Examining Paedophilia: A Practical Skills Assessment and Risk Analysis

This report provides a summary regarding paedophilia, defining it as a psychiatric disorder often linked to traumatic childhood experiences, where adults are primarily sexually attracted to prepubescent children. It highlights the role of mental health professionals and risk assessment tools in gathering psychological information from alleged sex offenders. The report emphasizes that demographics do not define paedophilia; instead, behavioral patterns are key indicators. It discusses various risk assessment tools and methods, such as the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offence Recidivism (RRASOR) and the Sex Offence Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG), along with clinical methods like the Psychopathy checklist. The importance of strong coordination among agencies and the development of innovative strategies for prevention are underscored. The report also addresses treatment approaches, emphasizing the significance of admitting guilt and the potential of sex offender treatment programs in reducing recidivism and managing offenders.

EX1 Practical Exam Practical
Skills Assessment

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Summary regarding the paedophiles...............................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Summary regarding the paedophiles
Paedophiles is basically a psychiatric disorder and is considered to be a distressing one. It is
also triggered by the traumatic experiences which are faced in childhood. In this disorder, the
older adolescent or the adult experiences an exclusive or primary sexual attraction towards the
prepubescent children. Various mental health professionals spend their lot of time to interview
the alleged and convicted sex offenders and the molesters but they also depend upon the
measurement or the risk assessment tools for gathering the psychological information which is
sometimes not shared by the patients. In order to answer the questions asked, the clinicians make
use of various tools such as polygraph and the plethysmograph.
In these kinds of tests, the administration becomes hard and invasive and along with these
tests, the Abel Assessment test helps in developing a questionnaire and viewing the pictures on
the computer screen. The best way to deal with this problem or the people facing this problem,
for the public as well as the government is the risk assessment which means to calculate the
occurrence probability of the behaviour which is harmful and analysing its impact on the target.
This was observed from one such video that the demographics do not decide the problem of
paedophiles or profile them (Jordan and et.al., 2020). It is just decided by the behavioural
patterns. For example, the adults spending a lot of time with children might get attracted to them
and develops closer relationship with them.
Therefore, the target group is not decided by the demographics or nationality but by the
behavioural patterns which can be examined by these above mentioned tools. The simplest
approach for the initial risk assessment is referencing the factors which help in creating the
resilience or undermining it for children. Then these are mapped along the vulnerability and risk
matrix. In these matrices, the sexual abuse and the exploitation must also be considered.
Various factors need to be considered while assessing the risk such as factors which creates
resilience in the child and develops a protective environment, factors which create adversity,
vulnerability and after evaluating these; the children are given numbers or values from 1 to 5
where 1 is the weakest and 5 is the strongest (Wittström and et.al., 2020). According to this, the
children are plotted on the matrix which includes the quadrants in which the child can be
accessed.
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Figure 1: Quadrants of risk assessment matrix
Source: Risk Assessment Tools, 2021
This can be clearly identified from the above figure that the children who are assessed to be in
quadrant 4 are the most vulnerable and therefore needs to have a safety plan to enhance the
protective factors which can help in promoting resilience. This matrix can be used with the
colleagues, family members or anyone with whom this needs to be done at any point of time.
There are various methods or tools such as Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offence Recidivism
(RRASOR), The Sex Offence Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG), The Risk Matrix 2000 and many
more (McPhail and et.al., 2020). The RRASOR identifies the large groups of low risk offenders
and small groups of high risk offenders whereas the Static 99 which is combination of RRASOR
and SACJ mainly focuses on the male offenders of sex such as the male victims, unrelated
victims, strangers victims, never married and many more.
There are also various clinical methods also such as Psychopathy checklist, Sexual Violence
Risk etc. which are conducted in the psychiatric hospitals by the method of evaluating and
interviewing the responses of the sex offenders but these are not the actuarial methods but can
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examine the impact of the external factors on the harmful behaviour. For managing the risk by
the sex offenders to the society, various agencies are established in which there must be strong
coordination between the participants contributing in the prevention of sex offences. New and
innovative strategies must be made for measuring the efficacy of the actions to be taken.
The causes of this problem of paedophilia are not yet completely determined, so there is lack of
action to treat this disorder. The main aim of the treatment is reducing the danger of the
recidivism (Kämpf, 2020). The major step in the treatment of the sex offenders is admitting the
guilt. This is significant as the offenders are persuaded in the treatment and empathized with the
victim along with quelling the physiological and psychological characteristics of this disorder.
The Sex offender treatment programme can also prove to be the best model in case of severity.
This is how the risk assessment tools can be used in identifying the risks and managing the
offenders in this situation of assessing the population or the problem.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Jordan, K. and et.al., 2020. Are there any biomarkers for pedophilia and sexual child abuse? A
review. Frontiers in psychiatry. 10. p.940.
Kämpf, K.M., 2020. Pedophilia Screening in Technosecurity Culture The Construction of
Dangerous Sub-populations in the Name of Security. Science as Culture. 29(1). pp.127-
152.
McPhail, I.V. and et.al., 2020. Convergent and predictive associations of three measures of
pedophilic interest. Sexual Abuse, p.1079063220968042.
Wittström, F. and et.al., 2020. Risk factors for sexual offending in self-referred men with
pedophilic disorder: a Swedish case-control study. Frontiers in psychology. 11.
Online
Risk Assessment Tools, 2021. [ONLINE]. Available through :<
http://iscp.gg/article/167411/Risk-Assessment-Tools >
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