National Institute of Corrections Library

“The Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS) is the primary assessment tool used to assess risk and needs of juveniles supervised by Hennepin County Juvenile Probation … Evidence-Based Practices requires that assessment tools be normed and validated for the specific population for which they are used. Norms provide a frame of references for interpretation of the scores of particular persons … Internal consistency measures for the Juvenile Probation assessments are consistent with internal consistency found at the national level” (p. 1). SOURCE: Hennepin County Dept. of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation. Office of Planning, Policy and Evaluation (St. Paul, MN). Authored by Skilling, Nancy; Rud, Julie.

The Hennepin County Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation (DOCCR) is transitioning from using the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) to the Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) during 2013. “Because the LSI-R is used to assign clients to appropriate supervision based on their risk scores, it is important to evaluate [the] impact that transition to the LS/CMI will have on this process … This report compares LSI-R scores to converted LS/CMI scores, defines equivalent cut-off scores for the LS/CMI, and presents a validation of the LS/CMI for predicting 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year recidivism rates” (p. 1). SOURCE: Hennepin County Dept. of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation. Office of Planning, Policy and Evaluation (St. Paul, MN). Authored by Skilling, Nancy.

“Repeat offenders pose a significant threat to public safety and reducing DWI [driving while impaired] recidivism is an important goal of DOCCR. The first step in achieving that goal is the identification of those DWI offenders who are at higher risk to reoffend by the use of a valid screening process, one that is predictive of subsequent DWI offenses” (p. 1). This study looks to determine the validity of the Research Institute on Addiction Self-Inventory (RIASI) in risk screening DWI offenders. It appears that the RIASI Subscale, comprising 15 items compared to the total 52 items in the full RIASI, is best suited for screening first time DWI offenders for risk. SOURCE: Hennepin County Dept. of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation. Office of Planning, Policy and Evaluation (St. Paul, MN). Authored by Skilling, Nancy; Nonemaker, Debra.

The norming of the Hennepin County Pre-Screener and Level of Service Inventory Revised (LSI-R) is described. Norming involves a standardization sample used for determining a normal distribution of test takers. These percentages are then used for ranking assessed offenders in the future. Norms are not standards but frames of reference. The recommendation for assigning offenders to traditional supervision in the community is that their LSI-R score be 24 or lower. SOURCE: Hennepin County Dept. of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation. Office of Planning, Policy and Evaluation (St. Paul, MN). Authored by Skilling, Nancy.

The predictive validity of the Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI) and the Spousal Abuse Risk Assessment (SARA) Guide being used to assess misdemeanor domestic violence offenders is determined. “The results of this study provide strong evidence of validity of the SARA and the DVSI in predicting risk to reoffend in general and risk for domestic violence related offenses specifically. This is true for subpopulations of first time domestic offenders, repeat domestic offenders, males and females” (p. 10). SOURCE: Hennepin County Dept. of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation. Office of Planning, Policy and Evaluation (St. Paul, MN). Authored by Skilling, Nancy; Nonemaker, Debra.