Predicting risk of violence through a self-appraisal questionnaire / Predicción del riesgo de violencia mediante un cuestionario de auto-evaluación

The Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) is a self-report that predicts the risk of violence and recidivism and provides relevant information about treatment needs for incarcerated populations. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the concurrent and predictive validity of this self-report in Spanish offenders. The SAQ was administered to 276 offenders recruited from several prisons in Madrid (Spain). SAQ total scores presented high levels of internal consistency (alpha=.92). Correlations of the instrument with violence risk instruments were statistically significant and showed a moderate magnitude, indicating a reasonable degree of concurrent validity. The ROC analysis carried out on the SAQ total score revealed an AUC of .80, showing acceptable accuracy discriminating between violent and nonviolent recidivist groups. It is concluded that the SAQ total score is a reliable and valid measure to estimate violence and recidivism risk in Spanish offenders (AU)

El cuestionario Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) [cuestionario de autovaloración] es una medida de auto-informe que predice el riesgo de violencia y reincidencia, además de permitir evaluar las necesidades de tratamiento para poblaciones penitenciarias. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar su validez concurrente y predictiva en una muestra española de delincuentes. El cuestionario fue administrado a 276 delincuentes procedentes de varios centros penitenciarios de Madrid (España). El coeficiente alfa de Cronbach que se obtuvo para la puntuación total del SAQ fue elevado (alfa=.92). Las correlaciones obtenidas con otros instrumentos de riesgo de violencia fueron estadísticamente significativas y presentaron una magnitud moderada, indicando un razonable grado de validez concurrente del instrumento. El análisis de la curva ROC reveló un área bajo la curva de .80, mostrando una aceptable capacidad de precisión a la hora de discriminar entre grupos de reincidentes violentos y no violentos. Se concluye que la puntuación total del SAQ proporciona una medida suficientemente fiable y válida para estimar violencia y riesgo de reincidencia en población de delincuentes españoles (AU)

The prevalence of the Middle-Eastern extreme ideologies among some Canadians.

A total of 183 Canadian participants of different religious backgrounds completed the Belief Diversity Scale (BDS). The BDS is an 80-item, 6-subscale instrument designed to quantitatively measure the religious attitudes, beliefs, and ideologies of Middle-Eastern extremists' on risk areas that are reported in the literature. The results demonstrated the reliability and validity of the BDS as well as indicated the prevalence of Middle-Eastern extremists' ideologies among Muslim Canadians. Results were similar to those obtained from similar study completed on South African participants. These findings suggested that the BDS has the potential to be used as an objective tool to measure Middle-Eastern religious extremism.

The prevalence of extreme Middle Eastern ideologies around the world.

The Belief Diversity Scale (BDS) was administered to Australian, Canadian, Egyptian, and South African participants of different religious backgrounds. The BDS is a 33-item, six subscale instrument that is designed to quantitatively measure Middle Eastern extremist ideologies on risk areas that are reported in the literature. Results demonstrated the reliability and validity of the BDS, thus suggesting that the BDS could be used as an objective tool to measure Middle Eastern extremist ideologies. Results also supported the hypothesis of prevalence of Middle Eastern extremist ideologies around different parts of the world.

The prevalence of middle eastern extremist ideologies among some canadian offenders.

The Belief Diversity Scale (BDS) was administered to 89 male Canadian offenders of different religious backgrounds. The BDS is a 33-item, sixsubscale instrument designed to quantitatively measure the religious attitudes, beliefs, and ideologies of Middle Eastern extremists on risk areas described in the literature. Results indicated that the Muslim offenders scored much higher than and significantly different from both the Christian and atheist groups on the BDS. Results also suggested the prevalence of Middle Eastern extremist ideologies among the Muslim offenders involved in this study.

The myth of offenders' deception on self-report measure predicting recidivism: example from the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ).

Two studies were conducted to investigate the vulnerability of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) to deception and self-presentation biases. The SAQ is a self-report measure used to predict recidivism and guide institutional and program assignments. In the first study, comparisons were made between 429 volunteer offenders who completed the SAQ for research purposes and 75 offenders who completed the SAQ as a part of the psychological assessments process required for consideration for early release. In the second study, 106 participants over two sessions completed the SAQ and the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. Participants completed both measures under two separate sets of instructions: (a) Answers would be used for research purposes, and (b) answers would be used for making decisions about their release to the community. Results from both studies reaffirmed previous findings that the SAQ is not vulnerable to deception, lying, and self-presentation biases.

Is schizoid personality a forerunner of homicidal or suicidal behavior?: a case study.

The authors believe that a relationship exists between schizoid personality disorder and violent acts. The following case study is presented to contemplate such a possible relationship. There is a paucity of research on this topic. The authors suggest that further research closely examine the relationship between violent behavior and those character traits associated with schizoid personality disorder. If such a relationship is found, these character traits could be integrated with other risk factors known to predict violence.

