【正文】 respondent), lack of clinical judgment Key term description ? ‘Norm’ – 1,000s of sex offenders respond to a series of items. Their responses are analyzed to determine if there are mon underlying characteristics of their answering styles. These answering patterns are called ‘norms’ which are described in mathematical statements giving ‘weight’ to the strongest factors. – New respondent’s answers are statistically pared to the offenders patterned ‘norms’ to test for similarity. – Highly similar answers suggest further assessment is necessary and the probability of offense may be likely Structured clinical interviews ? Description: A manual that trained clinicians use to loosely guide the areas that should be addressed in a forensic interview. Use requires specified training ? Sample item: A general topic with suggested questions. ? Benefits: Based on actuarial ‘norms’ while allowing clinician to use some clinical judgment and to tailor the language to the respondent ? Drawbacks: Costly, restricted to use by trained forensic professionals, not a perfect predictor of future behavior, not perfectly similar for all respondents Unstructured clinical interviews ? Description: A freeflowing conversational interview guided solely by clinical judgment ? Benefits: Very tailored to each client, mon to most health appointments, good preliminary investigation ? Drawbacks: Studies have shown that clinical judgment alone functions only slightly better than chance at predicting future criminal behaviors Physiological response test ? Description: Scientific apparatus that monitors the physiological arousal in response to certain stimuli ? Examples: The polygraph or the plethysmograph ? Benefits: Concrete output, possible treatment benefits (“Get it all out, I’ll know if you are lying”) ? Drawbacks: Costly, can be fooled by trained individuals, and can give false impressions regarding physiological arousal (response to normative stimuli can be misinterpreted) Key areas of assessment Static, stabledynamic and acutechanging factors Preparation ? Information is obtained before an interview ? We typically use multiple sources: corroborative interviews with providers/friends/family, review of treatment notes, police reports, victim reports, investigational materials, psychiatric evaluations, psychological testing, children’s agency reports, and recorded testimony (Maletsky, 1997) 3 main topic areas in assessment ? Static factors ? Stabledynamic factors ? Acute changing factors Static factors ? A static risk factor is a permanent fact that makes a person more likely to be in danger of sexually offending. Static factors are the personal experiences someone uses to evaluate how they should act. – . Life history, experiences, past behaviors – Developed from weighted norms – Common to structured clinical interviews ? Must use multiple informants Commonly assessed static factors ? Family violence^ (a) severity (b) age of onset ? Physical/sexual abuse^ (a) force used (b) degree of peration (c) relation to perpetrator, (d) age of onset, (e) duration ? Prior sexual offenses* (a) age at offense, (b) victim age/sex (c) undue force used (d) degree of peration (e) setting ? Prior violent acts* (a) age at offense, (b) victim age/sex (c) undue force used (d) degree of peration (e) setting ? Prior criminal record* (a) incarceration record (b) prior delinquency ? Life stability* (a) married (b) employment (c) education (d) social work (e) family support ? Demographics* (a) culture/race, (b) age, (d) socioeconomic status *Included in almost every static risk assessment tool ^Shown to be a significant predictor of sexual offense in juveniles, but not directly tied to adult offenders Prediction based on static factors ? Problems: (1) not case specific, (2) lack of clinical judgment, and (3) although there is high sensitivity, . catching 8090% of reoffenders, there is low spe