Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law

In recent years the debate surrounding sexual offenders has developed into a highly divisive political issue. As a result, research on sexual delinquency and relapse has strongly increased. This research has however centered almost exclusively on adult sexual offenders. It is only of late that juvenile and adolescent sexual offenders have also fallen within the scope of this research: presumably as it is now abundantly clear that juvenile and adolescent sexual offenders carry out a significant number of sexual offences. More than any other characteristics, the twin biological factors of age and sex affect these criminal offences. Moreover, juvenile and adolescent sexual offenders represent a serious problem for society as there is a real danger that their actions will develop into a pattern of life-long deviant behavior. That said, in dealing with young sexual offenders crucial psychological changes can still be achieved through appropriate and timely intervention.

For the first time in Germany the project applied a number of Anglo-American actuarial instruments to predict recidivism on young German offenders. The predictive validity of the instruments was measured and compared in an effort to determine how successful they were in improving risk and recidivism prognoses in a German context.

The retrospective design of the project examined a sample group of juvenile and adolescent sexual offenders who were tried and convicted in accordance with German criminal law and who were released from custody between 2000 and 2002. The investigation was conducted through the use of data entry questionnaire specifically developed for the research project. The questionnaires relied on an analysis of the offender’s personnel documents, whereby biographical and clinical data, the nature and seriousness of the offence (characteristics of the offender and the victim) as well as social surroundings were also considered. A number of different actuarial risk assessment instruments were used: the Juvenile Sex Offender Assessment Protocol II (J-SOAP-II; Prentky & Righthand, 2003) and the Estimate of Risk of Adolescent Sexual Offense Recidivism (ERASOR; Worling & Curwen, 2001). The applicability of Static-99 on young offenders was also tested. In addition, the following instruments were applied to measure predictive validity in relation to general and violent recidivism: Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI; Hoge & Andrews, 2006), Manual for the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY; Borum, Bartel & Forth, 2003) and Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV; Forth, Kosson & Hare, 2003). A comparative group was formed from violent juvenile offenders who have not committed sexual assaults. The comparison between sexual and violent offenders made it possible to determine the specific characteristics of juvenile and adolescent sexual delinquency.

The study was conducted in a selected number of juvenile correctional facilities in Germany. The total sample consisted of 294 young offenders. Table 1 provides a breakdown of the sample.

The rates of recidivism of the sample group were obtained with the help of official government records from 2008 so that the validity of the different instruments could be tested over an 80 month period. Five different recidivism criteria were covered: general recidivism, recidivism with detention, recidivism with detention of more than two years, violent recidivism and sexual recidivism. Table 2 provides a breakdown of the rates of recidivism.

The Anglo-American prognostic instruments achieved a fair to good result when applied to the German sample. Offenders whom the instruments considered high risk where in fact more likely to offender sooner than those considered low risk. The results confirm the predictive validity and applicability of the Anglo-American prognostic instruments in the German context.

The dissertation was supervised by Dr. Klaus-Peter Dahle [E-Mail] from the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry, Charité – Universitätsmedizin, Berlin.