[The Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)--a tool for the risk assessment of violent offenders].

Objective: Most instruments used for assessing the recidivism risk of an offender with a violent or sex offense have been developed and validated in North America.

Methods: The aim of this study is to discuss the state of validation for the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)--an instrument for assessing the recidivism risk of violent offenders. A systematic literature research forms the basis for the processing of the literature. In a second section, a scientific translation of the instrument to German, including the scoring rules, is presented.

Results: Normally, while examining the validity of the VRAG, there is a focus on the discriminatory power (displayed using the so-called Area Under the Curve [AUC]). These examinations showed a satisfactory to good discriminatory power (AUC: 0.70-- 0.86). A standardization of this instrument for populations in Europe respectively the German-speaking area has not yet taken place. Only few studies have verified whether North American standard values are also valid for Europe. The few studies on this subject question the generalizability of these standard values to other countries.

Conclusions: The VRAG can be considered a valid measure for the assessment of recidivism risk in Germany and in Switzerland, although so far, standardization has been dispensed with. The application of the VRAG can provide indications for the evaluation of recidivism risk and be integrated into an individual case-oriented assessment.