PSYCHOMETRIC EVALUATION OF THE RISK APPRAISAL GUIDE (RAG) - A TOOL FOR ASSESSING VIOLENT RECIDIVISM

The Risk Appraisal Guide (RAG) is a recently developed assessment inst rument for predicting violent behavior of mentally disordered male off enders. Tl;le aim of this research was to investigate some of the psyc hometric properties of the RAG with a nonmentally disordered offender population. Subjects consisted of 136 federally sentenced Canadian mal e offenders who had not been diagnosed with a mental disorder The resu lts indicated the reliability and the concurrent validity of the RAG f or assessing violent behavior of federally incarcerated nonmentally di sordered male offenders. Further research requires a determination of the predictive validity of the RAG with these offenders.