Behavioral Monitoring of Sexual Offenders Against Children in Virtual Risk Situations: A Feasibility Study

The decision about unsupervised privileges for sexual offenders against children (SOC) is one of the most difficult decisions for practitioners in forensic high-security hospitals. Facing the possible consequences of the decision for the society, a valid and reliable risk management of SOCs is essential. Some risk management approaches provide frameworks for the construction of relevant future risk situations. Due to ethical reasons, it is not possible to evaluate the validity of constructed risk situations in reality. The aim of the study was to test if behavioral monitoring of SOCs in high-immersive virtual risk situations provides additional information for risk management. Six SOCs and seven non-offender controls (NOC) walked through three virtual risk situations, confronting the participant with a virtual child character. The participant had to choose between predefined answers representing approach or avoidance behavior. Frequency of chosen answers were analyzed in regards to knowledge of the participants about coping skills and coping skills focused during therapy. SOCs and NOCs behavior differed only in one risk scenario. Furthermore, SOCs showed in 89% of all cases a behavior not corresponding to their own belief about adequate behavior in comparable risk situations. In 62% of all cases, SOCs behaved not corresponding to coping skills they stated that therapists focused on during therapy. In 50% of all cases, SOCs behaved in correspondence to coping skills therapists stated that they focused on during therapy. Therapists predicted the behavior of SOCs in virtual risk situations incorrect in 25% of all cases. Thus, virtual risk scenarios provide the possibility for practitioners to monitor the behavior of SOCs and to test their decisions on unsupervised privileges without endangering the community. This may provide additional information for therapy progress. Further studies are necessary to evaluate the predictive and ecological validity of behavioral monitoring in virtual risk situations for real life situations.