Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

SEXUALVIOLENCE

RISK–20 (SVR–20)

The Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20) is a set of

structured professional judgment guidelines for con-

ducting sexual violence risk assessments in criminal and

civil forensic contexts. The SVR–20 is not a quantitative

test that yields norm-referenced or criterion-referenced

scores. Rather, it was developed as an aide mémoire to

help systematize the risk assessment of individuals who

(allegedly) have committed an act of sexual violence.

More important, the concept of risk assessed by

SVR–20 is not limited to likelihood of a new offense, as

is commonly the case in actuarial (i.e., statistically

based) tests. Other aspects of risk, such as level of vic-

tim harm, victim specificity, frequency, imminence, and

likelihood are also addressable by this instrument.

Development

The SVR–20 comprises 20 items or factors considered

to be minimally comprehensive in a sexual violence

risk assessment. These items were gleaned from a sys-

tematic review of the scientific and professional litera-

ture in the area of sexual violence, sex offender

recidivism, and sexual offender treatment. The guide-

lines for assessment and treatment of sexual offenders

proposed by many different jurisdictions were also

examined. The 20 factors selected for inclusion in the

SVR–20 are divided into three domains: Psychosocial

Adjustment, Sexual Offenses, and Future Plans.

The Psychosocial Adjustment section comprises

factors that are primarily historical in nature but also

relate to current functioning. These factors include

sexual deviation, victimization as a child, psychopa-

thy, major mental illness, substance use problems, sui-

cidal/homicidal ideation, relationship problems,

employment problems, past nonsexual violent

offenses, past nonviolent offenses, and past supervi-

sion failures. Clearly, some of these factors are more

stable than others (e.g., past offenses), and some of

these factors are more related to current functioning

(e.g., substance use problems).

The Sexual Offenses section comprises items that

are all related to the person’s historical and current sex-

ual offenses. These factors include high-density sex

offenses, multiple (types of) sex offenses, physical

harm to victim(s) in sex offenses, use of weapons or

threats of death in sex offenses, escalation in frequency

or severity of sex offenses, extreme minimization or

denial of sex offenses, and attitudes that support or con-

done sex offenses.

The Future Plans section comprises 2 items: lacks

realistic plans and negative attitude toward intervention.

The assessor may also include “other considera-

tions” unique to the individual case that are consid-

ered to be important to the determination of risk.

Administration

Administration of the SVR–20 begins with a gather-

ing of relevant information. The manual contains rec-

ommendations concerning what information to gather

and how to gather it. Evaluators then rate the lifetime

presence of the 20 standard risk factors as well as any

case-specific risk factors identified. A brief definition

of each risk factor is included in the manual. Next,

evaluators rate recent change in the risk factors to

identify whether there has been any increase or

decrease over time in the risks associated with each.

After rating the presence of individual risk factors,

evaluators make an overall judgment of risk that is

meant to reflect the level of intervention required to

manage risk in the case. For example, people are

judged to be “low risk” when evaluators believe they

require minimal intervention (e.g., monitoring),

“moderate risk” when evaluators believe they require

enhanced intervention (e.g., a high-intensity sex

offender treatment group, frequent reporting to a pro-

bation officer), and “high risk” when evaluators

believe the person requires urgent or extreme inter-

vention (e.g., incapacitation, supervised residence,

emergency treatment).

Critique

Content Validity. The SVR–20 has been criticized

because its items vary greatly in terms of the extent to

which they are associated with the probability of recidi-

vistic sexual violence, according to meta-analytic

research. For example, factors such as high-density sex-

ual offenses, sexual deviation, and attitudes supportive of

offending are reasonably well established as predictors

of recidivism in sexual offenders, whereas physical harm

to victim(s), extreme minimization or denial, and nega-

tive attitude toward treatment are not. But the latter fac-

tors were included because they can be very important in

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