NCJ Number
190206
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 28 Issue: 4 Dated: August 2001 Pages: 471-489
Date Published
August 2001
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This study examined the accuracy of five risk appraisal instruments in predicting institutional misconduct and new convictions.
Abstract
The predictive accuracy of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R), HCR-20, Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG), and the Lifestyle Criminality Screening Form (LCSF) were compared in a sample of male offenders. These offenders were consecutive admissions to Federal custody from June 1995 to August 1996. The PCL-R was developed to measure the construct of psychopathy within a disease model that included interpersonal, affective, and behavioral characteristics. The LSI-R is a criminal risk and need for treatment measure that was developed within a social learning perspective, with the focus on personal history and interaction with others in a social context. The HCR-20 was developed to predict violent behavior in criminal and psychiatric populations and covers the areas of historical, clinical, and risk management. The VRAG is an actuarial instrument and was developed to predict violent recidivism. The LCSF assesses variables central to the career or lifestyle criminal within the cognitive thinking framework (characteristics such as irresponsibility, self-indulgence, interpersonal intrusiveness, and social rule breaking). Results showed that, on the basis of zero order correlations, there was some evidence that the accuracy was greater for the LSI-R and the VRAG. Similarly, when only considering total convictions and violent convictions, the LSI-R demonstrated relatively better accuracy. The VRAG did relatively better with more minor antisocial behaviors such as institutional misconducts and nonviolent convictions. However, from a statistical significance perspective, there were no differences among the five prediction instruments. 4 tables, 55 references