@article{ref1,
title="Predicting violent reconvictions using the HCR-20",
journal="British journal of psychiatry",
year="2008",
author="Gray, Nicola S. and Taylor, Julie and Snowden, Robert J.",
volume="192",
number="5",
pages="384-387",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Risk assessment of future violent acts is of great importance for both public protection and care planning. Structured clinical assessments offer a method by which accurate assessments could be achieved. AIMS: To test the efficacy of the Historical, Clinical and Risk Management Scales (HCR-20) structured risk assessment scheme on a large sample of male forensic psychiatric patients discharged from medium secure units in the UK. METHOD: In a pseudo-prospective study, 887 male patients were followed for at least 2 years. The HCR-20 was completed using only pre-discharge information, and violent and other offending behaviour post-discharge was obtained from official records. RESULTS: The HCR-20 total score was a good predictor of both violent and other offences following discharge. The historical and risk sub-scales were both able to predict offences, but the clinical sub-scale did not produce significant predictions. The predictive efficacy was highest for short periods (under 1 year) and showed a modest fall in efficacy over longer periods (5 years). CONCLUSIONS: The results provide a strong evidence base that the HCR-20 is a good predictor of both violent and non-violent offending following release from medium secure units for male forensic psychiatric patients in the UK.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0007-1250",
doi="10.1192/bjp.bp.107.044065",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.107.044065"
}