J u s t i c e Re s e a R c h

National Institute of Justice

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

MAY 2014 Greg Ridgeway • Acting Director, NIJ Robert L. Listenbee • Administrator, OJJDP

PREDICTION AND RISK/NEEDS ASSESSMENT 

T

his bulletin discusses our ability to predict whether a young adult will 

commit crimes based on information available from his or her juvenile 

years and reviews assessment tools used to make these predictions. 

Predicting and Assessing Risk

Predicting the onset of criminal activity and whether it will persist depends on 

the early identification of serious and violent individuals and the risks, needs 

and protective factors that facilitate such identification: 

• Risk factors are characteristics of youth or their circumstances that increase 

the likelihood they will engage in delinquency. 

• Needs factors (i.e., dynamic risk factors) are risk factors that can be 

changed, and, if changed, could reduce the likelihood that youth will engage 

in delinquency. 

• Protective factors are characteristics of youth or their circumstances that 

can protect youth from engaging in criminal behavior.

Risk assessments are relevant to a range of decisions, 

from precharge diversion to sentencing and 

disposition. Selecting a risk assessment tool depends 

on the nature of the decision. For example, pretrial 

detention decisions often require an estimate of how 

likely a youth will be to commit a violent offense in 

the short term. 

Decisions with longer term impact, such as 

disposition, case planning and management, call for 

an assessment of the individual’s criminogenic needs 

as well as risk and protective factors. 

Standardized Assessment Tools

A number of standardized and validated procedures 

have been developed to help practitioners collect and 

synthesize information about an individual and thus 

yield estimates of the individual’s risks and needs. 

Several types of procedures are available:

• In unstructured clinical assessments,

practitioners form judgments about a youth’s level 

of risk based on their subjective interpretation of 

information collected in an unstructured manner. 

• In actuarial decision-making, practitioners make 

risk predictions based on a statistical formula that 

includes only historical measures and factors that 

do not change over time. 

This publication summarizes Bulletin 4: Prediction and Risk/Needs Assessment

by Robert D. Hoge, Gina Vincent and Laura Guy, NCJ 242934, available at 

NCJRS.gov. Bulletin 4 is one in a series of bulletins prepared for Transitions 

From Juvenile to Adult: Papers From the Study Group on Transitions From 

Juvenile Delinquency to Adult Crime. The study group was led by David 

Farrington and Rolf Loeber under award number 2008-IJ-CX-K402; to learn 

more, visit NIJ.gov, keyword “Transitions to Adulthood.” This summary was 

written by Carrie Mulford, a Social Science Analyst at NIJ. See full bulletin for 

source citations.
2 n J u s t i c e R e s e a r c h

• Static/dynamic actuarial measures incorporate 

both static and dynamic risk factors (i.e., needs 

factors) that are known to be associated empirically 

with later offending. Practitioners can use 

these tools for reassessment and for planning 

interventions. They often include an override 

procedure at the final risk level to account for 

idiosyncratic factors that may affect an individual’s 

risk level but not the overall score. 

• Using structured professional judgment, practitioners 

impose structure on risk factors that should be 

considered and how they should be measured. How 

factors are combined is left to the discretion of the 

practitioner conducting the evaluation.

Research consistently demonstrates that standardized 

assessments, whether based on actuarial measures or 

structured professional judgment, better predict future 

behavior than unstructured clinical assessments. 

Comparing Risk Assessment Tools

Twelve standardized instruments used in assessing 

risk — six applicable to youth and six to adults — are 

reviewed at length in Bulletin 4: Prediction and Risk/

Needs Assessment (NCJ 242934), available at http://

www.ncjrs.gov. Studies that compared the aggregate 

predictive validity of various actuarial and structured 

professional judgment tools indicated that neither 

approach has a definitive, consistent advantage in 

predicting who will reoffend. 

Tools developed to assess risk and predict later 

offending among offending populations have 

progressed to where they are useful to the criminal 

and juvenile justice communities. Whether these tools 

maintain their predictive accuracy during different 

developmental periods, however, is unknown. 

To address this gap, researchers conducted a 

preliminary investigation into the validity of tools 

for assessing risk at different periods between late 

adolescence and early adulthood (18 to 29 years). 

They found that tools demonstrating accurate 

predictive validity maintain that accuracy regardless 

of the developmental period in which reoffending 

occurred. For young offenders who were first assessed 

during adolescence, risk assessment tools predicted 

reoffending during early adulthood at least as well as 

during adolescence. In addition, adult risk assessment 

tools conducted during early adulthood adequately 

predicted reoffending during this period. 

Implications for Policy and Practice

The research provides some important guidelines for 

practitioners and policymakers:

• Based on what we know from the mental health, 

psychopathy and personality disorder fields, any 

risk assessment tool for youth should contain 

specific risk factors. These include impulsivity, 

remorselessness, callousness or lack of emotion, 

inconsistent or lax discipline, and the early onset 

of violence. The relevance of these risk factors, 

however, to the onset and continuation of offending 

in early adulthood is not well-established. 

Factors associated with the onset of or desistance 

from criminal activity are not the same throughout 

the transition from adolescence to early adulthood. 

Programs and approaches that are effective for 

adolescents may not be effective for those who 

begin offending in early adulthood. 

• Most communities offer little assistance to 

individuals ages 17-21 who have shifted out of the 

juvenile services system. Providing counseling 

and other services related to substance abuse, 

employment and relationship issues arising during 

this period could ease the transition and help 

individuals avoid potential problems. 

Points of view or opinions expressed in this 

document are those of the author and do not 

necessarily represent the official position or 

policies of NIJ, OJJDP, or the U.S. Department 

of Justice.

The National Institute of Justice and the Office

of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

are components of the Office of Justice 

Programs, which also includes the Bureau 

of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice 

Statistics; the Office for Victims of Crime; 

and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, 

Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, 

and Tracking (SMART).

NCJ 243976