Suggested adaptations to the SVR-20 for offenders with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

While there are a number of well-researched structured professional judgement (SPJ) instruments available for risk assessment purposes of violent and sexual offenders, none of these instruments provide explicit rules for the differential assessment of intellectually disabled (ID) offenders. That is, there are no generally accepted guidelines for the application of the standard items in commonly used SPJ instruments to ID clients. As a result, researchers and clinicians who have found evidence that SPJ instruments are valid with ID offenders have adapted the items in these instruments in idiosyncratic ways and to date have not always been clear as to how this was done for the purposes of their research. The present chapter aims to provide some guidelines for the use of the Sexual Violence Risk-20 (SVR-20) with ID individuals who have been charged with, or convicted of, sexually violent crimes. Furthermore, we would also propose that the principles and strategies elucidated in this chapter applied in risk assessment of offenders with ID could potentially be adapted to provide an assessment framework for people with ID who, though not ever (or at least not to date) involved in the criminal justice system, exhibit sexual behaviours labelled as challenging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)