Statistical Risk Assessment: Old Problems and New Applications
- 1 January 2006
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Crime & Delinquency
- Vol. 52 (1), 178-200
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128705281748
Abstract
Statistically based risk assessment devices are widely used in criminal justice settings. Their promise remains largely unfulfilled, however, because assumptions and premises requisite to their development and application are routinely ignored and/or violated. This article provides a brief review of the most salient of these assumptions and premises, addressing the base rate and selection ratios, methods of combining predictor variables and the nature of criterion variables chosen, cross-validation, replicability, and generalizability. The article also discusses decision makers’ choices to add or delete items from the instruments and suggests recommendations for policy makers to consider when adopting risk assessments. Suggestions for improved practice, practical and methodological, are made.Keywords
This publication has 49 references indexed in Scilit:
- Offender Risk AssessmentCriminal Justice and Behavior, 2002
- The Accuracy of Five Risk Appraisal Instruments in Predicting Institutional Misconduct and New ConvictionsCriminal Justice and Behavior, 2001
- A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of an Intensive Rehabilitation Supervision ProgramCriminal Justice and Behavior, 2000
- Relative improvement over chance (RIOC) and phi as measures of predictive efficiency and strength of association in 2×2 tablesJournal of Quantitative Criminology, 1989
- Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prediction in Parole Decision MakingLaw & Society Review, 1982
- Signal Detectability Theory and the Evaluation of Prediction TablesJournal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 1977
- Estimating coefficients in linear models: It don't make no nevermind.Psychological Bulletin, 1976
- Linear models in decision making.Psychological Bulletin, 1974
- Statistical Methods of Making Prediction InstrumentsJournal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 1972
- New Prediction and Classification Methods in CriminologyJournal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 1964