What we do not know about juvenile sexual reoffense risk. Child Maltreatment 7(4

States have increasingly subject juvenile sexual offenders to sex offender registration and commitment under sexual pred-ator laws in recent years. These statutes assume that sexual offenders present a sustained risk to recommit sexually vio-lent crimes over an extended time period. Implicit in this as-sumption is that criminal sexual behavior is a product of some form of stable trait or condition that continues to push the juvenile toward sexually violent behaviors as they get older. This article examines these assumptions in light of the available research on the stability of sexually offending be-havior in juveniles. The difficulties attendant to applying adult offender risk assessment models to juvenile sexual of-fenders are addressed. The available evidence indicates that the development and persistence of sexually criminal behav-ior is poorly understood, making the prediction of sustaine