3 77 NETWORK ANALYSIS DYNAMIC RISK FACTORS 3.7 DISCUSSION To our knowledge, this study is the first to provide an estimation of the network structure of dynamic risk factors as assessed by the STABLE-2007 (Fernandez et al., 2012). Although we approached this task without specific hypotheses, using the spinglass and walktrap algorithm and visual inspection of the networks, we identified prominent clusters of dynamic risk factors. In particular, we identified clusters involving sexual selfregulation, emotionally intimate relationships, antisocial traits, and self-management skills. These clusters of dynamic risk factors, that most markedly emerged from the spinglass algorithm, mirror risk domains previously identified in the literature (Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2005; Stinson & Becker, 2013; Stinson et al., 2016; Stinson et al., 2008; Thornton, 2002, 2013). Within the sexual-self-regulation cluster, the relatively strong connections between sexual preoccupation and sex as coping on the one hand and deviant sexual interests and emotional identification with children on the other are of particular interest. These findings are in line with a recent factor analysis of the STABLE-2007, which found that emotional identification with children loaded on the same factor as deviant sexual interests, whereas sexual preoccupation and sex as coping formed a separate factor together (Etzler et al., 2020). Given the central position of general rejection/loneliness (in all networks), poor cognitive problem solving (in networks containing sexual recidivism or violent—including sexual contact—recidivism), and impulsive acts (only in the network including sexual recidivism), these dynamic risk factors may be considered to function as a bridge between the other (clusters) of dynamic risk factors. The risk factor that showed the strongest independent relationship with recidivism was impulsive acts (for both sexual and violent - including sexual contact - recidivism). This connection also surfaced in the shortest path analyses, in which impulsive acts was found to be the link to recidivism for all other factors except emotional identification with children, which was directly related with sexual recidivism. We interpret this latter finding to mean that emotional identification with children is more directly associated with sexual recidivism than sexual interest in children per se. It should be mentioned that, at the group level, a shortest path indicates the sequence of conditional predictions from one variable to another that, in each step, minimizes the prediction error. Thus, it shows how any dynamic risk factor is probabilistically connected to recidivism via other factors. At the individual level, however, individual offenders may deviate from these shortest paths. For example, in people with a history of sexual offenses with strong psychopathic traits who do not emotionally identify with children, recidivism (at a group level) apparently is more closely related to other factors, for example, their propensity for impulsive acts or hostility toward women. The clusters of dynamic risk factors found in our study seem consistent with the findings of factor analyses of static risk factors for sexual reoffending (e.g., Brouillette-
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