Title: Risk Assessment | ATSA
Headings: 
Risk Assessment
Content: Important limitations must be kept in mind when considering available methods of risk assessment for future sex offending. For instance: The vast majority of actual sex offenses committed against youth and adults go unreported and undetected; consequently, all methods of assessing the risk of future sex offenses rely on re-arrests and reconvictions and produce substantial underestimates of relative risk. A prediction is limited by the length of time that identified sex offenders can and have been followed for study. Sex offenders of various types are a very heterogeneous group. The likelihood of a particular sex offender re-offending cannot be accurately predicted; rather, the field is limited to predicting the likelihood that a sex offender with particular characteristics may re-offend. Currently, there a number of ways of offering meaningful risk assessments of future sex offense recidivism. First, estimated base rates (for a particular follow-up period) can be used to establish a benchmark for the likelihood of general classes of sex offenders such as rapists or child molesters.