§ 305.2. Sentence Risk Assessment Instrument methodology.
(a) Development and validation.
(1) The Commission conducted a study using offenders sentenced during 2004—2006 (n=131,055) to allow for a three-year follow-up period for all offenders, while taking advantage of improvements in data quality and a more recent time period. Additional information on the development and validation of the Sentence Risk Assessment Instrument is available from the Commission.
(2) The Commission developed risk scales for all offenders, except those with DUI as the most serious offense of the judicial proceeding.
(3) In developing the risk scales, the following analyses were conducted:
(i) bivariate analyses to determine which factors were related to recidivism;
(ii) multivariate logistic regression to determine which factors best predicted recidivism while holding other factors constant;
(iii) rotation of all categories for factors that were multi-categorical to ensure that reported differences were real and not due to a particular comparison category;
(iv) Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis, which plots the true positive rate (i.e., how many people were predicted to recidivate and did recidivate) against the false positive rate (i.e., how many people were predicted to recidivate but did not recidivate); and
(v) validation of the final scales with both samples.
(b) Risk factors and scales—general.
(1) Based upon the analyses conducted by the Commission, the following factors were found to be predictive of recidivism, and thus, used in the risk assessment scales:
(i) age;
(ii) gender;
(iii) number of prior convictions;
(iv) prior conviction offense type;
(v) current conviction offense type;
(vi) multiple current convictions;
(vii) prior juvenile adjudication.
(2) The risk scale for recidivism is located at § 305.7.
(c) Recidivism rates—general.
(1) The Sentence Risk Assessment Instrument provides the probability of recidivism based on the proportion of offenders in the development and validation samples who recidivate. Offenders identified as low risk or high risk were found to be significantly different in risk of recidivism than the typical offender.
(2) Recidivism rates by risk score for recidivism are located at § 305.8.
(d) Review and Re-validation.
(1) Following the first year of utilization, the Commission shall analyze the impact of the Instrument and the source of the information provided to the court, and shall publish information on sentencing patterns and racial impact.
(2) The Commission shall re-validate the Instrument every three years.
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