Douglas Boer

University of Canberra

Purpose There are limited risk assessment tools validated for use with the internet child abuse material (I/CAM) offender cohort. Developed through a multi-stage process, the purpose of this paper is to present the “Estimated Risk for Internet Child Sexual Offending” (ERICSO), a new tool for I/CAM offender assessment, including demographic, collect...

Purpose Internet child abuse material (I/CAM) offences negatively affect children in our own communities and in the wider virtual world. This study aims to understand the differentiation between online (internet) and offline (contact) offenders. The development of the Estimated Risk for Internet Child Sexual Offending (ERICSO), a proposed instrumen...

Objectives To illuminate opportunities for care in the context of deceased organ donation by exploring pre-existing family and healthcare professional characteristics, in-hospital experiences, and ongoing adjustment through the lenses of grief theory, systems theory, meaning-making, narrative, and organ donation literature. Method Qualitative long...

Purpose There are a limited number of risk assessment tools relevant to the internet child abuse material (I/CAM) offender cohort. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new tool, the “Estimated Risk for Internet Child Sexual Offending” (ERICSO). The ERICSO has been developed to assist in the treatment and prevention of sexual crimes against c...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy of good lives model (GLM) interventions on the recidivism outcomes of convicted offenders. Design/methodology/approach The review adhered to preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis and Cochrane guidelines. Digital databases were searched and articles reporting...

In this chapter, we review two related sets of structured professional judgment guidelines for assessing risk for sexual violence. The Sexual Violence Risk-20 actually exists in two editions, Version 1 (Boer, Hart, Kropp, & Webster, 1997) and Version 2 (Boer, Hart, Kropp, & Webster, 2017), hereinafter abbreviated SVR-20 V1 and V2, respectively. Alt...

Česká adaptace: „SVR 20 V2 Manual for Version 2 of the Sexual Violence Risk–20: Structured professional judgment guidelines for assessing and managing risk of sexual violence“ od autorů: Douglas P. Boer, Stephen D. Hart,P. Randall Kropp , Christopher D. Webster. Boer, D. P., Hart, S. D., Kropp, P. R., & Webster, C. D. (2017). Manual for Version 2...

The differentiation between men convicted of child abuse material offences, known as Internet Child Abuse Material (I/CAM), and Contact (CO) child sex offenders is an ongoing area of research. Current research indicates there are differences between men convicted of I/CAM and CO offences. This article highlights key variables that may indicate clin...

This chapter provides a brief overview of the development of violence risk assessment, and reviews structured professional judgement (SPJ) tools in current usage for populations at risk of future use of violence. A summary of specific cohorts that use violence risk assessment tools is surveyed. The chapter reviews the current research in this arena...

In Australia, before conducting research with human participants, researchers must have their research plan reviewed by a Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) to ensure that proposed methods meet ethical requirements and protect the welfare of participants. In addition, it has been proposed that HRECs can contribute to a novice researcher’s ethic...

The organ donation process is complex and stressful for the family of the potential donor and members of the multidisciplinary team who may experience grief, ethical dilemmas, vicarious trauma, or compassion fatigue. Several studies each explore the role of a specific healthcare group and the impact of inhospital processes on group members. We cond...

This word document contains links to the animated abstracts that are available on the journal's open access website.

Despite differences in prevalence estimates, offenders with intellectual disabilities (OIDs) are generally considered to be significantly over-represented in all levels of the criminal justice system in all countries where such data is available. Theoretical models developed to provide an explanatory framework for offending behaviours by non-OIDs g...

The poster describes the results of an extensive review of the relationship between families of organ donors and transplant recipients. The systemic map demonstrates the influence of other role players, and shows how the relationship can contribute to identity development and ongoing adjustment for both donor families and recipients.

