A Brief History of Sexual Offender Risk Assessment

Abstract

The assessment of risk of further offending behavior by adult sexual perpetrators has come a long way since the early 1900s. From risk estimations based on clinical observation and environmental changes in the 1920s, anthropological and longitudinal studies of juvenile offenders in the 1930s, the examination of psychoneurotic patients in the 1940s to the application of actuarial prediction to clinical assessment in the 1950s, researchers and practitioners have sought to identify valid and reliable measures of recidivism risk in sexual offenders. The emphasis in risk prediction slowly changed following Meehl’s (1954) seminal contributions to the clinical-statistical debate which introduced the idea of mechanical risk assessment tools based on known recidivism factors. Advances in what we know about sexual offending behavior and how to reliably assess sexual recidivism risk led to the development of actuarial risk assessment instruments (ARAIs), probably one of the most important advances in the field of risk assessment. These instruments have permeated the entire criminal justice system with specific reference being made to relevant legislative acts in the USA, Canada, the UK, and other European countries on the use of ARAIs. This chapter summarizes the history and early development of risk assessment from clinical intuition and observation to the development of different “generations” of risk assessment instruments and considers what is next on the horizon in risk assessment of sexual offenders.