Preliminary Adaptation of Criminal Attitudes to Violence Scale in Latvian and Russian
Violent offenders cause serious harm to their victims and affect the general well-being of the society. Many awareness and rehabilitation campaigns are introduced at the moment in Latvia that increases the necessity for adapted valid instruments in the native languages of the offenders. The aim of the research was to conduct a preliminary adaptation of Criminal Attitudes to Violence Scale (CAVS) in Latvian and Russian. CAVS has been designed to measure non-sexual physical violence of violent male offenders. Two groups (“Latvians” N=200 and “Russians” N=200) and four sub-groups of male offenders and non-offenders were formed. The translation of the scale in Latvian and Russian was organized separately and completed by back-translation method. Evaluation by both experts and a sample of target population was provided with the final Russian and Latvian versions of CAVS. Internal consistency of the items of the scale proved to be very good for all four sub-groups. Item analysis showed that both (Latvian and Russian) adapted CAVS versions work the best with the offender samples. There were three-factor structure reviled for both Latvian and Russian CAVS. The preliminary adaptation process has been completed and the further standardization process is intended.