Female Risk Assessment

[mftman]

The purpose of this topic is to exhcange information on risk assessment of female sexual offenders.

[PMH]

That's going to be tough.

Yesterday the Texas Psychology Association's Forensic Psychology group awarded the Mary Alice Conroy award to a graduate student for her research on distinguishing gender differences in folks with psychopathy.

I think she found that women with psychopathy process emotions differently. And that psychopathy does seem to contribute to increased liklihood of recidivism (not specific to sexual offending).

If I can track down the reference I'll post it.

PMH

[David A Cohen]

great article in the last issue of sexual abuse on risk assessment of female sex offenders
david

[fiferman]

The standard Risk Assessment used for men or women that you find only goes so far which allows for some offenders to play the system. They show the personal history, the Static/Historical Items, Incarceration History and Supervision History. If the offender has not had a "proper" Psychosexual Evaluation performed and and there is'nt a section to evaluate their victim empathy, participation in Individual and Group therapy sessions and polygraphs every 6 months while on Supervision the Risk Assessment falls very short. An offender can have a pretty clean history, behave themselves in prison and play their way through a treatment program. Once off probation the deviance is waiting to take over. Another thing to think about is whether the clinical psychologist uses a standard test that is culturally sensitive? I see a lot of Psychosexual evaluations out there that are basing the diagnosis on an MMPI, WAIS, WRAT and an ABEL or Plethysmograph report which leaves room for incorrect diagnosis, conclusions and recommendations.

[Kenneth Pangborn]

The problem I see with female risk assessment for sex offenses is that the data is very weak at best. There is good data for males, but all that I have seen on females is quesationable. I don't think the data is really there for the Abel tools much less the plethysmograph. I'd be highly suspicious of any clinician who claimed to have produced definitive results. There is a need for research, but politically it is an idea that is dead in the water. Too many powerful forces that want to deny that female offenders are a significant enough problem to study it.

[fjgall]

Nov 22, 2009 15:30:37 GMT -6 @Kenneth Pangborn said:

Too many powerful forces that want to deny that female offenders are a significant enough problem to study it.

Do you think it is really denial?

Or just to hard to find the numbers for decent research?

[tpetersonmsw]

I think it is both. I have worked with number of woman and adolescent girls who have offended. Generally they are incest offenders and seem dedicated to place themselves in the most dangerous situations possible, particularly after the offense has been discovered. We know that there a significant number of sexually reactive girls, where do they go when they grow up. I would love to see any sort of data or research .

[mftman]

The second question is related to the first. If the CJ system denies the seriousness of female offenders then the numbers of female offenders for study will be much lower. I remember when we lived in AZ learning that under AZ law it was considered a crime for an adult male to put his mouth on the breast of a female child, but NOT illegal for an adult female to put her mouth on the breast of a male child. This is actually a sexist position: "women are too week to cause harm."

[PMH]

This article from the BBC seems relevant:

sxofftx.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=discuss3&thread=65

PMH