Risk Management of Sexually-Reactive Children and Adolescent

Project Summary for 2002-IJ-CX-0029

The overarching goal of the proposed research is to improve the accuracy of management and dispositional decisions about high risk, sexually abusive youth, thereby decreasing the incidence of victimization and re-victimization of other children. Toward this end, we will implement two strategies: (a) examine the predictive efficacy of J-SOAP, a scale developed specifically for assessing risk with juvenile sex offenders, and develop and test an alternative, empirically-driven archival risk assessment scale adapted specifically for use with a broad range of sexually abusive youth, and (b) test developmental path models of proximal outcomes. These primary goals will be achieved with seven concrete objectives: (1) Base rate analyses, (2) testing risk models, (3) predictive accuracy, (4) cross-validation, (5) assessing risk posed by female abusers, (6) classification, and (7) testing etiologic models. The project will select from a sample of 1,500 boys and girls, ages 5-18, that have engaged in sexually abusive behavior and have been evaluated as part of the Assessment for Safe and Appropriate Placement process in Massachusetts. All of the subjects involved are or were in the care and custody of Massachusetts Department of Social Services. This strictly archival project will code approximately 1,000 research abstracts culled from the extensive records of these sexually reactive, sexually abusive children. A 200-variable coding dictionary has been developed for this study, double coded on six research abstracts and refined. The data analysis plan will address the project's seven objectives in five phases: (1) reliability and data reduction, (2) scale development and predictive validity, (3) concurrent validity and etiology, (4) classification, and (5) cross-validation.

ca/ncf