TY - JOUR PY - 2011// TI - Risk assessment with female sex offenders: Can women meet the criteria of community protection laws? JO - Journal of sexual aggression A1 - Vess, James SP - 77 EP - 91 VL - 17 IS - 1 N2 - Although females represent a small proportion of the sex offender population, they occasionally appear before the courts under the current generation of laws intended to protect the public from high-risk sex offenders. In this context, practitioners are called upon to provide assessment of the risk these women pose for sexual re-offending. The primary issues addressed in this paper are related to the validity of conducting such risk assessments and providing professional opinions as to the risk of further sexual offences that may be committed by female offenders. The approach taken is to summarize briefly the available professional literature regarding female sex offenders, and then to present the findings of the relatively few empirical studies that address sexual recidivism in females. The final section examines the positions taken in the published works of various international experts regarding risk assessment with females, followed by conclusions and recommendations in light of the standards typically prescribed by community protection laws.

LA - en SN - 1355-2600 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2010.528844 ID - ref1 ER -