Evaluator Disagreement about the Association between Psychopathy Checklist-Revised Scores and Risk for Future Sexual Violence.

Abstract

It is common for forensic evaluators to use assessment instruments in risk assessment evaluations. This study examines whether different evaluators use instrument results the same way when coming to conclusions about risk for sexual recidivism in Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) evaluations. Three evaluators who each used both the Static-99R and Psychopathy Checklist-Revised in more than 60 SVP evaluations (Total N = 338) provided data for the study. There were clear evaluator differences in how instrument scores were associated with risk opinions. For one evaluator, multiple regression results revealed that PCL-R Facet 2 (Affective) and Facet 3 (Lifestyle) scores were the only statistically significant predictors of risk. In other words, this evaluator's risk opinions were more clearly associated with scores on a psychopathy measure (PCL-R) than scores on a measure specifically designed to assess risk (Static-99R). For another evaluator, only Static-99R scores were independent predictors of risk. For the final evaluator, Static-99R scores and, to a lesser extent, PCL-R Facet 2 scores were independent predictors of risk. These findings add to the growing body of research suggesting that forensic evaluation results can depend, to a non-trivial extent, on the specific evaluator conducting the evaluation.