Static-2002 coding rules (2009) - Static-99

Category 4: Relationship to Victims
8. Any Unrelated Victim
Background: Research indicates that offenders who offend only against family
members reoffend at a lower rate compared to those who have victims outside of
their immediate family (Hanson & Bussière, 1998; Harris & Hanson, 2004).
Information Required to Score this Item: To score this item use all available
credible information. “Credible Information” includes but is not limited to police
reports, child welfare reports, victim impact statements or discussions with
victims, collateral contacts, and offender self-report.
This item is scored based on all available credible information except that
specifically derived from a polygraph interview. The offender need not have been
criminally charged for victims to be counted for this item.
The Basic Rule: If the offender has any victim of a sexual offence outside the
offender’s immediate family, score the offender a “1” on this item. If the offender’s
victims of sexual offences are all within the immediate family score the offender a
“0” on this item.
In general, a related victim is one where the relationship is sufficiently close that
marriage would normally be prohibited, such as parent, brother, sister, uncle,
grandparent, stepbrother, and stepsister.
A potential difficulty in scoring this item is that the law concerning who can marry
differs across jurisdictions and across time periods within jurisdictions. For
example, prior to 1998, in Ontario, there were 17 relations a man could not
marry, including such oddities as “nephew’s wife” and “wife’s grandmother.” In
1998 the Ontario law changed leaving only 5 categories of people that a man
cannot marry: grandmother, mother, daughter, sister, and granddaughter (full,
half, and adopted). Hence, if a man assaulted his niece in 1997 he would not
have an unrelated victim but if he committed the same crime in 1998 he would
technically be assaulting an unrelated victim. There is little reason to believe that
this type of change in law would affect a man’s choice of victim and his resulting
risk of re-offence. As a result the following rules have been adopted to avoid
these jurisdictional issues.
People who are Seen as Related for the Purposes of Scoring Static-2002
1. Legally married spouses
2. Any live-in lovers of over two (essentially consecutive) year’s duration
(Girlfriends/Boyfriends become related once they have lived with the offender
as a lover for two consecutive years prior to the beginning of the sexual
offending, with “essentially consecutive” meaning there was no interruption in
their daily living together for those two years beyond business trips and other
work requirements; separate vacations and/or family trips; brief jail stays; brief
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