Validation of the Violence Risk Scale for Australian male prison populations

Two people standing in darkened room looking outside
Abstract

The Violence Risk Scale (VRS) is a risk assessment tool designed to assess and predict risk of future offending, inform decisions around therapeutic intervention and measure changes in violence risk as a result of treatment. While the tool has been used extensively both internationally and in Australia, its applicability to our Australian population is unclear.

This study investigated the discriminative and predictive validity of the VRS for Australian Aboriginal and non-Indigenous males convicted of violent offending in multiple jurisdictions. The VRS total score had moderate discriminative accuracy for violent reoffending at five-year follow-up. However, Aboriginal males were significantly more likely to be categorised as high risk, and additional discrimination measures revealed variation in performance between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous males. Implications of the findings for correctional practice and recommendations to reduce bias in the assessment of Aboriginal offenders are discussed.

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Contents

  • Acknowledgement of Country
  • Acronyms and abbreviations
  • Abstract
  • Executive summary
  • Introduction
  • Method
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • References
  • Appendix