Beyond Prediction to Explanation in Risk Assessment Research: A Comparison of Two Explanatory Theories of Criminality and Recidivism

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A New Generation of Risk Assessment Research

Predictions of dangerousness, violence, and recidivism continue to play an ever-growing role in the legal system. These psycho-legal assessments determine a myriad of legal outcomes including, but not limited to, probation status (i.e., prediction of recidivism), civil commitment (i.e., prediction of danger to self or others), psychotherapist liability under a Tarasoff duty (i.e., prediction of danger to a specified victim), the imposition of the death penalty (i.e., prediction of a continued

The Criminality Theories

Throughout the history of the social sciences there has been a vast number of theories advanced to both explain and predict criminality. Criminality, for purposes of this article, refers to a continued or repeated pattern of behavior in which an individual is convicted of violating the law. Few of these criminality theories, however, have been adequately operationalized to present empirical testable hypotheses. Two explanatory, theory-driven models of criminality, the competitively

Subjects

The records of 150 males who had been convicted of a crime and sentenced to probation in Pima County were collected. These 150 males consisted of two groups: (a) 75 randomly selected males whose probation was revoked during a 6-month period from October 1993 to March 1994, and (b) 75 randomly selected males who successfully completed probation from October 1993 to March 1994 (both sets of subjects were selected from Pima County's probation revocation data base).6

The Measurement Model

The results of the confirmatory factor analysis of the measurement model were mixed. The factor loadings between the 15 manifest variables and the 4 latent variables were statistically significant at p < .05. See Figure 3 for a visual representation of the measurement model, and factor loading scores of manifest variables on the latent variables. While the measurement model achieved adequate fit with the data (Normed Fit Index = .844, Non-Normed Fit Index = .884, and Confirmatory Fit Index =

Current Test of the Two Theories

One purpose of this article was to test the robustness of two theoretical models to explain the future behavior of the offenders tested in this study. Gottfredson and Hirschi's (1990) self-control model outperformed the CDM model on all statistical measures, including: fit indices, goodness-of-fit chi-squares, and parsimony. The self-control model fit the data adequately (Confirmatory Fit Index > .9), and a nested model comparison of the self-control and the CDM model indicated that the

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