scholarly journals Estimating the probability of sexual recidivism among men charged or convicted of sexual offences: Evidence-based guidance for applied evaluators

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Maaike Helmus
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Sexual Recidivism ◽  
Sexual Offences ◽  
Empirical Estimates ◽  
Sex Offences ◽  
Actuarial Risk ◽  
External Risk

Risk assessment is routinely applied in forensic decision-making. Although relative risk information from risk scales is robust across diverse samples and settings, estimates of the absolute probability of sexual recidivism are not. Nonetheless, absolute recidivism estimates are still necessary in some evaluations. This paper summarizes research and offers guidance on evidence-based practices for assessing the probability of recidivism, organized largely around questions commonly asked in court. Overall, estimating the probability of sexual recidivism is difficult and should be undertaken with humility and circumspection. That being said, research favours empirical-actuarial risk tools for this task, more structured scales, and the use of multiple scales. Professional overrides of risk scale results should not be used under any circumstances. Paradoxically, however, professional judgement is still required in some circumstances. Risk scales do not consider all relevant risk factors, but the added value of external risk factors reaches a point of diminishing returns and may or may not be incremental (or worse, can degrade accuracy). There are reasons actuarial risk scales may both underestimate recidivism (e.g., undetected offending, short follow-ups) and overestimate recidivism (e.g., inclusion of sex offences not of interest in some referral questions, data on declining crime and recidivism rates, newer studies demonstrating overestimation of recidivism). Given all these considerations and the need for humility, in the absence of exceptional circumstances, I would not deviate too far from empirical estimates.

Updating Probability in Sex Offender Risk Assessment

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 2063-2080 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Elwood
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Sex Offender ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Sexual Recidivism ◽  
Case Control Studies ◽  
Recidivism Rates ◽  
Sex Offender Risk Assessment ◽  
External Risk

Actuarial scales like the Static-99R are widely used to predict an individual’s risk of sexual recidivism. However, current actuarial scales only provide rates of detected sex offenses over 10-year follow-up and do not account for all recidivism risk factors. Therefore, some forensic evaluators extrapolate, adjust, or override recidivism rates derived from actuarial scales to predict the lifetime risk of committed offenses that accounts for external risk factors, those not addressed by the actuarial scales. However, critics contend that altering rates from actuarial scales degrades their predictive validity. This article makes the case for extrapolating risk for time of exposure and for evidence-based external risk factors. It proposes using odds ratios (ORs) from case-control studies to adjust predictions from follow-up cohort studies. Finally, it shows how evaluators can apply ORs and their margins of error to sex offender risk assessment.

The Preschool Stuttering Screen for Health Care Professionals

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-62
Author(s):  
Joseph Donaher ◽  
Christina Deery ◽  
Sarah Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Differential Diagnosis ◽  
Preschool Children ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Developmental Profile

Healthcare professionals require a thorough understanding of stuttering since they frequently play an important role in the identification and differential diagnosis of stuttering for preschool children. This paper introduces The Preschool Stuttering Screen for Healthcare Professionals (PSSHP) which highlights risk factors identified in the literature as being associated with persistent stuttering. By integrating the results of the checklist with a child’s developmental profile, healthcare professionals can make better-informed, evidence-based decisions for their patients.

"He seems odd": The effects of risk-irrelevant information and actuarial risk estimates on mock jurors' perceptions of sexual recidivism risk

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Kamorowski ◽  
Karl Ask ◽  
Maartje Schreuder ◽  
Marko Jelicic ◽  
Corine de Ruiter
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Risk Estimate ◽  
Case Vignette ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Sexual Recidivism ◽  
Mock Jurors ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Risk Estimates ◽  
Actuarial Risk

Previous research has shown that mock and actual jurors give little weight to actuarial sexual offending recidivism risk estimates when making decisions regarding civil commitment for so-called sexually violent predators (SVPs). We hypothesized that non-risk related factors, such as irrelevant contextual information and jurors’ information-processing style, would influence mock jurors’ perceptions of sexual recidivism risk. This preregistered experimental study examined the effects of mock jurors’ (N = 427) need for cognition (NFC), irrelevant contextual information in the form of the offender’s social attractiveness, and an actuarial risk estimate on mock jurors’ estimates of sexual recidivism risk related to a simulated SVP case vignette. Mock jurors exposed to negative risk-irrelevant characteristics of the offender estimated sexual recidivism risk as higher than mock jurors exposed to positive information about the offender. However, this effect was no longer significant after mock jurors had reviewed Static-99R actuarial risk estimate information. We found no support for the hypothesis that the level of NFC moderates the relationship between risk-irrelevant contextual information and risk estimates. Future research could explore additional individual characteristics or attitudes among mock jurors that may influence perceptions of sexual recidivism risk and insensitivity to actuarial risk estimates.

