Level of Service Inventory-Revised
Inmates’ propensity to re-offend is measured using risk assessment and needs assessment. These instruments consist of a series of items used to collect data on offender behavior and attitude that indicate the risk of the offender’s recidivism. It is believed that risk assessment is essential in improving stakeholder’s decision making as far as the justice system and the offender’s freedom are concerned. This paper compares and contrast various risk and needs assessment took utilized in multiple states to examine how various several risk assessments perform in practice.
There are various assessment tools and techniques used in multiple states; Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R), Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS), Ohio Risk Assessment System (ORAS), Wisconsin Risk Needs Too (WRN), Static Risk and Offender Need Guide (STRONG) and Random Forest Modeling. All these tools have differences and similarities in how they conduct their recidivism assessments.
Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) seeks to assess the offender’s risk of re-offending again after release. LSI-R examines offenders who show a high risk of re-offending and gives them intensive monitoring and supervision; this monitoring and supervision aim at lowering recidivism and enhancing community security. LSI-R determines the offender’s recidivism using various determinants, including criminal history, drug abuse, education level, employment, family status, marital status, personal emotions, accommodations, leisure and recreation, and personal attitude/orientation (Duwe & Rocque, 2016). Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sections (COMPAS), unlike LSI-R, helps in making case decisions; the tool measures the recidivism risk using a risk scale for general and violent recidivism and misconduct. COMPAS uses various scales; pretrial release risk scale, general recidivism scale, and violent recidivism scale. These scales use the offender’s age, first arrest records, history of violence, education, and history of noncompliance to determine the propensity of the person’s recidivism (Pierson, 2018).
Ohio Risk Assessment System-ORAS is a tool that is used to identify risk factors that drives a person towards criminal behaviors. Unlike LSI-R and COMPAS, ORAS focuses only on the factors that predispose a perform to negative or criminal behaviors, after this assessment the person’s recidivism levels help to ensure the person gets the right interventions and programs. Wisconsin Risk and Needs Tool-WRN, just like Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R), are detailed. Started in 1977, WRN uses domains like personality, attitude, behaviors, drug abuse, mental health, relationships, friends, family background, level of education, and antisocial behaviors to determine the level of recidivism. This tool is generally related to LSI-R, as discussed earlier, that utilizes the same behavior domains, including family, level of education, drug abuse, attitude, and mental health, to determine recidivism.
Static Risk and Offender Needs Guide (STRONG) asses the level of recidivism using two components; the first component comprises 26 questions that deal specifically with prior criminal records. The other component measures other risk factors by assessing the offender’s education level, employment, friends, residential stability, marital status, personality, attitude, and coping skills (Hamilton & Routh, 2018). These assists help in determining the intervention programs and making decisions for the offender. Finally, there is Random Forest Modeling, which is unique in terms of approach and practice. The assessment tool is improved in terms of methodology and uses a large number of predictors and data and different forecasting methodologies to determine the level of recidivism.
Critically looking at this entire tool, after discussing their differences in terms of approach, it is good to look at their similarities. From the various approaches they adopt, it is evident that Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R), Wisconsin Risk and Needs Tool-WRN, and Static Risk and Offender Needs Guide (STRONG) share some similarities in terms of approach. These tools use personal traits, background, and behaviors, including attitude, drug abuse, level of education, family background, marital status, antisocial behaviors, and past criminal records to determine the level of recidivism. In as much as the tools have distinctive features and ways of measuring different domains, the approaches focus on similar domains. Also, it is important to note that all these tools focus on the level of recidivism, they use different approaches and different ways of collecting and analyzing data, but at the end of it all, they have one common goal; to determine the level of recidivism. This helps in making helpful decisions to limit or reduce the chances of the offenders re-offending. Moreover, Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sactions (COMPAS) has some similarities with Static Risk, and Offender Needs Guide (STRONG), the two assessment tools primarily rely or utilize information about an offender’s prior offenses to predict the future and make decisions based on the offender’s previous criminal records (Pierson, 2018).
Looking at all these risks and needs assessment tools, the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R), to me, is the most effective tool. First, this tool is effective since it does not only look at the level of recidivism; it also looks at the offender’s particular criminogenic needs. After finding out the offender’s propensity to re-offend, this tool then groups the offenders based on the results to various categories to receive adequate supervision and monitoring. This tool, therefore, does not only assess the levels of recidivism, but it also helps the offenders get appropriate and effective monitoring and supervision to improve the overall outcome.
