Assisting decisions in child protection service institutions with the RIC – The Risk Indication in Child sexual abuse

Abstract

BackgroundThe RIC (Risk Indication in Child sexual abuse) and its screening version (RIC:SV) are actuarial risk assessment instruments, developed at the Austrian Federal Evaluation Centre for Violent and Sexual Offenders and designed for child protection services to assess the likelihood of sexual recidivism in male contact child sexual abusers who still or again live within a family including children. ObjectiveThe RIC was designed to require a minimum of forensic information, with the RIC:SV completely waiving such information. ParticipantsNine factors related to sexual recidivism could be identified by analyzing five-year follow-up data of N = 324 male contact child sexual abusers. SettingThe data was collected retrospectively from files between the years 2002 and 2011. MethodChi-Square Tests and ROC-analyses were calculated. ResultsThe RIC and the RIC:SV were found to significantly predict sexual recidivism with AUC values of .84 (RIC) and .78 (RIC:SV). The items of the RIC are: (a) offender has never had a live-in relationship, (b) unstable family background of the offender, (c) impulsivity of the offender, (d) previous psychiatric treatment(s) of the offender, (e) offender has prior prison sentence/s, (f) problems of the offender to accept rules and norms, (g) offender was a stranger to his former victim(s), (h) offender had at least one male victim, and (i) offender has ever committed an extrafamilial contact child sexual abuse offense. ConclusionThe RIC and the RIC:SV need no extensive training to be used. The results may help CPS workers to justify risk related interventions.