MEGA^♩: A New Paradigm in Protocol Assessing Sexually Abusive Children and Adolescents

Abstract

This article presents the Multiplex Empirically Guided Inventory of Ecological Aggregates for Assessing Sexually Abusive Adolescents and Children, or MEGA^♩, a comprehensively-structured risk assessment protocol for assessing sexually abusive behavior in all youth ages 19 years and under. This includes male and female adjudicated and non-adjudicated youth, children under 12, and developmentally delayed youth. MEGA^♩(Miccio-Fonseca, 2006b) is composed of seven aggregates and four distinct risk scales: (a) risk, (b) protective risk, (c) estrangement, and (d) persistent sexual deviancy. Exemplary internal consistency reliability data (α > .80, p = .001) on a sample of N = 1,184 (979 males and 205 females) are presented; findings on the estrangement and persistent sexual deviancy scales are discussed in depth.

Keywords:

• assessment tools
• female sex offenders
• juvenile sex offenders
• recidivism
• risk assessment
• sexually abusive youthful offenders

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