Citation

Ward A, Dockerill J. Crim. Justice Behav. 1999; 26(1): 125-140.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0093854899026001007

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Current methods for screening violent offenders for program eligibility are expensive and time consuming. Developers of the Violent Offender Treatment Program (VOTP) have designed a brief and economical instrument to screen offenders for program eligibility. The present study was undertaken to assess the reliability and predictive accuracy of the VOTP Risk Assessment Scale (RAS). An interrater reliability of 20 court histories attained a mean kappa of.81. The RAS was applied to court histories of 202 violent offenders released between 1985 and 1987. A 10-year follow-up of convictions for violent behavior yielded a 47% base rate. Receiver Operating Characteristic curves showed that for varying time-at-risk periods, the predictive accuracy remained between.72 and.76. The recommended cutoff score for all time-at-risk periods was 11. The relatively high accuracy rate of the VOTP RAS indicated that it was accurate enough to aid program eligibility decisions.

Language: en