Predictors of treatment outcome for Juvenile Sexual Offenders

Research examining Juvenile Sex Offender (JSO) treatment outcomes is sparse and provides limited information regarding the factors that influence successful program completion. Identification of patient characteristics and treatment variables, as they relate to program outcomes, will support further development of evidence-based interventions and may potentially decrease attrition and recidivism rates. The goal of this study was to determine which pretreatment variables are predictive of treatment outcomes for 129 male sex offending youth consecutively admitted to a residential treatment program between the years 2006 and 2012. This study utilized anonymous archival data collected by a JSO residential treatment program in Stockton, California. The Juvenile Sexual Offender Recidivism Risk Assessment Tool -- II (JSORRAT-II; Epperson et. al., (2006) and demographic variables were used as independent predictor variables. The dependent variables for this study included termination from the treatment program, graduation from the treatment program, and sexually acting out during the treatment program. The results of the present study show elevated JSORRAT-II scores at pretreatment as a significant predictor of sexually acting our during program enrollment. The other hypothesized predictors of treatment outcome were not shown to be statistically significant. This study's limitations include, but are not limited to, its lack of comparison group, multi-source case documentation, and the underreporting bias in sex crimes.