As the developers of actuarial instruments such as the Static-99R acknowledge that their original norms inflated the risk of re-offense for sex offenders, a brand-new method is cropping up to preserve those inflated risk estimates in sexually violent predator civil commitment trials. The method introduces a new instrument, the “SRA-FV,” in order to bootstrap special “high-risk” norms on the Static-99R. Curious about the scientific support for this novel approach, I asked forensic psychologist and statistics expert Brian Abbott to weigh in. Full Article
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Static-99 developers embrace redemption – Sex offender risk plummets over time in community, new study reports
And now — drum roll — the authors of the most widely used actuarial tool for assessing sex offender recidivism are conceding that even sex offenders cross a “redemption threshold” over time, such that their risk of committing a new sexual crime may become “indistinguishable from the risk presented by non-sexual offenders.” Tracking a large group of 7,740 sexual offenders drawn from 21 different samples around the world, the researchers found that those who remain free in the community for five years or more after their release are at drastically…
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