I know absolutely nothing about this technology, but a helpful reader sent me an article about its use in Arizona in sex crime cases:
Ratliff said that it would not be inconceivable for a "register only" offender to go as high as a level 2 or 3 depending on the re-evaluation from the risk assessment test.
Ratliff also uses CVSA, or Comprehensive Voice Stress Analysis, to help determine the truthfulness of statements made by registrants during the risk assessment evaluation.
He said it is a very effective tool in his opinion.
"I'm not real satisfied or confident in results from polygraph tests, but CVSA is an excellent tool in my opinion," he said. "It uses the same technology as the FBI and other prominent law enforcement agencies use, and I have great confidence in its accuracy."
Ratliff added that he has had great success using voice analysis in all areas regarding interviewing suspects and victims in sexual offenses.
He said, "I had this one case where a juvenile was alleging that a parent had molested them. I tested the parent and found no abnormalities in the voice patterns."
"But," Ratliff said, "When I tested the juvenile, there was noticeable variation in the voice patterns and I was able to determine, and get a confession that the parent had not molested the juvenile and the juvenile just wanted to ‘put a scare into' the parent as revenge for being punished."
Ratliff said the use of CVSA and other technology tools by the sheriff's department has made it possible for him to better categorize sex offenders, and consequently better protect the community to the best of his ability.
I have to say I'm a little scared that a police officer is using this cutting-edge technique in the classification of sex offenders (which determines the level of post-release restriction). However, it probably isn't worse than lots of the statutory schemes which seem to totally disregard actual recidivism risk in classifying released offenders.
Update: In the comments, Michael Connelly points to a Corrections Sentencing post about the technology. I noticed I had the post saved (along with a couple of others from Corrections Sentencing) in my Bloglines account, but with so much travel lately, I forgot all about it. Thanks for the pointer.
Corey--Here's a brief post I recently ran with an item near the bottom on the latest research on voice stress analysis. It sounds like the guy in your article above is a case of asking the barber if you need a haircut.
http://correctionssentencing.blogspot.com/2007/08/news-and-blogs-together-friday-august-3.html
Posted by: Mike Connelly | August 09, 2007 at 08:31 AM