Cross-validation of the self-appraisal questionnaire: a tool for assessing violent and nonviolent recidivism with female offenders.

The Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) is a 72-item self-report measure designed to predict violent and nonviolent recidivism among adult male criminal offenders. It was administered to 91 female offenders incarcerated in Pennsylvania and 183 incarcerated in Singapore correctional systems. Results indicated that the SAQ has sound psychometric properties, with acceptable reliability and concurrent and predictive validity for assessing violent and nonviolent recidivism. There were no significant differences between the scores of African American and Asian offenders and the responses of the White offenders. Similar to the findings from male offenders, the present results provide some support for the validity of the SAQ in the prediction of violent and nonviolent recidivism risk among White, African American, and Asian female offenders.

Predicting violence among forensic-correctional populations: the past 2 decades of advancements and future endeavors.

Research on violence prediction during the past 2 decades has evolved appreciably in terms of depicting determinants of violence and developing psychometrically sound actuarial measures to predict the probability of future violent behavior. This article provides a brief synopsis of information on predicting violence gained in the past 2 decades, the methodological advances evolved, and finally significant gaps in violence prediction that still exist for future research endeavors.

Cross-validation of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ): an offender risk and need assessment measure on Australian, British, Canadian, Singaporean, and American offenders.

The Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) is a 72-item self-report measure designed to predict violent and nonviolent recidivism among adult criminal offenders. The results from using samples from Australia, Canada, England, Singapore, and two samples from the United States (North Carolina and Pennsylvania) indicated that (a) the SAQ has sound psychometric properties, with acceptable reliability and concurrent validity for assessing recidivism and institutional adjustment; (b) there were no significant differences among the scores of the White, African American, Hispanic, and Aboriginal Australian offenders on the SAQ; (c) there were no significant differences among offenders who completed the SAQ for research purposes versus offenders who completed it as part of a decision-making process. Results provided support for the validity of the SAQ to be used with the culturally diverse offenders involved in this research and provided further evidence that contradicts concerns that the SAQ as a self-report measure may be susceptible to lying, and self-presentation biases.

Concurrent cross-validation of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire: a tool for assessing violent and nonviolent recidivism and institutional adjustment on a sample of North Carolina offenders.

The aim of this study was to determine whether the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ), a tool that was found to be reliable and valid for assessing violent and nonviolent recidivism and institutional adjustment for Canadian offenders, would also be valid for the same purposes with a demographically different population of North Carolina offenders. The internal consistency alphas and SAQ total and subscale scores' correlations were high. Offenders with high SAQ total scores had significantly more violent offenses, had more total number of past offenses, had higher numbers of past arrests, and had more institutional infractions than those with low SAQ scores. There were no significant differences between the responses of the African American and Caucasian offenders on the SAQ scales. These results support previous findings regarding the reliability and validity of the SAQ for assessing recidivism and institutional adjustment and suggest that the SAQ could be used with diverse populations.

The Self-Appraisal Questionnaire: a self-report measure for predicting recidivism versus clinician-administered measures: a 5-year follow-up study.

In this study, the effectiveness of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ), a self-report measure for predicting release outcome, is examined as compared to clinician-administered and widely used risk prediction measures, over a 5-year period. The SAQ was administered along with four similar, but clinician-administered, measures to 91 federally sentenced Canadian male offenders prior to their release to the community. Follow-up data were collected for a 60-month period. Outcome criteria measures were violent and general recidivism. Results indicated that the SAQ is at least as effective as the four other measures in predicting postrelease outcome. The advantages of using the SAQ as a self-report measure as opposed to clinician-administered measures are discussed.

Predictive validity despite social desirability: evidence for the robustness of self-report among offenders.

INTRODUCTION: Many professionals believe that self-report questionnaires used to predict recidivism have a low validity. The aim of the present study was to investigate the assumption that the validity of self-report is vulnerable to self-presentation biases in offender samples. METHOD: The participants consisted of 124 male offenders who volunteered to complete the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ). RESULTS: Lower scores on measures of social desirability were significantly associated with higher levels of risk (as measured by self-report and a rated actuarial instrument) and a higher likelihood to re-offend. Further, stepwise regression analysis revealed that social desirability added significantly unique variance in the prediction of violent recidivism. DISCUSSION: The authors propose that impression management may be an enduring person-based characteristic within an offender sample rather than a situationally determined response style. The variance associated with this characterological information is proposed to be the source of the unique predictive variance.

Cross-validation of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire with a maximum-security psychiatric population.

The Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ) is a 72-item, self-report measure designed to predict recidivism, supervision violations, and related behaviors among nonmentally disordered Canadian federal offenders. In the present article, the authors demonstrate that the SAQ maintains satisfactory predictive validity on cross-validation with a high-risk correctional psychiatric sample.