Where Should We Intervene?

TLDR

Effective intervention with sexual offenders requires targeting appropriate risk factors. The study collected dynamic risk factor data via interviews with community supervision officers and file reviews of 208 recidivists and 201 nonrecidivists. Recidivists displayed poor social supports, tolerant attitudes, antisocial lifestyles, poor self‑management, and cooperation difficulties, and experienced heightened anger and distress before reoffending, while dynamic risk factors remained strongly linked to recidivism after adjusting for static factors and interview findings were corroborated by case notes, indicating limited recall bias.

Abstract

Effective intervention with sexual offenders requires the targeting of appropriate risk factors. In this study, information on dynamic (changeable) risk factors was collected through interviews with community supervision officers and file reviews of 208 sexual offense recidivists and 201 nonrecidivists. The recidivists were generally considered to have poor social supports, attitudes tolerant of sexual assault, antisocial lifestyles, poor self-management strategies, and difficulties cooperating with supervision. The overall mood of the recidivists and nonrecidivists was similar, but the recidivists showed increased anger and subjective distress just before reoffending. The dynamic risk factors reported by the officers continued to be strongly associated with recidivism, even after controlling for preexisting differences in static risk factors. The factors identified in the interview data were reflected (to a lesser extent) in the officers' contemporaneous case notes, which suggests that the interview findings cannot be completely attributed to retrospective recall bias.