Research in the area of predicting recidivism has produced several well-validated standardized risk assessment instruments. The question arises, which instruments best serve which purposes? The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare several actuarial and dynamic risk assessment instruments as to their predictive accuracy and their usefulness in forensic practice. The sample consisted of 109 violent and sex offenders who had been released from prison in Switzerland between 1994 and 1999, and for whom the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R); Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20; Level of Service Inventory-Revised; Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG); and the Swiss assessment instrument FOTRES were scored. Using bivariate logistic regression analyses, all instruments were able to discriminate between recidivists and nonrecidivists. The receiver operating characteristic analyses yielded area under the curve values between 0.70 (VRAG) and 0.84 (PCL-R). Furthermore, it was shown that solely examining AUC values does not suffice to determine usefulness. A comprehensive evaluation of an instrument's usefulness for forensic practice should also look at qualitative criteria such as area of application, specificity of risk assessed, and inclusion of dynamic items among others.Keywords risk assessment instrument, predictive validity, risk of recidivism, violent and sex offenders
Oral haloperidol, risperidone, and olanzapine seem to be suitable for treating acute severe psychotic agitation in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Response to oral antipsychotics demonstrated a gender effect with poorer outcome in women throughout the study.
The Swiss legal system places strong emphasis on risk assessment and treatment of potentially violent offenders. Especially after the 2001 Zug massacre, there is close cooperation between the judicial and mental health systems to prevent violence through early detection and intervention. A case study of a risk management program for a dangerous seventeen-year-old delinquent youth illustrates this approach.
Several authors have argued that criminal behavior is generally caused by neurobiological deficits. This assumption not only questions the concept of free will and a person's responsibility for his or her own actions but also the principle of guilt in criminal law. When critically examining the current state of research, it becomes apparent that the results are not sufficient to support the existence of a universally valid neurobiological causality of criminal behavior. Moreover, the assumption of total neurobiological determination of human behavior and the impossibility of individual responsibility are characterized by both faulty empiricism and methodical misconceptions. The principle of relative determinism and the analysis of the offender's behavior at the time of the offense thus remain the central and cogent approach to the assessment of criminal responsibility.
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