A classic case of test envy in sex offender risk assessment

Abstract

The SORAG, SVR-20, VRS-S0, STATIC99, SONAR, STABLE (see below for references), and other relatively similar risk prediction tools (RSVPTs) are just a few of the currently available risk assessment measures designed for use with sexual offenders. These instruments all purport to do a similar job – providing estimates of likelihood to recidivate – and most of the associated authors claim that their test, or their type of test, does a better job at risk assessment than the competition. This same debate exists among the experts of risk assessment for non-sexual violent offenders and the discussion from this paper can be extended to risk assessment in general.