Cross-Validation of the Revised Version of the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG-R) in a Sample of Individuals Convicted of Sexual Offenses

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the German version of the revised Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG), the VRAG-R. Therefore, VRAG-R ratings were made retrospectively in an Austrian sample of 534 individuals convicted of a sexual offense who were followed up with an average of 7.62 years. The VRAG-R showed large effect sizes for the predictive accuracy of violent (AUC = .75) and general recidivism (AUC = .78) and significant but rather small effect sizes (AUC = .63 and .61, respectively) in predicting any sexual and sexual contact recidivism. Furthermore, for the prediction of violent recidivism but not for sexual recidivism the VRAG-R was incrementally predictive beyond the Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG) and the Static-99. Finally, the VRAG-R absolute recidivism rates for the risk bins showed satisfactory calibration properties. Taken together, the results of the present study support the cross-national utility of the VRAG-R and its use in applied risk assessment settings also in German-speaking countries.

The predictive and incremental validity of ADHD beyond the VRAG-R in a high-risk sample of young offenders

“…Nevertheless, when comparing correlation coefficients between single items and violent recidivism in adult and juvenile samples, some considerable differences were found which should be regarded when using the VRAG-R in younger offenders or when trying to optimize the item composition in future research approaches. Whereas in both the development study and in other cross-validation studies with adult offenders every item correlated significantly with violent recidivism (e.g., [15,43]), only 6 out of the 12 items showed statistically significant effect sizes in the current sample. The items that did not correlate with violent recidivism were the following: Substance use, marital status at time of index offense, nonviolent criminal history before index offense, age at index offense, violent criminal history, and sex offending history.…”

“…On average, the n = 106 male young offenders were M = 18.33 years old at the time of index offense (SD = 1.77, [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Regarding the educational level, 17% had no graduation (n = 18), 35.8% had an auxiliary school graduation (n = 38), 44.3% had a secondary school graduation (n = 47), and 2.8% had a high school diploma (n = 3).…”

“…Recidivism risk was retrospectively assessed for the total sample by two independent raters using the German version of the VRAG-R [15,37,38]. The VRAG-R [15,43] is an actuarial risk-assessment instrument developed to assess the risk of violent recidivism and consists of 12 predominantly static items. Its outcome measure, violent recidivism, includes any violent offenses and sexual offenses involving physical contact with the victim (sexual contact offenses, [21].…”

“…The VRAG-R is easy to score and should work equally well concerning the assessment of recidivism risk for violent offending in any kind of adult male offender who has committed a "serious antisocial act" [21]. First cross-validation studies have shown that the VRAG-R can predict violent recidivism in different adult offender samples with moderate to large effect sizes, including violent and sexual offenders as well as offenders not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder [12,15,29,53]. However, the VRAG-R, just like most other risk-assessment instruments, was primarily developed for adults and it is not yet clear, whether it can be validly used in young offenders as well.…”

Improving Risk Communication: Developing Risk Ratios for the VRAG-R

“…Predictive accuracy was similar when the scores were broken down into nine risk categories roughly based on score deciles (two of the middle deciles were combined, creating nine categories). Three validation studies have supported its inter-rater reliability and relative predictive accuracy (Glover et al, 2017;Gregório Hertz et al, 2021;Olver & Sewall, 2018).…”