Discriminative and predictive validity of risk assessment measures for women incarcerated for serious violent offences in Australia

TL;DR

This study examines if risk assessment tools developed for men are valid for predicting recidivism among women in Australian prisons.

Contribution

The study provides evidence on the validity of specific risk assessment tools for women incarcerated for serious violence in Australia.

Findings

The LS/RNR tool was related to various types of recidivism among women.

The HCR-20v3 H-Scale showed strong predictive validity for violent recidivism.

Four LS/RNR domains were valid for predicting recidivism.

Abstract

Despite the growing population of women in Australian prisons, limited research has explored whether commonly used risk assessments – predominantly developed and tested on men – are valid for women. We investigated the discriminative and predictive validity of the Level of Service Inventory–Revised: Screening Version (LSI-R:SV), Level of Service/Risk, Need, Responsivity (LS/RNR), and the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management 20–Version 3 (HCR-20v3) for Victorian women imprisoned for serious violence (N = 79). The LS/RNR was related to any, violent, and non-violent recidivism, and both the LSI-R:SV and the H-Scale of the HCR-20v3 were related to violent recidivism, with the H-Scale demonstrating strong predictive validity for violence. Four LS/RNR needs domains demonstrated discriminative and predictive validity for any and/or violent recidivism (criminal history, family/marital, alcohol/drug problem, antisocial pattern). Findings are locally significant, showing that the LS/RNR and HCR-20v3 H-Scale are useful for the prediction and discrimination of recidivism for Australian women incarcerated for serious violence.

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