The use of the RSV - 20 in a Forensic Sample : A Research Note

The assessment of sexual offenders commonly requires the use of structured assessment tools or actuarial devices. The current study reports on 27 defendants assessed on the Sexual Violence Risk-20 protocol, 18 of whom were found guilty or pleaded guilty. Nine of the 20 variables making up the SVR-20, significantly discriminated between the guilty and not-guilty defendants. The RSV-20 was not designed to provide aggregate scores or to be used as a dimensional measure. However, when computing aggregate scores the RSV-20 did not discriminate between the groups and none of the 3 broad clusters of behaviours discriminated between the groups. It is noticeable that static factors, in general, were more predictive than dynamic factors, between the two groups.