NCJ Number
169939
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 21 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1997) Pages: 231-241
Date Published
1997
Length
11 pages
Annotation
A cross-validation of the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG) was performed on a sample of 159 child molesters and rapists who were followed for an average of 10 years at risk.
Abstract
The performance of the instrument was also examined on a 10- year follow-up of 288 sex offenders that included both those in the original construction sample for the VRAG and the validation sample. The instrument performed as well as it had in construction for predicting violent recidivism in both the cross- validation and extended follow-up samples, and moderately well in the prediction of sexual recidivism. Survival analyses showed that child molesters exhibited higher risk of sexual recidivism than rapists or offenders against both children and adults; whereas, the opposite was true for violent recidivism. As predicted, psychopathy and phallometrically determined sexual deviance exhibited a multiplicative interaction effect on sexual recidivism. Proportional-hazards-event-history analyses supported the use of the VRAG for the prediction of violent recidivism among sex offenders. 2 figures and 25 references