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Assessing an offender's level of risk is a vital step in the determination of treatment services; however, risk assessment tools have been consistently developed using a male cohort. Geraghty and Woodham (2015) conducted a review to determine the validity of risk assessment tools for females and found the Level of Service Inventory (LSI) to be the most valid. The LSI has been further developed and additional risk assessment tools have been included in the suite of assessments across various international jurisdictions; therefore, an updated review is necessary to encompass subsequent research. The current review is an international investigation into the relevance of risk assessment tools for females; however, Australia has not carried out extensive research in this area, particularly Western Australia which has an overrepresentation of Aboriginal offenders. As such, the focus was on studies that included risk assessment tools used in Australia including the Level of Service/Risk, Need, Responsivity (LS/RNR), the Violence Risk Scale (VRS), the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R) and the Historic, Clinical and Risk 20 (HCR-20). Five databases were searched and included OVID Embase, OVID Medline, OVID PsycInfo, OVID full text and PsycARTICLES and elicited 610 studies with a further three sourced from gray literature. The articles were assessed based on pre-determined criteria which resulted in 18 studies reviewed in detail. It was identified that all four risk assessment tools were valid for use with female offenders; however, this was not consistent with the findings from a single Australian study, likely due to the combination of a small sample and low base rates of reoffending. Further research is needed on gender comparisons to consider potential gender differences in factors and items that form the risk assessment tools so that treatment and risk management pans may be optimised for female offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a growing problem. Prevention charities, such as Stop It Now! UK, use online messaging to dissuade users from viewing CSAM and to encourage them to consider anonymous therapeutic interventions. This experiment used a honeypot website that purported to contain barely legal pornography, which we treated as a proxy for CSAM. We examined whether warnings would dissuade males (18–30 years) from visiting the website. Participants (n = 474) who attempted to access the site were randomly allocated to one of four conditions. The control group went straight to the landing page (control; n = 100). The experimental groups encountered different warning messages: deterrence-themed with an image (D3; n = 117); therapeutic-themed (T1; n = 120); and therapeutic-themed with an image (T3; n = 137). We measured the click through to the site. Three quarters of the control group attempted to enter the pornography site, compared with 35 % to 47 % of the experimental groups. All messages were effective: D3 (odds ratio [OR] = 5.02), T1 (OR = 4.06) and T2 (OR = 3.05). Images did not enhance warning effectiveness. We argue that therapeutic and deterrent warnings are useful for CSAM-prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With ∼ontinual advances in Internet capability the child pornography market is experiencing a boom in demand and supply. Attempts to reduce the market challenge legislators, law enforcement agencies, practitioners and researchers alike - due in large part to the decentralised and global nature of the Internet. Much research has focused on frequent users of child pornography and whether such behaviour is interrelated with child sexual assaults. This article instead draws attention to onset, the first deliberate viewing of child pornography. It presents the results of a three-month study of a global Peer-to -Peer network, isoHunt. Analysis of the site's Top 300 search terms indicated that child pornography is consistently shared. Risk factors for onset are discussed, including the potential normalisation of child pornography among Internet subcultures. Strategies are discussed to encourage subcultures to inhibit child pornography use and to increase understanding of the harms associated with such material. Implications for legal systems, policy and research are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]