Denying individual liberty on the basis of community protection requires a
defensible mechanism for identifying those sex offenders likely to reoffend
. Reliance on expert opinion has become routine, even when such opinions ha
ve limited accuracy. Careful attention to the empirical literature, however
, has the potential to improve risk assessments for sexual offenders. This
article describes different approaches to risk assessment, summarizes the e
mpirical literature on individual risk factors, and reviews recent attempts
to create actuarial risk scales for sex offense recidivism. A number of hi
storical and highly stable predictor variables have been documented (e.g.,
offense history and deviant sexual preferences), but the research on dynami
c (changeable) risk factors has been limited. Consequently, the research is
more useful for identifying high-risk offenders than for determining when
they could be safely released into the community.