A comparison of the predictive accuracy of structured and unstructured risk assessment methods for the prediction of recidivism in individuals convicted of sexual and violent offense.

One of the most commonly replicated results in the research area of recidivism risk assessment is the superiority of structured and standardized prediction methods in comparison to unstructured, subjective, intuitive, or impressionistic clinical judgments. However, the quality of evidence supporting this conclusion is partly still controversially discussed because studies including direct comparisons of the predictive accuracy of unstructured and structured risk assessment methods have been relatively rarely conducted. Therefore, we examined in the present study retrospectively N = 416 expert witness reports written about individuals convicted of violent and/or sexual offenses in Germany between 1999 and 2015. The predictive accuracy of different methodological approaches of risk assessment (subjective clinical [i.e., unstructured clinical judgment; UCJ], structured professional judgment [SPJ], actuarial risk assessment instruments [ARAIs], and combinations of ARAIs-/SPJ-based risk assessments) was compared by analyzing the actual reoffenses according to the Federal Central Register (average follow-up period M = 7.08 years). In accordance with previously published results, the results indicated a higher predictive accuracy for structured compared to unstructured risk assessment approaches for the prediction of general, violent, and sexual recidivism. Taken together, the findings underline the limited accuracy of UCJs and provided further support for the use of structured and standardized risk assessment procedures in the area of crime and delinquency. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).