Civil Commitment and Risk Assessment in Perspective

• Published date: 01 August 2017
• Author: Jason Rydberg
• Date: 01 August 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12318

POLICY ESSAY

SEX OFFENDER CIVIL MANAGEMENT

Civil Commitment and Risk Assessment

in Perspective

Jason Rydberg

University of Massachusetts Lowell

Jeffrey Sandler and Naomi Freeman (2017, this issue) evaluate the accuracy of a civil

commitment1screening process for convicted sex offenders nearing release to commu-

nity supervision. Through a retrospective cohort-based design, Sandler and Freeman

demonstrate the predictive validity of the risk assessment process—offenders flagged for

additional stages of assessment exhibited incrementally higher rates of sexual rearrest in the

community.At a time when criminologists have no lack of opportunities to highlight the in-

effectiveness of sweeping sex offender policies such as registration, community notification,

and residence restrictions (e.g., Ackerman, Sacks, and Greenberg, 2012; Huebner et al.,

2014; Ragusa-Salerno and Zgoba, 2012; Socia, 2014; Socia and Rydberg, 2016; Zgoba

et al., 2016), it is energizing to recognize the relative successes of components of specific

state and local practices (see also Duwe and Donnay, 2008). And yet, given the logic and

form of the screening policy that they evaluated, Sandler and Freeman are right to note

that “[t]he fact that civil management screening in New York State seems to be accurate is

not surprising.” That is, there are well-documented reasons for why programs like the one

described here are somewhat successful in identifying sex offenders at the highest risk of

recidivism, and for why other classification systems, such as the Adam Walsh Act (AWA)

of 2006, produce misleading conclusions about which offenders pose the greatest risk to

public safety (Zgoba et al., 2016).

This essay provides some further considerations on the policy implications of Sandler

and Freeman’s (2017) article. Specifically, although the risk screening practices described

The author would like to thank Jim Byrne and Eric Grommon for their insightful feedback on an earlier draft of

this essay. Direct correspondence to Jason Rydberg, School of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of

Massachusetts Lowell, 113 Wilder Street, Lowell, MA 01854 (e-mail: Jason_Rydberg@uml.edu).

1. Given the relative uniqueness of the direct release to the community option in the legislation described

in the Sandler and Freeman article (it is worth noting that Texas uses outpatient civil commitment as

well [Texas Civil Commitment Office (TCCO), 2016]), I will be using the term

civil commitment

to refer to

both inpatient civil commitment and the intensive outpatient community supervision that Sandler and

Freeman describe in New York State.

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12318 C2017 American Society of Criminology 937

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 16 rIssue 3