Following deceased organ donation and transplantation, the narratives of families of donors and organ recipients become connected. This is acknowledged when parties receive anonymous information from donation agencies and transplant centres, when they exchange correspondence or when they meet in person. This article reviews literature describing th...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to collate the available research into the characteristics of child abuse material (CAM) offenders to inform future assessment and treatment options. This systematic review collates the contribution and directionality of variables from existing research assessing an offenders’ use of CAM. Design/methodology/ap...

A novel approach to data extraction and synthesis was used to explore the connections between research priorities, understanding and practice improvement associated with family bereavement in the context of the potential for organ donation. Conducting the review as a qualitative longitudinal study highlighted changes over time, and extraction of ci...

Items such as supplementary material, diagrams and systemic maps related to our research project exploring the bereavement experiences of families of potential organ donors will be stored here. The diagrams may be taken from video abstracts available as supplementary material linked to the open access articles.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to summarise the available risk and assessment tools for child abuse material (CAM) offenders. Noting the rise of internet-based offences surrounding CAM, it has been proposed that there may be substantial differences between internet only (IO) offenders, contact only and mixed profile sexual offenders. Design...

Research and existing literature in the field was perused to identify research priorities. This poster was created while working on the article that was later published on the topic.

The bereavement of families of potential organ donors is influenced by memories of their in-hospital journey regardless of their decision about donation. An understanding of the role played by risk and protective factors, meaning-making and narrative construction will enable hospital staff and aftercare providers to tailor support to assist familie...

Families of potential post-mortem organ donors face various challenges in the unfamiliar hospital context and after returning home. This review of sources published between 1968 and 2017 seeks to understand their journey as a bereavement experience with a number of unique features. Grief theory was used to identify ways that staff can assist family...

Information and compassion assist families of potential organ donors to make informed decisions. However, psychological implications of the in-hospital process are not well described with past research focusing on decision-making. To enhance understanding and improve service delivery, a systematic review was conducted. Inductive analysis and synthe...

This animated abstract describes the findings of a systematic review

SPJ guidelines for assessing and managing risk of sexual violence

The Wiley Handbook on the Theories, Assessment and Treatment of Sexual Offending is a three–volume collection of up–to–date readings contributed by international experts relating to the assessment, intervention, and theoretical foundations of sexual offending. Offers cutting–edge theories of sexual offending, including the latest multifactorial an...

The field of sex offender risk assessment is largely divided into two camps: the actuarial camp (e.g., Static-99) and the structured professional judgement (SPJ) camp (e.g., the Sexual Violence Risk-20). These two approaches to risk assessment are strikingly different in practice and philosophy. Actuarial tests provide group-based numerical estimat...

This article has no abstract.

Sexual offending against children is a global social problem. Prohibitions against specific sexual acts are commonplace, suggesting a universal understanding of the harms incurred by this behaviour. Although typically defined in legal terms, sexual offending behaviour occurs in a cultural context. Furthermore, despite great advances in risk assessm...

This chapter reviews the primary treatment models for persons with intellectual disabilities and problematic sexual behaviours. Most current programmes include practical applications of combinations of current treatment models and also special therapeutic considerations seen as core to the responsivity issues of such individuals. In addition, logic...

Offender work is generally carried out in a group setting, but programmes do not always take full advantage of the therapeutic potential of group treatment principles. This chapter briefly considers the highly developed literature on groupwork and presents a systematic application to sex offender treatment, not only as a vehicle by which to deliver...

The poster describes experiences of families of potential organ donors while at the hospital. It was created while working on the article describing in-hospital experiences.

Purpose - This paper is an extension of the previous study published by Chan and Boer (2016). It seeks to explore deeper into the subject matter, to better aid ex-offenders' reintegration effort back into society. The purpose of this paper is to expand the sample size of participants from 12 to 25, and to further ascertain any emerging factors (als...

This article aims to provide an insight into the Implicit Theories (ITs) [1] harboured by Incest Offenders. This study was conducted on a sample of 27 inmates, all convicted for incest offending, from TePiriti, a Special Treatment Unit within the Auckland Prison located near Auckland, New Zealand. The sample comprised of five sub-classifications of...

