The Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG) is a 14-item actuarial scale used to predict violent and sexual recidivism among men who have committed hands-on sexual offenses. Items include personal history, criminal history, index offense characteristics, and psychological assessment results. Each item is assigned a weight based on its relationship to recidivism, and total scores indicate a percentile risk of reoffending over 7-10 years. Research shows actuarial methods like the SORAG more accurately predict recidivism than clinical judgment alone. The SORAG is widely used and has demonstrated predictive validity in multiple samples.

1. Sex Offender
Risk
Appraisal
Guide
(SORAG)
April Clayton, Psy.D.

2. The Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide
(SORAG) is a 14-item actuarial scale
designed to predict violent (including
hands-on) sexual recidivism among men
who have committed at least one
previous hands-on sexual offense.
What is the SORAG?

3. The 14 items on the scale are:
• Lived with both biological parents until age 16
• Elementary school maladjustment
• History of alcohol problems
• Marriage status at time of index offense
• Criminal history score for nonviolent offenses
• Criminal history score for violent offenses
• Number of convictions for previous sexual
offenses

4. The items continued…
• History of sexual offenses only against girls
below 14 years of age (negatively scored)
• Failure on prior conditional release
• Age at index offense (negatively scored)
• Diagnosis of any personality disorder
• Diagnosis of schizophrenia (negatively scored)
• Phallometric test results indicating deviant
sexual interests
• Psychopathy Checklist (Revised) score

5. • Each item is scored and then assigned a
weight based on the relationship of that
item to violent recidivism in the
construction sample; the weights are
then summed to obtain a total score.
Scores and weights
• Scores are static, they do not change
with time or treatment (although they
might change when rescored after
offenders commit further violent and/or
sexual offenses).

6. • The score yields the
percentile rank of the
offender as compared with
the construction sample.
• The estimated probability of
violent recidivism is based on
a 7- and a 10-year period of
opportunity to re-offend.
• The items can be scored from
complete institutional files or
from files and interviews.
*External corroboration of offender self-
report is important
Probability of recidivism

7. Statistical
probability
of
recidivism
by score

8. Development
• The SORAG is the companion of the Violence
Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG-R - Quinsey, Harris,
Rice, & Cormier, 1998).
• Developed in the early 1990’s (later revised)
by a research group who studied the
recidivism of more than 800 serious offenders-
roughly half were forensic patients- the other
half were convicted criminals.
• VRAG-R uses 12 personal characteristics
(items or variables)—and the SORAG uses 14.
Both tools can be used for an offender even if a
few of the variables are “unknown.”

9. What is the need for the VRAG-R and
SORAG?
• A large body of scientific data has
demonstrated that actuarial
instruments are much more
reliable and accurate in making
predictions in every domain in
which they have been tried,
including the prediction of violent
recidivism.
• Actuarial methods are far superior
to the clinical judgment of experts
in the field.
Because Science!

10. How well do the VRAG-R and SORAG
work?
• The accuracy of the VRAG-R and
SORAG in predicting violent recidivism
has been tested and demonstrated by
independent researchers reporting
positive results using more than 60
different samples of serious offenders.
• All these demonstrations and two meta-
analyses have indicated the VRAG-R
and SORAG achieve the highest
accuracies in the prediction of violent
recidivism yet reported in the scientific
literature.

11. Are the VRAG-R and SORAG legally
admissible?
• Testimony about an offender's
risk as assessed by the VRAG-R
and SORAG has been ruled
admissible by criminal courts and
is used extensively throughout
Canada, in several U.S.
jurisdictions, and in Britain.

12. Are the VRAG-R and SORAG widely
accepted by professionals?
• Research based on the VRAG-R and
SORAG has received wide attention
and acceptance in the scientific
community.
• The ethics of making predictions about
violence has also been addressed in the
professional literature. It is generally
agreed that, because actuarial
estimates are the most accurate, they
are the most ethical methods.

13. How should VRAG-R and SORAG
scores be used?
• Recommendations are made to prevent
exposing the public to unnecessary risk,
to ensure that restrictions on patients’
freedom are reserved for those that
require them.
• Research shows the probability, speed,
and severity of violent recidivism are all
related to scores on the VRAG-R and
SORAG.
• Scores should be used as the formal
index of risk for forensic populations.

14. Criticisms
• Concern that forensic populations vary so much as to
render predictions inaccurate. The population has
changed somewhat, but the variables that predict
violent recidivism have not changed at all. Personal
characteristics that predict violent recidivism are
consistent across such variations as differences in
jurisdiction, time period, index offense and offender
diagnosis and age.
• Others have expressed concern that, using these
actuarial tools is too difficult because the compilation
of adequate psychosocial histories requires
cooperation from patients who can refuse permission,
and because the skill and time required are
prohibitive.

15. From the creators of the VRAG-R and
SORAG
Research shows that “clinicians’ impressions of
dangerousness, insight, treatment response, and so on, are,
at best, very weakly related to violent recidivism.
Combining actuarial scores with clinical judgments
inevitably produces lower accuracy than actuarial scores
alone. Therefore, we recommend that clinical judgment not
be blended with actuarial scores, actuarial scores not be
used only as components to clinical judgment, and clinical
judgment not be used to decide which patients receive
actuarial assessment. We recommend the role of clinicians
in risk appraisal be to compile relevant clinical material and
compute the actuarial scores. We recommend that VRAG
and SORAG scores be kept distinct from other clinical
statements about violence risk.“
Quinsey, Harris, Rice, & Cormier, 1998 Data over Clinical
Judgement

16. References
• Bartosh, D. L., Garby, T., Lewis, D., & Gray, S. (2003). Differences in the Predictive
Validity of Actuarial Risk Assessments in Relation to Sex Offender Type. International
Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 47(4), 422–438.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X03253850
• Dustin. (2018, November 25). Using the Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG).
Retrieved from http://dustinkmacdonald.com/using-sex-offender-risk-appraisal-guide-
sorag/
• PDF: Research Department Fact Sheet: The Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)
and Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG). Retrieved on 9/16/2019 from:
http://static.squarespace.com/static/520a76a0e4b03ad27abae1e3/t/528c1e89e4b0c3afb6
31bc8b/1384914569761/VRAG-SORAG%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
• Rettenberger, Martin & Rice, Marnie & Harris, Grant & Eher, Reinhard. (2017).
Actuarial risk assessment of sexual offenders: The psychometric properties of the Sex
Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG). Psychological Assessment. 29. 624-638.
10.1037/pas0000390.
• Rice M.E., Harris G.T. (2016) The Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide. In: Phenix A.,
Hoberman H. (eds) Sexual Offending. Springer, New York, NY.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2416-5_21