Abstract
Abstract The development and promulgation of the actuarial risk assessment methodology are certainly one of the most important advances in forensic and criminological psychology in the last few decades. Actuarial risk assessment instruments (ARAIs) represent highly structured risk assessment scales using combinations of empirically determined and thoroughly operationalized predictor variables. Two further core variables of ARAIs are that they use explicit methods of combining the risk factors, and that the total score is linked to an empirically derived probability figure. Based on Meehl's seminal work in 1954, it is today the most replicated result of psychological assessment research that ARAIs usually yield better predictive accuracy than alternative prognostic approaches. Furthermore, following the Risk–Need–Responsivity (RNR) model about the effectiveness of offender rehabilitation programmes proposed by Andrews and Bonta in 2006, ARAIs have to be regarded as an integral part of successful rehabilitation and treatment programmes. This chapter gives an overview of the internationally most important ARAIs for sexual offenders and the current state of research on ARAIs, and discusses the strengths, opportunities, and also potential problems in the application of ARAIs.
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