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The Inter-Rater Reliability of Violence Risk Assessment Tools Used by Police Employees in Swedish Police Settings
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Health and Society (HS), Department of Criminology (KR).
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Health and Society (HS), Department of Criminology (KR).ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5375-0065
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Health and Society (HS), Department of Criminology (KR).
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Health and Society (HS), Department of Criminology (KR).
2017 (English)In: Nordisk Politiforskning, ISSN 1894-8693, Vol. 4, no 1, p. 9-28Article in journal (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Risk assessments are used by the police in order to identify the need for victim protection. The aim of this study was to examine the inter-rater reliability of two violence risk assessment tools; the Police Screening Tool for Violent Crimes (PST-VC) and the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER), used by police employees in two different police authorities in Sweden. The inter-rater agreement was evaluated for both tools, with respect to global risk assessments, recommended protective actions and risk- and victim vulnerability factors. The main results showed that the inter-rater agreement was highest for the global assessments and widely varying, from very low to fairly high, for the structured variables. The fairly high reliability for the global risk assessments was most likely due to shared assumptions (heuristics, tacit knowledge) among the assessors rather than being based on the information obtained by the tools.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Universitetsforlaget, 2017. Vol. 4, no 1, p. 9-28
Keywords [en]
Violence risk assessments, crime prevention, police, inter rater reliability
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-15144DOI: 10.18261/issn.1894-8693-2017-01-03Local ID: 22699OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-15144DiVA, id: diva2:1418665
Available from: 2020-03-30 Created: 2020-03-30 Last updated: 2022-12-07Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Risk assessment of intimate partner violence in a police setting: reliability and predictive accuracy
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Risk assessment of intimate partner violence in a police setting: reliability and predictive accuracy
2018 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The Swedish Police Authority conducts violence risk assessments in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) using specific assessment tools. Such assessments are conducted in order to identify high-risk offenders and thereafter implement suitable interventions to prevent repeat IPV. In this thesis, two different risk assessment tools have been evaluated: The Police Screening Tool for Violent Crimes (PST-VC) and the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER, Kropp, Hart, & Belfrage, 2005; 2010). The overall aim has been to contribute to improving the knowledge on police employees’ violence risk assessment and management, specifically with regard to the predictive validity and inter-rater reliability of such assessments. In the first study, we evaluated whether the PST-VC can be used by police employees to identify high-risk cases of repeat IPV. In addition, the preventive effects of the recommended crime preventive and victim protective actions were discussed and also whether these create a confounding problem with respect to predictive validity. The results showed that the predictive accuracy of the tool was fairly weak. Further, the assessors recommended a higher level of interventions in high-risk cases, but these did not reduce the rate of repeat IPV. Study II aimed to examine the inter-rater reliability of the PST-VC and the BSAFER. Police employees conducted pairwise assessments of IPV cases using one of these tools. The tools were evaluated separately and the cases used for the assessments were different for each tool. This means that the consistency of the assessments could not be compared head-to-head across the tools. The results were nonetheless rather similar for both tools; the inter-rater reliability for the individual items was low for most of the individual factors, but was relatively high for the global risk assessments. A suggested explanation for this was that the assessors may have used their tacit knowledge, rather than the individual items, in their global risk assessments and that they shared this tacit knowledge, at least to some extent. The third study focused on the B-SAFER tool, and on the predictive accuracy of the individual items and the global risk assessments in relation to repeat IPV. The study also aimed to examine to what extent the recommended crime preventive and victim protective actions were implemented and whether these interventions had a preventive effect on repeat IPV. The predictive accuracy of the individual B-SAFER items and the global risk assessments was low overall. The majority of the recommended interventions were not implemented, and they did not prevent repeat IPV. The final study (IV) took the form of a systematic literature study with the aimof evaluating the predictive accuracy of IPV risk assessments conducted bypractitioners in different settings, with IPV recidivism as the outcome measure.The number of studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria was small (N= 11).One of these studies was conducted in a treatment setting, while all the otherswere conducted in criminal justice settings. The predictive accuracy for theglobal risk assessments ranged from low to medium, and the role of treatmentor other interventions to prevent repeat IPV had been analyzed in one way orthe other in eight of the studies. However, there was no consistency withregard to the importance of the interventions for repeat IPV.In summary, the predictive accuracy of the police employees’ IPV riskassessments was rather low, and the same applied to the inter-rater reliabilityfor most of the individual items included in the tools. The level of consistencywas higher, however, for the global risk assessments. The IPV preventiveinterventions were not effective in preventing repeat IPV. The predictivevalidity of IPV risk assessments conducted in other settings was found to besimilar, but results regarding the potential mediating role of interventions weremixed.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö university, Faculty of Health and Society, 2018. p. 98
Series
Malmö University Health and Society Dissertations, ISSN 1653-5383 ; 2018:4
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-7359 (URN)10.24834/2043/24791 (DOI)24791 (Local ID)9789171048981 (ISBN)9789171048998 (ISBN)24791 (Archive number)24791 (OAI)
Note

Paper IV in dissertation as manuscript.

Available from: 2020-02-28 Created: 2020-02-28 Last updated: 2024-03-19Bibliographically approved

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Svalin, KlaraMellgren, CarolineTorstensson Levander, MarieLevander, Sten

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