Sexual Violence Risk Assessment

Violence and Risk Assessment Final Paper: Sexual Violence

Lauren M. Wilson

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

Introduction

Risk assessment is an area that is always changing and progressing, the areas that are needed are well established yet there is new information and research being done each year. Risk assessments are helpful when mental health professionals need to determine whether someone will be a risk to themselves or others in the future. This can often be a difficult task as mental health professionals are only able to accurately predict risk 50% of the time (Stewart, 2014). Risk was defined as expose (someone or something valued) to danger, harm, or loss. It can also be defined as a situation involving

Reasons someone might not consent include fear, age, illness, disability, and/or influence of alcohol or other drugs. Anyone can experience sexual violence including: children, teens, adults, and elders. Those who sexually abuse can be acquaintances, family members, trusted individuals or strangers.” Sexual violence is down more than 50% in recent years than in the past according to RAINN (2014). There are a multitude of resources available to victims of sexual violence like hotlines, counseling centers, crisis centers, as well as police help with making reports if the victim desired. As long as there are measures to help victims and try to prevent sexual violence in the future, the number of sexual assaults will decrease. However, determining an individual’s risk to commit sexual violence may be a bit more challenging. This is a task that is difficult to predict accurately however there are specific factors that have been found to be indicators of future sexual

This assessment measures four items only, the number of prior charges or convictions, the age of release from prison, male victims, and unrelated victims. These scores determine the level of risk for the individual to recidivate (Langton et al., 2007). The next assessment I’d like to discuss in this section is The Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool - Revised (MnSOST-R) this version uses an empirically based weighting system (Hanson, 2000). This system increases the accuracy of the scale as compared to the original version. This test measures historical information and information pertaining to the individual’s offense and subsequent incarceration. From the scores on each item the individual is given a score and assigned to a category establishing their level of risk (Langton et al., 2007). Finally I’d like to discuss the use of the SVR-20. This assessment is a structured professional judgment tool. This is the sex offender version of the HCR-20 it is developed to assess the risk of sex offenders with psychiatric disorders in a clinical setting (Smid et al., 2014). This particular assessment has 20 items that fit into three different subtypes: psychosocial adjustment, sexual offenses, and future plans (Smid et al., 2014). Each item is then scored on a scale from 0 to 3 then added up to determine the total score and labeled