Since the advent of the internet, convictions for the possession, display, trading and distribution of child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) have risen steadily, but little is known about the appropriate assessment and treatment of this offender group, especially in regards to their risk of reoffending. It has been suggested that a conceptual d...

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore deeper into this subject in search of a new manner that can better aid ex-offenders to reintegrate back into society. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the factors that influence the reintegration process of ex-offenders in the hope of further reducing reoffending and re-incarceration of offenders. This...

High impulsiveness is a general problem that affects most criminal offenders and is associated with greater recidivism risk. A cluster analysis of impulsiveness measured by the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale - Version 11 (BIS-11) was performed on a sample of hands-on child molesters. The sample consisted of 208 child molesters enrolled in two differen...

This chapter briefly describes contemporary approaches to the treatment of sex offenders before considering this field through the lens of group dynamics and group therapy. Whilst there are undeniably logistical and financial advantages to treating sex offenders within group contexts, we will outline what we believe are the clear clinical and thera...

This study examined the endorsement of cognitive distortions in child pornography offenders (CPOs), using an established assessment tool, the Abel and Becker Cognition Scale. The scale was expanded to include cognitions specific to child pornography offending, extracted from Howitt and Sheldon's Children and Sexual Activities Inventory (C&SA). Thre...

Psychosocial assessments can help mental health professionals establish good therapeutic relationships while simultaneously conducting holistic assessments of their young clients. Using technology to conduct assessments may increase disclosure by young people; however, the uptake of new technologies into current face-to-face practice has been slow....

Professionals providing treatment, supervision, and management to adult persons who have sexually offended recognize the unique needs of those individuals who have concomitant intellectual disabilities and problematic sexual behaviors (IDPSB). Problematic sexual behaviors are defined in this context as sexually offensive conduct that places either...

The purpose of the present study was to add to the literature on the predictive accuracy of a dynamic intellectual disability specific risk assessment tool. A dynamic risk assessment for sexual reoffending (ARMIDILO-S), a static risk assessment for sexual offending (STATIC-99), and a static risk assessment for violence (Violence Risk Appraisal Guid...

This chapter discusses the major approaches for conducting sex offender risk evaluations, which can be broadly defined as either actuarial assessment or structured professional judgment (SPJ). Another approach combines actuarial with clinical judgment. The effects of anchoring, a cognitive heuristic, further compounds the error rate with the adjust...

Until the systematic work on the Good Lives Model (GLM) produced by Tony Ward, not a great deal of conceptual structure existed to provide sex offender treatment specialists with a theoretical underpinning for their work in helping offenders develop a better life as a way to prevent reoffending. However, the work of Ward and colleagues initially fo...

IntroductionRelapse PreventionThe Self-Regulation ModelStatic and Dynamic FactorsFunctional Behavioural AnalysisFunctional Offence Risk AnalysisDiscussion

The internet has opened up opportunities for non-contact sex offending, such as the viewing of child pornography. This paper proposes a model for the classification of child pornography offenders as an aid for their assessment and treatment, deducted from empirical studies and existing typologies for child pornography offenders. Different subgroups...

The Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR-20) is the most commonly used structured professional judgment guideline for sexual offender risk assessment and risk management planning. Using a prospective longitudinal research design the authors evaluated the predictive accuracy of the SVR-20, of its subscales, and of the individual items in relation to differe...

This research compared street male sex workers in Santo André, Brazil, that reported consistent condom use with those that revealed inconsistent condom use with their clients, concerning personality aspects, impulsiveness, alcohol and drug consumption, depressive symptoms, sociodemographic data and criminal involvement. Eighty-six male sex workers...

The COPINE scale allows standardised classification of a person's child pornography collection while taking into account contextual considerations. However, despite its frequent usage in research studies, the scale has never been empirically validated with regards to its psychometric properties. This study describes a validation design to assess re...

