During September, staff of both the Community Probation and Psychological Services attended a series of workshops conducted by Dr Andrew Harris of the Correctional Service of Canada. Dr Harris is a leading international expert in the area of sex offender risk appraisal and is the initiator of The Dynamic Supervision Project which was discussed in this column in May 2006. An update on the outcome of this initiative was presented by Drs Harris and Hanson at the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers conference held in Chicago at the end of September this year.
This project, which is occurring in all Canadian provinces and in two US states, involves the ongoing monitoring and assessment of sex offenders in the community. There are now almost 1000 offenders who have been followed up for an average of 41 months who have been subjected to ongoing assessment of both enduring and acute risk factors. The aim of this exercise has been to achieve enhancements in risk assessments and to use routine and systematic appraisal of individual offender’s functioning related to re-offending - such as the strength of social supports, substance abuse, emotional resilience, hostility, and level of sexual preoccupation - to enable appropriate action as their level of assessed re-offending risk rises.
In their presentation to the Chicago conference, Harris and Hanson were able to reaffirm the reliability of their measures and also provide impressive evidence as to the level of association of these assessments to further sexual and violent recidivism. Overall, they concluded that the exercise demonstrated the feasibility of training and implementing these measures in a community-based setting and that both stable and acute factors predict sexual and general recidivism.
Significantly, the level of statistical analysis which has been able to be applied at this point in time (average 41 months follow-up) was limited because the sexual re-offending rates observed in the 997 community-based sex offenders were significantly lower than anticipated, thereby providing indirect evidence as to the utility of this type of assessment in alerting probation and parole officers to danger signs and allowing corrective action to be taken.
Corrections staff can request a copy of this paper from the Head Office Information Centre - email:infocentre@corrections.govt.nz
Harris A, and Hanson R K (2006), The Dynamic Supervision of Sexual Offenders: Updated Data 2006. Paper presented at the 29th Annual Research & Treatment Conference of the Association of the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, Chicago, September 27–30.
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