Psychological Assessment Procedures in Sex Offending

While keeping in mind current psychological guidelines and legal criteria for psychological assessment activities, the author presents a 6-part framework for organizing and approaching the questions commonly asked in assessments related to sex offending: general psychological characteristics, deviant sexual interests, risk of reoffense, amenability to treatment, self-serving misrepresentation, and fit with specific formal criteria. Specialized instruments for sex offender assessments have little demonstrated empirical validity, although several active research programs related to risk assessment show promise. Recent proposals for the use of multistep and decision-making models also hold promise for increasing the quality of assessment procedures.