This study examined sociodemographic variables, personality characteristics, and alcohol and drug misuse among male sex workers in the city of Santo André, São Paulo, Brazil. A total of 45 male-to-female transgender sex workers and 41 male hustlers were evaluated in face-to-face interviews at their place of work from 2008 to 2010. A "snowball" samp...

Metaanalytic rapist treatment researchRapist heterogeneityRapist classification typologiesThe Massachusetts Treatment Centre Revised Rapist Typology Version 3Targeting rapist treatmentA New Zealand example: The Adult Sex Offender Treatment Program (ASOTP)Risk-need-responsivityCognitive distortions: an example of treatment applicationsConclusion Ref...

What do we mean by “culture”?What does culture have to do with sexual offender rehabilitation?Culture-informed therapyPractice issues with culture and offender rehabilitationPractice considerationsSummaryAcknowledgmentsReferences

A case exampleIs pedophilia an illness?Is confidentiality during the treatment possible and based on ethical principles?Are therapeutic programs effective enough to control sexually aggressive behavior?Is hormonal treatment (“chemical castration”) for pedophilia ethically acceptable?Conclusion References

International Perspectives on the Assessment and Treatment of Sexual Offenders: Theory, Practice and Research provides the first truly global perspective on the assessment and treatment of sex offenders. Presents a comprehensive overview of current theories and practices relating to the assessment and treatment of sex offenders throughout the world...

The predictive validity of four risk assessment instruments: the RRASOR, SVR-20, RM2000-V and the ARMIDILO-Stable and -Acute dynamic client subscales were assessed on a sample of 88 offenders: 44 mainstream and 44 sexual offenders with special needs, who had been matched on risk items within the RRASOR tool. Instruments were coded retrospectively f...

IntroductionApplication to ID OffendersGeneral PrinciplesHCR-20Conclusions References

One type of claim in parenting assessment (child custody) cases is that one parent, typically the father, is alleged to be engaging in improper or compulsive sexual behavior via the Internet. The sexual behavior at issue can range from frequent sexually explicit chats with other adults to compulsive viewing of adult pornography. In more extreme cas...

This article reports on the current state of research about the most commonly used Structured Professional Judgement (SPJ) guidelines for sexual offender risk assessment, the Sexual Violence Risk-20 (SVR-20). After describing the general characteristics as well as frequently discussed strengths and weaknesses of this risk assessment approach, we gi...

Introduction: Mental health clinicians routinely assess risk in three domains: suicide, violence and self neglect. While the published work on the assessment of these risks has increased, concerns are often expressed that assessment alone does not lead to management of the identified risk. Not all axes of multiaxial classificatory systems are used...

In psychological testing, the term 'ecological validity' (EV) refers to the degree to which a test assesses (or estimates) via a proxy task a person's ability to do a 'real-life' task. While EV has been a critical evaluative component of some areas of psychological testing, it has not featured to date as important in the area of risk assessment. If...

There is now a considerable literature on the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders. There exists another substantial literature on therapeutic groupwork and its relevance to a range of clinical populations. These bodies of work have made reference to the other in terms of their mutual relevance. However, there has been no comprehensive atte...

This study examines the predictive validity of the most commonly used risk assessment instruments for sexual offenders: Static-99, Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism, Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide, Sexual Violence Risk-20, and Psychopathy Checklist-Revised in a prospective research design. Although risk assessment is part of a...

Neste artigo discutimos questões éticas associadas ao uso de testes estatísticos desenvolvidos em outros países ou em populações únicas para avaliar autores de abuso sexual no Brasil, que são diferentes das amostras utilizadas no desenvolvimento dos testes. Esta prática é problemática por poder resultar no prolongamento da detenção ou na prematura...

