Examining the Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol (RSVP) and its Association with Recidivism Risk

Abstract

The present study serves to examine association between items from the Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol (RSVP) and general, violent, and sexual recidivism risk. Police-reported sexual assaults were reviewed and retroactively coded, and the resulting sample included 201 male sex-offenders. Given the sparseness of the available information from police files, a modified 5-item version of the RSVP was used and the items were summed. We found significant results for all three outcomes (i.e., charges for any new offense, any new violent offense, and any new sexually violent offense). We also examined the individual 5 items, and significant results were found across all three recidivism outcomes, with only one item demonstrating significance in general, violent, and sexually violent recidivism. Furthermore, items related to Sexual Violence History significantly predicted new sexually violent charges. The study validates only a portion of the measure, and caution should remain regarding overall utility. Further research is required in this area due to the lack of published data regarding the instrument’s predictive validity.

Faculty Mentor: Sandy Jung

Department: Psychology