Juvenile Risk Assessment: Assessing the Evaluability and Predictive Validity of the Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument for use among the North Dakota Juvenile Probation Population

Regardless of the approach, the goal is to produce an instrument that possesses high predictive validity (i.e., can accurately predict the risk of recidivism). When instruments possess low levels of predictive validity the information they provide is little better, or even more misleading, than that of subjective professional assessments (Krysik & LeCroy, 2002). Poor predictive validity can be a real concern for agencies that adopt risk assessment instruments from other jurisdictions without subsequent validation (Jones, Harris, Fader, & Grubstein, 2001). By doing so, the agency is making an assumption that what worked in one jurisdiction will work in another. This assumption can be faulty partly due to differences in implementation and fidelity alone (Taxman & Belenko, 2012). One need only to look at the recent debate over attempts to replicate HOPE (Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement) in the continental US to see replication without follow-up research can be complicated and risky (Hamilton, Campbell, van Wormer, Kigerl, & Posey, 2016; Lattimore, et al., 2016; O’Connell, Brent, & Visher, 2016).