Treatment Satisfaction in a Civil Commitment Facility for Sexually Violent Persons

Evaluating patient satisfaction in therapeutic settings is consistent with a Risk–Needs–Responsivity (RNR) model. This study provides results from a program improvement initiative in a sexually violent person (SVP) civil commitment facility that queried patients and treatment providers about their satisfaction with therapeutic processes and assessment methods. Overall, patients reported high levels of satisfaction with treatment at the facility, with the highest levels of satisfaction on items about being treated with kindness and respect and staff acting professionally. Providers rated current assessment methods such as the Penile Plethysmography (PPG) assessment, polygraph testing, and neuropsychological testing as most helpful for patients in treatment progress; however, patients rated PPG assessment and polygraph testing as the least helpful of the assessments conducted. Soliciting patient feedback periodically could be important for maintaining treatment engagement and discovering opportunities to enhance patient satisfaction to treatment in a SVP civil commitment setting.

Agreement Between Courts and SVP Evaluators in the State of Wisconsin

The study compares agreement between Department of Health Services (DHS) evaluator’s opinions and court decisions in all 132 sexually violent person (SVP) trials in Wisconsin from 2012 through 2016. Previous research on mock jurors in simulated SVP cases may not extend to real-world SVP legal proceedings. This is the first study to directly compare evaluator opinions with court decisions in actual SVP commitment cases. Trial courts found 81% of participants to be an SVP (SVP+). Courts agreed with the DHS evaluator’s opinion in 67% of the cases, which represents slight to fair agreement beyond chance. Trial courts agreed with evaluators’ SVP+ opinions far more than they did with evaluators’ SVP– (not SVP) opinions. The rates of SVP+ opinions differed widely among DHS evaluators. The implications for public policy and forensic practice are discussed.

The 2015 Static-99R: Alternative Recidivism Tables for High-Risk Offenders

The Static-99R is an actuarial scale that is commonly used to assess the recidivism risk of male sex offenders. Hanson, Thornton, Helmus, and Babchishin recently revised the Static-99R norms based on revised analyses that excluded the large Bridgewater sample. As a result, the sample size of the high risk/high need (HR/HN) group was reduced substantially, which increased the confidence intervals around the predicted recidivism rates. This study provides alternative 5- and 10-year recidivism rates based on logistic regression analyses of the entire 2009 Static-99R HR/HN group that includes the Bridgewater sample. These rates fit the observed 2009 data well and have smaller confidence intervals. We propose that using alternative sexual recidivism rates from the 2009 HR/HN group is a viable option for assessing sexually violent person (SVP) and other high-risk offenders.

Diagnostic Profiles of Civilly Committed Sexual Offenders in Illinois and Other Reporting Jurisdictions

The records of 377 men civilly committed under Illinois’ Sexually Violent Persons Act were compared with similar published samples from seven other states. Civilly committed sexual offenders in Illinois were more likely to be diagnosed with any personality disorder and more likely to exceed the cutoff score for psychopathy than similar offenders in other states. The authors then present a national composite of demographic, victim, and diagnostic information on men referred or pursued for civil commitment in eight states to better understand how these individuals differ from sex offender populations in correctional settings. Results suggest that there may be less victim specificity in sexually violent person (SVP) populations, as although nearly 50% of SVPs are diagnosed with pedophilia, 80% had committed at least one sexual offense against a child or adolescent victim. Across all samples, 72.7% of SVPs were diagnosed with a personality disorder, with antisocial personality disorder the most prevalent.