imminent sexual re-offense. These instruments should be
used to inform correctional managers as to how much
risk they are managing, inform decisions on levels of
community treatment and supervision, and estimate
changes in risk status pre- and posttreatment or other
interventions.
In the late 1990s, Karl Hanson and Andrew Harris
began to investigate the relationship between sexual
recidivism and dynamic, changeable, risk factors that
correlated with sexual recidivism. This work pro-
duced the Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating
(SONAR) assessment, which demonstrated adequate
internal consistency and a moderate ability to differ-
entiate sexual recidivists from nonrecidivists.
Extending this work, Hanson and Harris broke the
SONAR into two parts, creating a stable measure of
dynamic risk, STABLE–2000 (16 items), and an acute
measure of dynamic risk, ACUTE–2000 (8 items).
To test these new instruments, Hanson and Harris
instituted a prospective study, the Dynamic Supervision
Project, involving every Canadian province and terri-
tory and the states of Alaska and Iowa in a robust test
of risk assessment methodologies. A total of 156 parole
and probation officers completed repeated three-level
(static, stable, and acute) risk assessments on 997 sex-
ual offenders across 16 jurisdictions. All the probation
and parole officers scoring risk of re-offense for these
community-based sexual offenders were trained in sex-
ual offender risk assessment by attending a 2-day train-
ing that focused on scoring actual case examples.
Sexual, violent, and “other” recidivism information
was gathered from official criminal histories after a
median of 41 months of follow-up. Results showed that
both STABLE–2000 and ACUTE–2000 added predic-
tive validity above that demonstrated by STATIC–99
alone. The sexual recidivism rate for this widely dis-
parate group of community-based sexual offenders was
7.6% after 3 years (n = 790). Empirically based
changes in scoring were recommended, and this
research led to the development of two improved
dynamic risk measures, the STABLE–2007 and
ACUTE–2007 instruments.
STABLE–2007 assesses 13 stable risk factors that
have been shown to correlate with sexual recidivism:
significant social influences, capacity for relationship
stability, emotional identification with children, hostility
toward women, general social rejection, lack of concern
for others, impulsivity, poor problem-solving skills,
negative emotionality, sex drive and preoccupations, sex
as coping, deviant sexual preference, and cooperationwith supervision. Each of these 13 items are scored on a
3-point scale (0 =no problem evident, 1 =some problem
evident,and 2 =significant problem evident) for a total
of 26 possible points. Emotional identification with
children is not scored for those offenders who do not
have a child victim, and the scale is subsequently
scored out of 24 points for that group. The offender’s
STATIC–99 score is then combined with his STABLE–
2007 score to produce percentage estimates of sexual
recidivism, sexual recidivism plus sexual breaches,
violent recidivism, any criminal recidivism (breaches
excluded), and any criminal recidivism including
breaches at 1, 2, 3, and 4 years.
ACUTE–2007 assesses seven acute, rapidly changing
risk factors that correlate with sexual recidivism. In this
scale, there are two factors. The first factor predicts sex-
ual and violent re-offending and uses the following four
risk factors: victim access, hostility, sexual preoccupa-
tion, and rejection of supervision. The second factor
predicts general criminal recidivism using the aforemen-
tioned four factors plus emotional collapse, collapse of
social supports, and substance abuse for a total of seven
items. Each of these seven items is scored on a 4-point
scale (0 =no problem evident, 1 =some problem evident,
2 =significant problem evident,and IN =intervene now)
for a total of 14 possible points. An “Intervene Now”
score calls for immediate intervention to prevent immi-
nent re-offense or supervision catastrophes such as sui-
cide. Once ACUTE–2007 has been scored, this outcome
is combined with the offender’s STATIC–99/
STABLE–2007 score to estimate an overall risk priority.
The offender is nominally classified as a low, moderate,
or high risk for sexual and violent recidivism and as a
low, moderate, or high risk for general criminal recidi-
vism. Appropriate, empirically based risk ratios can then
be applied to determine intervention priority.
The STABLE–2007 and the ACUTE–2007 instru-
ments are easier to score than their predecessors, and
combinations of the STATIC–99 and STABLE–2007
instruments produced receiver operating characteristic
(ROC) curve values for sexual re-offense commonly
in the 0.76 range. When used by “conscientious” offi-
cers, the STATIC–99/STABLE–2007 combined
scores produced an ROC for sexual re-offense of 0.84
and 0.80 for violent recidivism. STABLE–2007 and
ACUTE–2007 assessments were found to add predic-
tive power above and beyond that available to assess-
ments of static risk alone.
This study provides further evidence that trained
community supervision officers can reliably score valid752 ———STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 InstrumentsS-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:44 PM Page 752