How accurately can researchers measure criminal history, sexual deviance, and risk of sexual recidivism from self-report information alone?

ABSTRACT

Sexual recidivism risk measures are primarily scored using official documentation (e.g. criminal records), but such reviews are time-consuming, and limited by the quality and availability of relevant information. In this study, we examined the agreement between self-reported and official file information. We conducted secondary analyses on two datasets in which 24 and 27 adult males convicted of sexual offences provided self-report information under confidential conditions, which we used to score the Static-99 and the Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests. Criminal history information was reliable across both studies, whereas victim characteristics were not. We also used self-reports to create a self-report risk scale – the Sexual Offence Self-Report Risk Scale, which was positively correlated with the Static-99 across both studies (r = .73 and .56). Our results suggest that some self-report information gathered under confidential conditions can be reliable and provide acceptably valid estimates of relative risk for research purposes when official documentation is limited.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex offences
• reliable self-report
• reporting
• disclosure
• Static-99
• SSPI
• risk assessment

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Kelly Babchishin, Renee Malcom, Ian McPhail, Cathrine Pettersen, and Rikki Sewell for collecting the data used in the current studies. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Ministry of the Solicitor General of Ontario.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).