“Risk assessment is such a rich and important factor to consider that failure to reflect on it may constitute professional negligence. Through risk assessment we will have an idea of how likely the person is to reoffend.
The development of assessment methods in this area has focused primarily on:
- Identifying various types of offenders
- Discovering their special characteristics to improve treatment efforts
- Assessing treatment progress
- Evaluating risk of future re-offending when discharge from treatment programs.
Assessment in this area can employ some of the general risk assessment factors discussed earlier, but it also requires additional factors as well as special attention to specific diagnostic features of youthful sexoffenders (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 1999). That is why a good risk assessment should also attend to external factors that may increase the likelihood that violent acts may occur among youths who are high in other risk factors (e.g., the availability of weapons, the accessibility of a specific person with whom a youth may be in conflict).
