Estimate of Risk of Adolescent Sexual Offense Recidivism

The Estimate of Risk of Adolescent Sexual Offense Recidivism (ERASOR) is a risk assessment tool using a structured professional judgment approach. Instruments like the ERASOR attempt to help evaluators make a decision about sex offense risk (low, moderate, or high). All good tests and instruments attempting to measure human behavior must be valid and reliable. Risk assessment tools must measure what evaluators want to measure (validity), and they must allow evaluators to generate a measure that can be repeated over time, with others coming to the same conclusion (reliability). However, risk assessment with adolescents is more dynamic and changing, so risk assessment may be best looked at as a process that can guide efforts at intervention, treatment, and management.

The ERASOR seeks to allow a trained evaluator to meaningfully combine psychosocial, statistical, factual, and environmental information in a way that allows for responsible and defensible decisions about risk management as well as treatment and placement, if applicable. The ERASOR permits an evaluator to come to a decision about an assessment of risk for reoffense. It also can assist an evaluator to create and develop a plan for treatment and can identify areas where the adolescent might require some motivation to accept and engage in treatment. This article discusses several general considerations in sex offense risk with adolescents.

Risk must be measured so that professionals can determine how best to intervene, treat, and manage risk and associated factors. With an adolescent, a professional trying to measure risk— because risk factors are often more fluid—is encouraged to measure risk at different points. The adolescent can be assessed after being charged with a criminal offense, once detained and provided counseling or other treatment measures, and again after treatment and adjudication have occurred. Adolescent sex offense risk assessment is a process that can be used to determine the type and intensity of treatment needed and to help define goals and objectives (targets) of treatment and case management.

With adolescents, however, there are issues complicating sex offense risk assessment. The first are base rates. A base rate is the rate at which a behavior (e.g., sexual assault) occurs in the general population of adolescents. These base rates for juveniles are relatively low. So, when trying to measure or assess the likelihood of another sex offense occurring, evaluators can be prone to inflating their assessments because the base rate of the behavior is so low to begin with. This can lead to the perception of a higher probability of risk than is actual, a serious error. Another factor complicating risk assessment is that nearly all of the existing research is based on experience with adolescent males. The data on female sex offense risk are emerging.

The ERASOR is a relatively short-term (less than 1 year) risk assessment tool to be used with adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18. It allows for a consideration of both static (fixed and historical) and dynamic (changeable, amenable to treatment) risk factors. The second version, ERASOR 2.0, has 25 items across five relatively self-explanatory areas: sexual interests, attitudes, and behaviors; historical sexual assaults; psychosocial functioning; family/environmental functioning; and treatment considerations. The factors considered (not a complete list) include having two or more victims and whether one is a male, attitudes supportive of offending, threats or use of violence, and peer relations and social isolation. Because the emphasis is on short-term assessment of sex offense risk (very prudent with adolescents), the ERASOR 2.0 is also recommended to be utilized as a repeated risk assessment to evaluate changes over time.

Adolescent sex offense risk assessment with tools like the ERASOR focuses not only on adolescents who commit sexual offenses but also on the systems within which they live and function and upon those whom they depend for nurturance and guidance. In short, risk assessments with adolescents seek to place behavior and risk factors in the context of the social environment and human development. With adolescents, because these factors are very dynamic and changing, the assessment of sex offense risk is also considered to be time limited.

The ERASOR is considered to be an empirically guided instrument, not a true actuarial tool. Therefore, an assessment using the ERASOR does not have cutoff scores. However, the research continues to grow, indicating that the reliability and validity of the ERASOR is improving judgments of adolescent sex offense risk assessment. A prominent feature of the ERASOR is its inclusion of dynamic, or changeable, risk factors, making evaluations using the ERASOR especially helpful in intervention planning for adolescents and to make adjustments to case management plans as they evolve.

However, despite an evolving base of research regarding the validity of common risk factors for adolescent sexual reoffending, the knowledge is theoretical and conditional; there is not definitive evidence regarding risk factors for sexual recidivism in adolescents. It is also likely that complex interactions among different risk factors are at play at different times in the development of children and adolescents and that these dynamics are exceptionally difficult to disentangle and document empirically. Similarities found between risk factors and other problem behaviors, including general antisocial conduct, complicate matters even further.

The ERASOR 2.0 has not been as widely examined as have some other measures of adolescent sex offense risk, but like others, assessments using the ERASOR are not considered to lead to findings that can be considered strongly predictive regarding sex offense risk. The ERASOR also employs only a clinical rating system based on the evaluator’s judgment of risk associated with the presenting risk factors (e.g., it does not allow for a more precise assessment of risk such as one that might be obtained using an actuarial method).

Although risk factors are the foundation of virtually all risk assessment instruments, in recent years, more attention has been given to protective factors and their role in mitigating risk. The role of protective factors in juvenile delinquency prevention has long been recognized. Their appearance in the sex offense risk literature and their consideration in the process of evaluating adolescent sex offense recidivism is relatively new. Attention must be paid to the possibility of factors that protect against antisocial conduct as well as to those that predispose to it. Similarly, it is critical to understand factors that suggest the absence of offending behavior as well as those that suggest reoffending and the moderating effects that protective factors can have.

Perhaps most important, findings from risk assessment with instruments like the ERASOR must be integrated into a comprehensive assessment process that produces a thorough understanding of the adolescent being assessed. With adolescents, the value of sex offense risk assessment can lie in a consideration of dynamic risk factors that might serve as a basis for case management rather than in the capacity to accurately predict risk. However, it has been shown that different raters using the ERASOR can significantly differentiate repeat adolescent sexual offenders from those who do not reoffend.

However, evaluators using the ERASOR 2.0 to assess the potential for adolescent sexual offending behavior should consider evaluations with the instrument as one part of an ongoing process. It should also be a process involving contributions from many professionals involved in the adolescent’s life (e.g., teacher, probation officer). Any assessment using the ERASOR 2.0 is strengthened when it considers multiple sources of data. Adolescent sex offense risk is one aspect of an adolescent’s behavior at a particular point in time. The ERASOR 2.0 is a tool that should be used, as indicated, as one part of a comprehensive assessment process that looks at the factors involved in this behavior which change over time, like the adolescents themselves.

Academic Writing Services

Estimate of Risk of Adolescent Sexual Offense Recidivism

Further Reading