Sex offenders (N = 468) were released from custody and recidivism outcome was recorded. The Sexual Violence Risk-20 (SVR-20) was scored for each offender and the relationship between age-at-release and SVR-20 item and total scores was examined. SVR-20 total scores were not correlated with age-at-release (r = .-057). SVR-20 scores were combined with...

Risk assessment strategies are becoming more complex and accurate, but remain problematic in terms of how such instruments are promoted and used. Currently, many people doing risk assessments of sex offenders are using actuarial (statistical) tests developed in other countries or on unique populations, with offenders very different from the test-de...

In this article we examine the idea of expanding structured clinical judgement from primarily offender variables to a broader framework in which environmental (including staff) variables are given equal consideration in a comprehensive risk appraisal conducted for risk management purposes of intellectually disabled individuals. It is posited that o...

Many young sex offenders in South Africa have HIV/AIDS. This fact both complicates and underlines the importance of delivering effective multi-agency sex offender programmes to these individuals. Reducing reoffending rates is of obvious importance, as stopping these young offenders from offending also means limiting the spread of HIV to new victims...

The Personality Assessment Inventory's (PAI's) ability to predict psychopathic personality features, as assessed by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), was examined. To investigate whether the PAI Antisocial Features (ANT) Scale and subscales possessed incremental validity beyond other theoretically relevant PAI scales, optimized regression...

While there is no convergence of opinion in the academic literature, many clinicians have already adopted a convergent approach to risk assessment, whether through deliberate adoption of complementary instruments or through informal clinical modification of risk assessment instrument findings. The present paper suggests that a convergent approach t...

This study compared the predictive validity of multiple indices of violence risk among 188 general population criminal offenders: Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20 (HCR-20) Violence Risk Assessment Scheme, Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG), Violent Offender Risk Assessment Scale (VORAS), Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), and Scree...

Gleaves and Hernandez have argued that skepticism about the validity of Freud's seduction theory, including by Powell and Boer, is largely unjustified. This paper contends that their analysis is in many ways both inaccurate and misleading. For example, we did not, as they implied, reject the possibility that some of Freud's early patients were vict...

Background There are no validated risk assessment tools for intellectually disabled (ID) sex offenders, with the exception of the work of Lindsay et al. [Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities (2004) 17: 267] regarding the prediction of risk for aggressive behaviour of ID offenders in residential settings. ID sex offenders compris...

The present study compares the ability of endorsement levels and "self" versus "other" (i.e., men-in-general) instructional sets to explain the presence of rape-supportive attitudes among rapists. Rapists' endorsement level of rape-supportive attitudes did not differ significantly from that of child molesters and nonsexual violent offenders. In con...

In this study, the relationship between psychopathy and the prepetration of sexual homicide was investigated. The official file descriptions of sexual homicides committed by 18 psychopathic and 20 nonpsychopathic Canadian offenders were coded (by coders unaware of Psychopathy Checklist--Revised [PCL--R] scores) for characteristics of the victim, vi...

Four actuarial instruments for the prediction of violent and sexual reoffending (the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide [VRAG], Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide [SORAG], Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offender Recidivism [RRASOR] and Static-99) were evaluated in 4 samples of sex offenders (N = 396). Although all 4 instruments predicted violent (includin...

Using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991) diagnostic cutoff score of 30, the complete criminal career and community release profiles of 317 Canadian federal offenders (224 low scorers and 93 scoring within the psychopathic range) were investigated. Adult crimes were coded according to age at commission as well as either viol...

Development of a comprehensive typology for the classification of sexual offenders has important implications for both risk prediction and treatment. To date, the most comprehensive typological system has been developed by Knight and Prentky (1990). These authors have developed typologies for both child molesters and rapists. The system for rapists...

The Abel and Becker Cognition Scale (ABCS) measures cognitive distortions supportive of sexually assaultive behavior by child molesters. Research has shown that ABCS items may be too complex to be comprehended by offenders with intellectual disabilities. A modification of the ABCS to increase its readability may be one way to facilitate the valid a...