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Critical Reflections on the Risk-Based Prevention of Sexual Offending by Young People

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Contemporary Sex Offender Risk Management, Volume II

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society ((PSRCS))

Abstract

Contemporary understandings of youth offending and consequent youth justice practices in the Anglophone world have been driven by a specific risk discourse framed by the identification, measurement/assessment and prevention of risk of reoffending (reconviction) and committing serious harm to others, with ‘risk’ conceptualised as a series of statistical, quantifiable ‘factors’ amenable to targeted intervention. However, limited cogent evidence is available regarding the risk predictors for sexual offending by young people, which raises doubts over the validity of employing risk assessment and intervention models in this area.

This chapter will critically evaluate the discourse of risk within youth justice practice, particularly its animation through the ‘Risk Factor Prevention Paradigm’. Consequent risk-based youth justice will be evaluated as a practical yet reductionist exercise that over-simplifies and invalidates systemic responses to youth offending (especially sexual offending) through crude factorisation and aggregation of the complexity of risk and the individualisation of the responsibility for offending. Furthermore, these processes may result in the (inadvertent, yet exacerbated) labelling, stigmatisation and marginalisation of young people (arguably more so for those who sexually offend) due to a negative, deficit-focused, practitioner dominance and interventionist net-widening. These uncritical methods and their deleterious consequences are illustrated empirically by international ‘Risk Factor Research’ studies and illustrated practically by a case study example: the ‘Scaled Approach’ assessment and intervention framework in England and Wales. The chapter concludes with discussion of an emerging youth justice discourse known as ‘AssetPlus’, which offers a prospective, prosocial model of youth justice that significantly downplays the role of ‘risk factors’ and introduces a new focus on interactions, processes, meanings and practitioner discretion.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Stephen Case

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  1. Stephen Case
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Community and Criminal Justice, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Hazel Kemshall

  2. Dept of Criminology, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Kieran McCartan

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Case, S. (2017). Critical Reflections on the Risk-Based Prevention of Sexual Offending by Young People. In: Kemshall, H., McCartan, K. (eds) Contemporary Sex Offender Risk Management, Volume II. Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63573-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63573-6_3

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