Poster #9

Gender-Responsive Modifications to Risk and Need Assessment Tools

By: Devin Randle, Susan Hall

Abstract:

Historically, a majority of assessment research has been conducted solely on men or has ignored gender as an influential factor in given samples. As the female and non-binary offender population grows, this presents a problem. Clinicians have the responsibility to administer risk and need assessments with normative populations that match, or even consider, an individual’s gender. By utilizing tools that have been created or modified to consider gender, clinicians are minimizing the trauma that may be further instilled by inadequate assessments. The use of risk and need assessments that are not normed on the individual offender’s gender can often lead to misclassification of risk, mismatched treatment interventions, and an increased probability of recidivism. In response to this problem, different options for gender-responsive shifts in assessments have been developed; however, a detailed list of the relevant modifications and their associated assessments have yet to be synthesized in one place. While further research surrounding gender issues within risk and need assessment tools remains a necessity, this poster presents results from a systematic review detailing the different approaches for accommodating gender and the associated risk and need tools that have done so.