| Summary: | The goal of this study was to assist the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) with the risk management of youth (aged 4 to 20), identified through the Assessment for Safe and Appropriate Placement (ASAP) program, because of their sexually inappropriate and coercive behavior. The mission of this project was to identify and test potentially useful risk and protective factors for adolescent and pre-adolescent youth who had already begun engaging in sexually coercive behavior. An award from the National Institute of Justice complemented and supported state funding for the research project and permitted detailed coding of 822 cases selected from all 28 DSS area offices throughout Massachusetts. The first five months of the research program had two priorities: (1) the creation of a dictionary designed to permit maximally reliable coding of the information gleaned from the DSS files on these youth, and (2) coding a representative sample of youth on critical variables. Overall, the researchers requested the files of approximately 1,300 ASAP-evaluated youth. The present sample consists of 720 cases that had been coded, checked, and entered when data analysis began at the beginning of June 2004. Variables include referral and placement history, demographic characteristics, critical antecedent childhood life experiences, familial/parental characteristics, presenting behavioral problems including detailed coding of sexually normative, deviant (paraphillic), inappropriate and coercive behaviors, and psychological and/or emotional symptoms.
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