Predicting violent reconvictions using the HCR-20.
BACKGROUND
Risk assessment of future violent acts is of great importance for both public protection and care planning. Structured clinical assessments offer a method by which accurate assessments could be achieved.


OBJECTIVE
To test the efficacy of the Historical, Clinical and Risk Management Scales (HCR-20) structured risk assessment scheme on a large sample of male forensic psychiatric patients discharged from medium secure units in the UK.


METHODS
In a pseudo-prospective study, 887 male patients were followed for at least 2 years. The HCR-20 was completed using only pre-discharge information, and violent and other offending behaviour post-discharge was obtained from official records.


RESULTS
The HCR-20 total score was a good predictor of both violent and other offences following discharge. The historical and risk sub-scales were both able to predict offences, but the clinical sub-scale did not produce significant predictions. The predictive efficacy was highest for short periods (under 1 year) and showed a modest fall in efficacy over longer periods (5 years).


CONCLUSIONS
The results provide a strong evidence base that the HCR-20 is a good predictor of both violent and non-violent offending following release from medium secure units for male forensic psychiatric patients in the UK.
Gray
Nicola S
NS
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK. grayns@cardiff.ac.uk
Taylor
John
J
Snowden
Robert J
RJ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003415:Crime / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry / Q000379:methods*; D006760:Hospitalization; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D006113:United Kingdom; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*