RE: Informed Consent

["Ron Kokish" <dka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you for the information on survey research.

>>it may as well be a club, whip, or other coercion method as it doesn't
show anything of value.<<

Quite to the contrary, a complete sexual history and the ability to monitor
certain behaviors is of great value in sex offender management and
treatment, but only to the degree our information reflects actual events. We
cannot obtain equivalent information with whips and clubs, because that
would be illegal. Polygraphy is not. Also, with whips and clubs we have no
assurance about accuracy. Polygraphy at least holds out the promise of
reasonable accuracy and known error rates.

The degree to which this promise is kept is of course, in dispute.
Empirically supported claims range from "no better than chance" to "near
99%." It seems reasonable to assume that accuracy varies across individuals,
settings, procedures and examiners. How wide these variations are and how
they inter-relate cannot be ascertained at this time.  Nonetheless,
polygraphy is coming into increasingly wide-spread use in sexual offender
treatment and management, perhaps partly because anecdotal reports
(including my own) are optimistic. Colorado now mandates the procedure for
all sexual offenders in community based programs. Given these circumstances,
it seems to me that research which can potentially shed light on the
accuracy issue would be worth undertaking.

Being new to research, I posted a question about informed consent. I've
received several useful answers and thank those who are taking time to
respond. It may be worth noticing that several respondents included comments
on polygraphy itself. Some were so focused on the polygraphy issue, they
missed my question altogether. There seems to be a great deal of emotion on
both sides of this issue. (To use or not to use?) I think it best to not let
personal values and feelings guide our practice or our research in this
area.

Thanks again to those who sent suggestions. I wouldn't mind more.

****************************************************************************
***
  Ron Kokish at Delson-Kokish Associates,  P.O. Box 476, Trinidad, CA 95570
   Clinical and Forensic Consultation and Training for Agencies and Courts
     (707)677-3181 (voice)   ron@delko.net (Email)   (707) 677-0187 (fax)
       ******  On the World Wide Web @  www.northcoast.com/~dka  ******



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
[mailto:owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu]On Behalf Of
John M Price PhD
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 11:31 AM
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
Cc: CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
Subject: RE: Informed Consent