid RAI = invalid certification = fraud upon the public = Libel and slander of PFR = lawsuit!
@TS – I have been researching the Static-99R for a while now. IF they want to use this “validated” tool, we need to demand to use it in the way Karl Hanson et al intended it to be used. Karl Hanson himself said in a lawsuit that is being filed in Oregon, that the DOJ and/ or Parole Board is not using the Static-99R accurately and the way he intended. It is not just about the 17 years and posing as little risk as someone who has never offended. It is also about the time free offense that HAS TO be considered when using the Static-99R. After just two years, the score roughly halves. At a minimum a person who has been offense free for 2 year2, 5 years etc, should be taken off the public site as the risk LEVEL drops with each year. It is NOT the risk SCORE but the risk LEVEL that they need to determine. A 10 question static score (that will never change) can NEVER be the sole indicator of risk. Dynamic factors have to be considered, and that is clearly spelled out in the Static-99R rule book. Someone has to be qualified to score AND interpret the score AND consider the dynamic factors as required. Otherwise, the score is meaningless. Anyone can add up the points for the 10 questions. There HAS to be more to it, and ruining people’s lives because someone just adds up points should be challenged in a lawsuit. SB384 itself mentions the risk LEVEL and not the risk SCORE. Even Megan’s Law shows the diagram of the declining risk with each year. Once a person drops below 6 points (required to be publicly listed), they should at a minimum be taken off the public website. Especially if they have had the same score prior to the new law and were NOT publicly listed. This is so unacceptable and needs to be addressed. Even if the Static-99R was supposedly validated, it was validated in its entirety including the requirement to consider DYNAMIC factors. Why is nobody challenging the validity if it is only used half a%& and not the way it was intended? Read the rule book. The offense free time is a huge part of the Static-99R.
The Static-99R Coding Rules state scores are only “valid for approximately two years” after release. Its “validation” is done through a sleazy conflict-of-interest scheme, wherein the “developers” hold proprietary, “secret” data, and all validation is done by citing Hanson and his cronies. In fact, it’s been said the Static-99 “developers” are in violation of APA Code of Ethics. In fact, it’s possible for someone to score low on every other “risk” assessment, except the Static-99R.
The whole thing is a joke.
So it harms the youth, the women, families and makes most men jobless and homeless. This is one productive piece of legislation!
Even with all the Static-99R’s limitations, how it’s misused, and its self-admitted two-year shelf life in its “Coding Rules,” keep in mind that even though its “validation” is infected with conflicts of interests–with Karl Hanson and its goons–the Static-99R still has a self-proclaimed AUC of 0.69 to 0.70–not much better than a flip of a coin (and not accounting for the probably several thousand men it flags as “high risk”).
The entire Static-99R schemes are a joke. And we’ve all been played.
The fact that someone can be placed in Tier 3, solely because of a “6” or higher score, adds salt to the wound.