The assessment of offender risk plays an important role in corrections, both in terms of its influence on program allocation and promoting the safe release of offenders into the community. Paroling authorities are particularly sensitive to offender risk and risk assessment forms a critical part of their decision to release an offender. Objective offender risk assessment instruments have been developed to assist in the release decision-making process and, in Canada, one such instrument is the Statistical Information on Recidivism (SIR) scale. The SIR scale was developed in the early 1970's and the present study reports on a re-validation along with an examination of the scale's ability to predict violent recidivism. Based on a new sample of3,267 inmates released in 1983-84, the validity of the SIR scale for the prediction of general recidivism was re-affirmed. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis also confirmed the present use of cut-off scores that define the various risk categories. Although SIR scores predicted violent re-offending. the magnitude of the relationship was less than that reported with other violent risk predicting instruments. Problems and options for improving predictions of violent re-offending are discussed with an emphasis on practical applications.
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Bonta et al. (1996) studied this question.