Risk & Needs Screenings in Utah - Summary

A Best Practice

Screening individuals for their risk and needs is becoming standard practice in managing those under correctional supervision.

The LSI:SV

The Level of Service Inventory-Revised: Screening Version, or simply LSI-R:SV classifies individuals into 3 distinct risk categories: low, moderate, and high risk to re-offend.

In this study we examine how well the LSI-R:SV’s risk categories relate with actual re-arrest patterns in Utah, using a 6-month follow-up time.

Specifically, we analyze outcomes of more than 25,500 LSI:SV screenings that were conducted in Salt Lake County jail between 2017 and 2019.

We focus our analysis on two distinct outcomes:

• a new arrest that occurred after jail release that includes either a Misdemeanor or a Felony offense
  
• a new Felony offense only

We further analyze how well the LSI-R:SV can distinguish new arrests by risk level when splitting our sample into females and males.

Take-Aways

Overall, we find that the LSI-R:SV’s 3 separate risk categories relate with new arrest patterns for our two outcomes of interest. These findings were consistent for both males and females. Specifically, we find that:

• Low risk individuals are less likely than moderate and high risk individuals to have a new arrest after jail release
  
• High risk individuals show the highest rate of new arrests after jail release

Thank You!