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. 2024 Mar;31(2):418-430.
doi: 10.1177/10731911231163617. Epub 2023 Apr 10.

Promotive, Mixed, and Risk Effects of Individual Items Comprising the SAPROF Assessment Tool With Justice-Involved Youth

Calvin M Langton  1 , Mackenzie Betteridge  1 , James R Worling  2
Affiliations

Promotive, Mixed, and Risk Effects of Individual Items Comprising the SAPROF Assessment Tool With Justice-Involved Youth

Calvin M Langton et al. Assessment. 2024 Mar.

Abstract

The Structured Assessment of PROtective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF) is a widely used structured professional judgment (SPJ) tool. Its indices have predictive validity regarding desistance from future violence in adult correctional/forensic psychiatric populations. Although not intended for applied use with youth, SAPROF items lend themselves to an investigation of whether their operationalizations capture only strengths or also risks. With 229 justice-involved male adolescents followed for a fixed 3-year period, promotive, risk, and mixed effects were found. Most SAPROF items exerted a mixed effect, being associated with higher and lower likelihoods of violent and any reoffending at opposite ends of their trichotomous ratings. Summing items weighted using their promotive and risk odds ratios produced statistically significant improvements in predictive accuracy, improvements found also with a cross-validation sample of 171 justice-involved youth. The nature of strengths and implications for the development of SPJ tools and training in their use were discussed.

Keywords: SAPROF; adolescence; desistance; juvenile offenders; protective factors; risk assessment; violent recidivism.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Percentage With Any New Offense for SAPROF Items Conferring Four Types of Effect. Note. Base rate for any new offense in the sample was 30%. SAFPROF = Structured Assessment of PROtective Factors for violence risk.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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