Structured Professional Judgment: Applications to Sexual Offender Risk Assessment and Management

Abstract

The chapter will begin with a brief overview of the task of clinical risk assessment and management. As will become clear, the SPJ approach emphasizes the importance of understanding the risks posed by individual clients. Therefore, the chapter will go on to describe the SPJ approach to risk formulation, an essential process that links risk assessment with risk management via an understanding of the function or purpose of sexual violence for the individual. The structured professional judgment approach will then be illustrated through a description of the development and application of the Sexual Violence Risk-20 professional guidelines (SVR-20; Boer et al. (1997). Manual for the sexual violence risk-20: Professional guidelines for assessing risk of sexual violence. Vancouver, Canada: British Columbia Institute on Family Violence and the Mental Health, Law, and Policy Institute, Simon Fraser University) and the more recent structured professional guidelines known as the Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol (RSVP; Hart et al. (2003). The risk for sexual violence protocol: Structured professional guidelines for assessing risk of sexual violence. Vancouver, Canada: Mental Health, Law and Policy Institute, Simon Fraser University). A case study will be provided to illustrate the main features of the SPJ approach to working with sexual offenders. The chapter will end with a set of practice recommendations and suggestions for future research into sexual violence risk assessment and management using the SPJ approach.