Design and Development of a Web-based Delirium Preventive Application for Long-term Care Facilities: A Methodological Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyoung Ja Moon ◽  
Chang-Sik Son ◽  
Jong-Ha Lee ◽  
Mina Park
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Long Term Care ◽  
Cloud System ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Methodological Study ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Care Facilities ◽  
Delirium Prevention

BACKGROUND Long-term care facilities demonstrate low levels of knowledge and care for patients with delirium and are often not properly equipped with an electronic medical record system, thereby hindering systematic approaches to delirium monitoring. OBJECTIVE This study aims to develop a web-based delirium preventive application (app), with an integrated predictive model, for long-term care (LTC) facilities using artificial intelligence (AI). METHODS This methodological study was conducted to develop an app and link it with the Amazon cloud system. The app was developed based on an evidence-based literature review and the validity of the AI prediction model algorithm. Participants comprised 206 persons admitted to LTC facilities. The app was developed in 5 phases. First, through a review of evidence-based literature, risk factors for predicting delirium and non-pharmaceutical contents for preventive intervention were identified. Second, the app, consisting of several screens, was designed; this involved providing basic information, predicting the onset of delirium according to risk factors, assessing delirium, and intervening for prevention. Third, based on the existing data, predictive analysis was performed, and the algorithm developed through this was calculated at the site linked to the web through the Amazon cloud system and sent back to the app. Fourth, a pilot test using the developed app was conducted with 33 patients. Fifth, the app was finalized. RESULTS We developed the Web_DeliPREVENT_4LCF for patients of LTC facilities. This app provides information on delirium, inputs risk factors, predicts and informs the degree of delirium risk, and enables delirium measurement or delirium prevention interventions to be immediately implemented with a verified tool. CONCLUSIONS This web-based application is evidence-based and offers easy mobilization and care to patients with delirium in LTC facilities. Therefore, the use of this app improves the unrecognized of delirium and predicts the degree of delirium risk, thereby helping initiatives for delirium prevention and providing interventions. This would ultimately improve patient safety and quality of care. CLINICALTRIAL none

Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Among Youth

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Bryant Miller ◽  
Maya Massing-Schaffer ◽  
Sarah Owens ◽  
Mitchell J. Prinstein
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Applied Research ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Prevalence Rates ◽  
Evidence Based Treatment ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Injury ◽  
Assessment Techniques ◽  
Basic And Applied Research ◽  
Nonsuicidal Self Injury

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is direct, intentional harm to one’s own body performed without the intent to die. NSSI has a marked developmental onset reaching peak prevalence in adolescence. NSSI is present in the context of multiple psychological disorders and stands alone as a separate phenomenon. Research has accumulated over the past several decades regarding the course of NSSI. While great advances have been made, there remains a distinct need for basic and applied research in the area of NSSI. This chapter reviews prevalence rates, correlates and risk factors, and leading theories of NSSI. Further, it reviews assessment techniques and provides recommendations. Then, it presents the latest evidence-based treatment recommendations and provides a case example. Finally, cutting edge research and the next frontier of research in this area are outlined.

scholarly journals Sleep quality and COVID-19 outcomes: the evidence-based lessons in the framework of predictive, preventive and personalised (3P) medicine

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kneginja Richter ◽  
Stefanie Kellner ◽  
Thomas Hillemacher ◽  
Olga Golubnitschaja
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Sleep Quality ◽  
Sleep Disturbances ◽  
Acute Infection ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Mild Disease ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Medical Approach ◽  
Poor Outcomes

AbstractSleep quality and duration play a pivotal role in maintaining physical and mental health. In turn, sleep shortage, deprivation and disorders are per evidence the risk factors and facilitators of a broad spectrum of disorders, amongst others including depression, stroke, chronic inflammation, cancers, immune defence insufficiency and individual predisposition to infection diseases with poor outcomes, for example, related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Keeping in mind that COVID-19-related global infection distribution is neither the first nor the last pandemic severely affecting societies around the globe to the costs of human lives accompanied with enormous economic burden, lessons by predictive, preventive and personalised (3P) medical approach are essential to learn and to follow being better prepared to defend against global pandemics. To this end, under extreme conditions such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, the reciprocal interrelationship between the sleep quality and individual outcomes becomes evident, namely, at the levels of disease predisposition, severe versus mild disease progression, development of disease complications, poor outcomes and related mortality for both - population and healthcare givers. The latter is the prominent example clearly demonstrating the causality of severe outcomes, when the long-lasting work overload and shift work rhythm evidently lead to the sleep shortage and/or deprivation that in turn causes immune response insufficiency and strong predisposition to the acute infection with complications. This article highlights and provides an in-depth analysis of the concerted risk factors related to the sleep disturbances under the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the evidence-based recommendations in the framework of predictive, preventive and personalised medical approach.

