This section provides assistance and guidance in selecting appropriate screening tools and assessment instruments that satisfy both the informational requirements of the TJC model and local concerns (e.g., inexpensive, easy to administer, yield information useful to a variety of partners). This section offers different types of instruments to assess specific inmates’ risk and needs.
Questions to think about before choosing screens and assessments include the following:
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The TJC model recommends that each person booked at your jail receive a short risk-to-reoffend screen and a pretrial risk assessment. The risk-to-reoffend screen will help identify those who need a full risk and needs assessment and are targeted to receive intensive services pre- and post-release as well as those of lower risk who are candidates for release, diversion, or alternatives to incarceration. The pretrial risk assessment will help identify the risk levels for failing to appear in court and rearrest. In some jurisdictions, the court may delegate to booking officers the authority to release those defendants who score as low risk on the risk assessment. The risk-to-reoffend screen will help identify those who need a full risk and needs assessment.
Though it may seem okay to cut corners and use the score from a risk-to-reoffend screen or assessment to determine who should receive pretrial release, a number of factors relevant in predicting criminogenic risk and needs do not predict pretrial risk. The use of separate instruments is advised.
The following table highlights three risk-to-reoffend screens for this purpose. Our intent is not to endorse any individual screen, but instead to draw your attention to screens commonly used in correctional settings that are well regarded by experts in the field.
The Proxy Risk Triage Screener is the shortest of the three, with only three items. The eight-item Level of Service Inventory—Revised Screening Version categorizes a person into a low-, medium-, or high-risk group. The Wisconsin Risk Assessment, an 11-item instrument, asks more comprehensively about criminal history, drug/alcohol interference, living arrangements, and general attitude regarding change.
Quick Risk Screening |
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Tool Name |
Cost |
Time to Complete Interview |
Inventory Items |
Instrument Result |
Additional Information |
Proxy Risk Triage Screener |
No cost |
Five minutes or less |
Three items – Current age, age at first arrest, # of priors |
Risk of recidivism on an 8-point scale |
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Level of Service Inventory—Revised Screening Version (LSI-RSV) |
$2.20/use |
15 minutes |
Eight items – Criminal history, |
Risk of recidivism score on an 8-point scale and brief summary of dynamic risk areas that may need attention |
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Wisconsin Risk |
No cost |
15–30 minutes |
11 items – Criminal history (adult and juvenile), drug/alcohol involvement, living arrangements, general attitude for change |
Risk of recidivism score |
It is also possible to develop a risk screener using the administrative data on the jail population available in a jurisdiction. This can be done by examining factors related to recidivism that are captured in the jail MIS and analyzing which correlate most significantly with recidivism. For an example of this process for developing a screening tool, see the Vera Institute’s work on creating the Service Priority Indicator for the New York City Department of Corrections. Developing a jurisdiction-specific screening tool is a much more analytically complicated undertaking than implementing one of the commonly used tools, but may provide better prediction of recidivism.
Pretrial Risk Assessments
The following table highlights three pretrial risk assessment instruments. Our intent is not to endorse any individual instrument, but instead to draw to your attention pretrial screens commonly used that are well regarded by experts in the field.
The Ohio Pretrial Assessment Tool is the shortest of the three, with seven items, the point totals are grouped into three levels of risk – low, moderate, and high. The eight-item Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument categorizes a person into five levels of risk – lowest to highest. The Kentucky Risk Assessment Instrument is the longest of the three (12-items) and like Ohio’s tool, groups the point totals into low-, moderate-, or high-risk group.
Quick Pretrial Assessments |
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Tool Name |
Cost |
Time to Complete Interview |
Inventory Items |
Instrument Result |
Additional Information |
University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute Ohio Risk Assessment System.
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No cost |
10 minutes or less |
Seven items – Age of first arrest, criminal history, employment, residential stability, history of drug use, severity of drug use. |
Risk score on a 9-point scale. |
http://www.uc.edu/corrections/services/trainings/ offender_assessment.html. |
Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument (VPRAI) |
No cost |
15 minutes or less |
Eight items – charge type, pending charges, criminal history, failure to appear history, violent conviction history, length at current address, employed/primary care giver, history of drug abuse |
Risk score on a 9-point scale |
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Kentucky Risk Assessment Instrument |
No cost |
15 minutes or less |
12 items – length of current address, employment, charge type, pending charges, failure to appear history, conviction history, violent conviction history, history of drug abuse, escape history, under probation/parole supervision |
Risk score on a 24-point scale |
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In 2014, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation will be releasing a pretrial risk assessment tool that is based on a study of hundreds of thousands of cases from numerous jurisdictions. The intent of the instrument is that it can be universal; that is, it can be used in any jurisdiction in the country. Another feature of the instrument is that is comprised entirely of criminal history factors – information that would be readily available to a booking officer. In addition, several states, including Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, Colorado, and Florida, have validated their pretrial risk instruments within their state. These developments mean that there will be a validated pretrial risk assessment tool available for use in every jurisdiction in the country.
Comprehensive criminogenic risk/need assessment instruments are targeted to those who scored medium to high on the quick screen, indicating that they may need more intensive intervention. Multipurpose risk/needs assessments are advantageous because they not only evaluate the risk of recidivism, but identify categories of needs in areas identified as being most likely to impact recidivism, including education, employment, financial, family, housing, leisure, substance abuse, criminal thinking, and other personal needs. By discerning these criminogenic needs areas, the assessment tools identify targets for intervention.
Research consistently identifies eight major criminogenic needs, and further distinguishes between the "big four" (those most strongly related to re-offending) and the lesser four. They are:3
Big four criminogenic needs
Lesser four criminogenic needs
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3 Andrews, D.A., James Bonta, and J. Stephen Wormith. "The Recent Past and Near Future of Risk and/or Need Assessment."Crime and Delinquency, 52:1, 7-27.