NCJ Number
193444
Date Published
January 2002
Length
2 pages
Annotation
This report summarizes the contents and objectives of a recent
OJJDP (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention)
report that provides technicians with a statistical guide for
preparing risk scales for practical application in juvenile
courts.
Abstract
Risk scales are statistical tools that help decision makers
classify juveniles on the basis of expected behavior. After a set
of predictive factors is identified, either through examining
research or by tapping the expertise of experienced
professionals, technical staff must decide how to combine data
into a score or risk category that predicts future behavior. The
new OJJDP report, "Risk Classification: A Comparison of Methods
for Practical Application in Juvenile Courts," details and
compares the processes for implementing a number of the most
commonly used statistical approaches in risk scaling. This report
presents step-by-step procedures for developing a risk scale,
using the following statistical methods: a simple method without
different weightings of the predictive items, multiple linear
regression, discriminant analysis, logistic regression, and
predictive attribute analysis. The authors constructed a data set
from the automated records housed in the National Juvenile Court
Data Archive that held risk and criterion (outcome) information
commonly available in most jurisdictions. The authors explain how
they applied each statistical method to a random portion of this
data set to produce an instrument that divided the referred
juveniles into five recidivism risk categories. The predictive
capabilities of the risk scales were found to be about the same.
The relative benefits of the scales are thus compared according
to simplicity, the ease of explaining the statistics to a
nontechnical audience, and the ability to control for unwanted
influences on the resulting prediction.
Date Published: January 1, 2002