Against evidence-based oppression: Marginalized youth and the politics of risk-based assessment and intervention

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Goddard ◽  
Randolph R Myers
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Marginalized Youth ◽  
Youth Justice ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Needs Assessments ◽  
Actuarial Risk ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Causes Of Crime

Actuarial risk/needs assessments exert a formidable influence over the policy and practice of youth offender intervention. Risk-prediction instruments and the programming they inspire are thought not only to link scholarship to practice, but are deemed evidence-based. However, risk-based assessments and programs display a number of troubling characteristics: they reduce the lived experience of racialized inequality into an elevated risk score; they prioritize a very limited set of hyper-individualistic interventions, at the expense of others; and they privilege narrow individual-level outcomes as proof of overall success. As currently practiced, actuarial youth justice replicates earlier interventions that ask young people to navigate structural causes of crime at the individual level, while laundering various racialized inequalities at the root of violence and criminalization. This iteration of actuarial youth justice is not inevitable, and we discuss alternatives to actuarial youth justice as currently practiced.

Risk factors for attrition from an evidence-based parenting program: Findings from the Netherlands

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 42-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariëlle E. Abrahamse ◽  
Larissa N. Niec ◽  
Marianne Junger ◽  
Frits Boer ◽  
Ramón J.L. Lindauer
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Parenting Program ◽  
Evidence Based

Evidence-Based Sentencing

Criminology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. Oleson
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Measures ◽  
Criminal History ◽  
Community Safety ◽  
Assessment Instruments ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Criminogenic Needs ◽  
Actuarial Risk ◽  
Using Data

The evidence-based practice (EBP) movement can be traced to a 1992 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, although decision-making with empirical evidence (rather than tradition, anecdote, or intuition) is obviously much older. Neverthless, for the last twenty-five years, EBP has played a pivotal role in criminal justice, particularly within community corrections. While the prediction of recidivism in parole or probation decisions has attracted relatively little attention, the use of risk measures by sentencing judges is controversial. This might be because sentencing typically involves both backward-looking decisions, related to the blameworthiness of the crime, as well as forward-looking decisions, about the offender’s prospective risk of recidivism. Evidence-based sentencing quantifies the predictive aspects of decision-making by incorporating an assessment of risk factors (which increase recidivism risk), protective factors (which reduce recidivism risk), criminogenic needs (impairments that, if addressed, will reduce recidivism risk), the measurement of recidivism risk, and the identification of optimal recidivism-reducing sentencing interventions. Proponents for evidence-based sentencing claim that it can allow judges to “sentence smarter” by using data to distinguish high-risk offenders (who might be imprisoned to mitigate their recidivism risk) from low-risk offenders (who might be released into the community with relatively little danger). This, proponents suggest, can reduce unnecessary incarceration, decrease costs, and enhance community safety. Critics, however, note that risk assessment typically looks beyond criminal conduct, incorporating demographic and socioeconomic variables. Even if a risk factor is facially neutral (e.g., criminal history), it might operate as a proxy for a constitutionally protected category (e.g., race). The same objectionable variables are used widely in presentence reports, but their incorporation into an actuarial risk score has greater potential to obfuscate facts and reify underlying disparities. The evidence-based sentencing literature is dynamic and rapidly evolving, but this bibliography identifies sources that might prove useful. It first outlines the theoretical foundations of traditional (non-evidence-based) sentencing, identifying resources and overviews. It then identifies sources related to decision-making and prediction, risk assessment logic, criminogenic needs, and responsivity. The bibliography then describes and defends evidence-based sentencing, and identifies works on sentencing variables and risk assessment instruments. It then relates evidence-based sentencing to big data and identifies data issues. Several works on constitutional problems are listed, the proxies problem is described, and sources on philosophical issues are described. The bibliography concludes with a description of validation research, the politics of evidence-based sentencing, and the identification of several current initiatives.

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