The Council of State Governments Justice Center Approach to Increasing Risk-Level Consistency in the Application of Risk Assessment Instruments

Correctional and forensic mental health settings potentially have multiple risk assessment instruments administered on a single client. Because of the various methods of determining risk categories, risk-level consistency can become an issue. The Council of State Governments Justice Center developed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Assessment (Odessa, Fla.) Fla.), 2022-03, Vol.29 (2), p.169-180
Main Authors: Kroner, Daryl G., Derrick, Bree
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Humans
Recidivism - prevention & control
Risk Assessment - methods
Social Justice
State Government
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Summary:Correctional and forensic mental health settings potentially have multiple risk assessment instruments administered on a single client. Because of the various methods of determining risk categories, risk-level consistency can become an issue. The Council of State Governments Justice Center developed a Five-Level System that can be applied to most risk assessment instruments. Using the Level of Service Inventory–Revised and two created risk assessment instruments, the present study assessed if the Five-Level System (vs. normative percentile categories) demonstrated greater agreement between the two instruments, and, if so, the percentage of greater agreement. The Five-Level System demonstrated 4% to 5% greater agreement for both risk-level placement and recidivism rates. The implications of this greater consistency among risk assessment instruments is an increased fairness in making risk-level assignments.
ISSN:1073-1911
1552-3489
DOI:10.1177/1073191120958066