How well do juvenile risk assessments measure factors to target in treatment? Examining construct validity.

There has been a surge of interest in using 1 type of risk assessment instrument to tailor treatment to juveniles to reduce recidivism. Unlike prediction-oriented instruments, these reduction-oriented instruments explicitly measure variable risk factors as "needs" to be addressed in treatment. There is little evidence, however, that the instruments accurately measure specific risk factors.

Does staff see what experts see? Accuracy of front line staff in scoring juveniles' risk factors.

Although increasingly complex risk assessment tools are being marketed, little is known about "real world" practitioners' capacity to score them accurately. In this study, we assess the extent to which 78 staff members' scoring of juveniles on the California-Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument (CA-YASI; Orbis Partners, Inc., 2008) agree with experts' criterion scores for those cases.