| 11/03/2003 Simple risk tool
incorrect for non-European offenders.
In a new study that will soon be published in the journal Sexual
Abuse, senior lecturer Niklas Långström from CVP shows
that simple risk assessment tools used for sexual offence recidivism
can produce totally incorrect results if used on individuals with
a non-European background.
The RRASOR and Static-99 risk tools work relatively well for the
actuarial risk assessments of a return to sexual and violent offences
among Nordic (including Swedish) and other European convicted sexual
offenders that served sentences in Swedish prison between 1993 and
1997. However, these tools were useless for the risk assessment
of reoffence of non-European men that had committed a sexual offence.
Långström asserts that these results highlight the importance
of developing models to understand, assess and prevent a relapse
to violent crime that also work satisfactorily for groups of non-European
offenders. The majority of research behind risk tools such as these
has been based on individuals of North American or European origin.
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