Citation

Olver ME, Beggs Christofferson SM, Nicholaichuk TP, Wong SCP. Assessment 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1073191120914405

PMID

32336112

Abstract

The present study examined the discrimination and calibration properties of Violence Risk Scale-Sexual Offense version (VRS-SO) risk and change scores for sexual and violent recidivism as a function of age at release, on a combined sample of 1,287 men who had attended sexual offense-specific treatment services. The key aim was to examine to what extent VRS-SO scores can accurately discriminate recidivists from nonrecidivists among older cohorts, and if the existing age-related adjustments in the instrument adequately correct for increasing age. VRS-SO risk and change scores showed consistent properties of discrimination for sexual recidivism across the age cohorts, via area under the curve and Cox regression survival analysis, as demonstrated through fixed effects meta-analysis. Calibration analyses, employing logistic regression, demonstrated that age at release was consistently incrementally predictive of violent, but not sexual, recidivism after controlling for individual differences on static and dynamic risk factors. E/O index analyses demonstrated that predicted rates of sexual recidivism from VRS-SO scores, particularly when employed with Static-99R, were not significantly different from those observed among age cohorts; however, calibration was weaker for general violence. Implications for use of the VRS-SO in sexual recidivism risk assessment with older offenders are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

VRS-SO; age; change; risk assessment; sexual recidivism