The relationship between assessed risk and service security level for offenders with intellectual disability

Abstract

Following social policies of deinstitutionalisation, few offenders with intellectual disability (ID) are diverted into local hospitals and they are now referred to a range of community and secure services. Of 197 participants, the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide was completed on 181 and the Static-99 on 83. Assessed risk was then related to six levels of service: community generic, specialist community forensic ID, learning disability in patient, low secure, medium secure and high secure. On both assessments, those in high secure had a significantly greater average assessed risk than in the community. Correlations between assessed risk and level of service showed low to medium effect sizes. Despite an orderly relationship between assessed risk and level of security, the effect sizes are not large suggesting that factors may intervene to place some individuals of a high risk in community settings and others of a low risk in secure settings.

Keywords:

• risk assessment
• services
• community forensic team
• intellectual disability
• secure services

Acknowledgement

This study was funded by the UK. Dept. of Health National Forensic Health research and development Programme – research grant no. MRD/12/45.