Motivation to Develop the ERASOR
Three events occurred in 1999 that motivated me to develop a risk assessment tool—and guidelines for risk assessment—for adolescents who had offended sexually. First, in my role as a clinician and researcher at the Sexual Abuse: Family Education and Treatment Program (SAFE-T) in Toronto (www.safe-tprogram.org), I had recidivism data from a 10-year, prospective treatment follow-up study for a sample of adolescent males and females who had offended sexually (Worling & Curwen, 2000; Worling, Litteljohn, & Bookalam, 2010). At that time, there were very few studies regarding risk factors for adolescent sexual recidivism, so this was an opportunity to look at our sample to determine which factors might be related to future risk—in addition, of course, to an examination of the impact of specialized treatment.
The second event in 1999 was the release of the Static-99 by Karl Hanson and David Thornton: a brief, actuarial scale to estimate risk of sexual recidivism for adult males (www.static99.org). Despite the authors’ cautions regarding the use of the tool with individuals under age 18, the SAFE-T Program began to receive many referrals from local evaluators where 12- to 16-year-old youth were being rated as “high risk” using the Static-99. Of course, 2 of the 10 risk factors on the Static-99 (young age, never lived with a lover for at least 2 years) were always present for these youth, and this very likely inflated the risk estimates.
The third—and most influential—event that occurred in 1999 was related to a risk assessment that we completed 10 years earlier. In 1989, we assessed an adolescent male who had offended sexually, and we concluded that he was a high risk to reoffend—based on our team’s unstructured clinical judgment. It should be pointed out that, in 1989, there was virtually no guidance from published research regarding risk assessments for this population, and most professionals relied on unstructured clinical judgment. Ten years later—in 1999—this young man was a father of a young boy. A child protection worker had some questions about the care of this young child and, in their search through various dated file documents, they found the 10-year-old risk assessment. The child protection worker then decided to take the young boy away from his parents and place him in foster care. After our battle with child protection authorities regarding the inappropriateness of this action, I thought that it would be essential to (i) develop an empirically-informed approach to providing risk estimates for adolescents who had sexually offended, and (ii) provide guidelines for communicating risk estimates. It was our hope that the ERASOR would help to address these goals.
James R. Worling
The second event in 1999 was the release of the Static-99 by Karl Hanson and David Thornton: a brief, actuarial scale to estimate risk of sexual recidivism for adult males (www.static99.org). Despite the authors’ cautions regarding the use of the tool with individuals under age 18, the SAFE-T Program began to receive many referrals from local evaluators where 12- to 16-year-old youth were being rated as “high risk” using the Static-99. Of course, 2 of the 10 risk factors on the Static-99 (young age, never lived with a lover for at least 2 years) were always present for these youth, and this very likely inflated the risk estimates.
The third—and most influential—event that occurred in 1999 was related to a risk assessment that we completed 10 years earlier. In 1989, we assessed an adolescent male who had offended sexually, and we concluded that he was a high risk to reoffend—based on our team’s unstructured clinical judgment. It should be pointed out that, in 1989, there was virtually no guidance from published research regarding risk assessments for this population, and most professionals relied on unstructured clinical judgment. Ten years later—in 1999—this young man was a father of a young boy. A child protection worker had some questions about the care of this young child and, in their search through various dated file documents, they found the 10-year-old risk assessment. The child protection worker then decided to take the young boy away from his parents and place him in foster care. After our battle with child protection authorities regarding the inappropriateness of this action, I thought that it would be essential to (i) develop an empirically-informed approach to providing risk estimates for adolescents who had sexually offended, and (ii) provide guidelines for communicating risk estimates. It was our hope that the ERASOR would help to address these goals.
James R. Worling
