title: Actuarial risk assessment in sexually motivated intimate-partner violence.
abstract: The present study is the first independent cross-validation of the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) and the Domestic Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (DVRAG) using an incarcerated high-risk sample (N = 66) of offenders released from the Austrian Prison System who have committed at least one sexually motivated offense against their actual or former intimate partners. The mean follow-up period was approximately 55 months. Both instruments showed evidence for their reliability and predictive accuracy, supporting the cross-cultural transferability of these risk assessment instruments. For the prediction of domestic violence recidivism, ODARA and DVRAG yield good predictive accuracy (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, AUC = .71), and for general criminal and general violent recidivism, both instruments exhibit moderate effect sizes (AUC = .66-.71). Also, the results provide evidence for the discriminant validity of the ODARA. When examining the association between individual ODARA items and recidivism, only a few items were found to be related to domestic violence recidivism. The integration of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) does not add any incremental predictive accuracy to the ODARA, suggesting that ODARA items capture antisocial and psychopathic traits sufficiently even in incarcerated high-risk offenders.
authors.affiliation: Austrian Prison System, Federal Evaluation Centre for Violent and Sexual Offenders, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rettenberger
authors.forename: Reinhard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Eher
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017579:Domestic Violence; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011329:Prisoners; D012008:Recurrence; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*