Considerable attention has focussed on identifying individual factors associated with, or
predictive of, sexual offending (e.g., Efta-Breitbach & Freeman, 2004). In light of these
individual factors, clinicians and researchers have developed standardized instruments for
assessing the risk posed by sexually offending youth. Two such instruments are the Juvenile Sex
Offender Assessment Protocol-II (J-SOAP-II; Prentky & Righthand, 2003) and the Estimate of
Risk of Adolescent Sexual Offence Recidivism Version 2.0 (ERASOR-II; Worling & Curwen,
2001). In addition to individual factors, research on crime has demonstrated that structural
factors within the community may be important determinants of sexual and non-sexual offending
(e.g., McCarthy, 1991; Ouimet, 1999; Shaw & McKay, 1942; Wirth, 1938). Therefore, the
purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to compare the psychometric properties of two newly
developed risk assessment instruments (i.e., J-SOAP-II and ERASOR-II) and (b) to use the better
instrument to compare the levels of risk posed by sexually offending youth in 3 neighbouring,
but diverse communities. Using file information, the J-SOAP-II and ERASOR-II were scored on
84 adolescent males between the ages of 11 and 20 years who had committed a sexual offence
and received treatment at Youth Forensic Psychiatric Services (YFPS) in the Greater Vancouver
Area (GVA; n = 30), Central Okanagan (CO; n = 26), and Thompson Nicola region (TN; n =
28). Calculations of interrater reliability and item-total correlations indicated that the J-SOAP-II
was a better assessment instrument for this sample of offenders. Consequently, further regional
analysis of risk was conducted using the J-SOAP-II data. Results indicated that although there
were no regional differences among the severity and history of sexual offending, TN youth
generally had a greater number of risk factors than did youth in CO and GVA. Specifically,
youth in TN were found to be higher risk in the areas of intervention, general problem behaviour,
iii
and family/environment dynamics. These results suggest that to better understand youth who
commit sexual offences and to provide appropriate prevention and intervention strategies for
individual offenders and their communities, youth should not be evaluated in isolation from their
social and community context. Recommendations for practice are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/3097 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Schoenfeld, Tara McKenzie |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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