Risk Assessments & Recidivism among a Population-Based Group of Swedish Offenders Sentenced to Life in Prison
BACKGROUND:
In
Sweden, the number of people serving life sentences has steadily increased. To
date, few studies have examined the recidivism rate or the predictive validity
of different risk assessment instruments in this group.
AIMS:
Our aim
was to test the predictive validity among inmates serving life sentences of two
different instruments used for assessing risk-the Historical, Clinical and Risk
Management-20 (HCR-20), most widely used in clinical populations, and the
Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), commonly applied in both penal and
clinical settings.
METHOD:
Ninety-eight
life-sentenced prisoners were included, 26 of whom were released during the
study period. Data on risk assessments and dates for release were collected
from administrative records, while recidivism data were retrieved from a
national database on criminal convictions.
RESULTS:
Sex
offenders obtained the highest scores and inmates charged with domestic violent
offences obtained the lowest scores on both instruments. The released prisoners
were followed for a mean period of 33 months. During this time five prisoners
(19%) reoffended, four of them violently, with an average time to recidivism of
10 months. Only PCL-R Facet 4, which reflects antisocial features, was
significantly associated with recidivism.
CONCLUSIONS:
This
small, but population-based, study demonstrates that antisocial behaviour shows
incremental predictive validity for reoffending among life-sentenced offenders,
but other measures have little to add for this specific task. The fact that
those life sentenced prisoners who reoffended did so so soon after release
should prompt allocation of earlier interventions towards preventing this.
- 1National Board of Forensic Medicine, Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University, Sweden.
- 2National Board of Forensic Medicine and Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
- 3National Board of Forensic Medicine, Sweden.
- Crim Behav Ment Health. 2016 Apr;26(2):124-35. doi: 10.1002/cbm.1941. Epub 2015 Jan 30.
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