The connecticut judicial branch seeks to create and implement a new homegrown adult probation risk assessment instrument for male and female adult probation clients

The Connecticut Judicial Branch received a $593,985 Project Grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance (CFDA 16.812 - Second Chance Act Reentry Initiative) to create and implement a new adult probation risk assessment instrument for male and female probation clients. The 3-year project, spanning from October 2024 to September 2027, will involve four phases: (1) initial item development, (2) item refinement and pilot testing, (3) item standardization and validation, and (4) preparing for statewide implementation of the new instrument. The new risk assessment tool will replace the current LSI-R and WRNA assessments used by the Judicial Branch, reducing costs and improving the ability to appropriately assess probationers from underserved and marginalized populations.

The need to replace current risk assessment instruments is based upon: (1) the high annual costs of the LSI-R and wrna assessments; (2) the use of an outdated version of the LSI-R (created in 1995) that gives limited attention to mental health issues; (3) the duplicative process of using two separate risk assessment instruments; and (4) concerns regarding the LSI-R's ability to appropriately assess probationers from underserved and marginalized populations. The project team will be comprised of leadership staff from each affected judicial branch court support service division (JB-CSSD) component and the academic partners (the department of criminology & criminal justice at central connecticut state university). The project will consist of four distinct phases. In phase 1, initial item development, the research partners will review relevant literature and risk assessments to create a preliminary item pool as the foundation for the new instrument. In phase 2, item refinement and pilot testing, a group of probation officers (POS) and supervisors will be assembled to determine which items should be included in the new instrument, which items can be rewritten for more clarity, and to pilot the items with their probation clients. Phase 3, item standardization and validation, will be the longest phase and will consist of selecting 60 POS, training them on the draft new instrument, and having them administer the instrument to 1,200 existing and new clients (600 males and 600 females). This phase will end with the collection and analysis of client-level data and one-year recidivism data to test the predictive validity of the new instrument and make final adjustments as needed. Phase 4, preparing for statewide implementation of the new instrument, will focus on making the necessary internal structural changes to the JB-CSSD to facilitate the statewide implementation of the new instrument, including: changes to the case management information system, revisions to supervision and case management policy, training for all adult POS, and orienting contracted service providers to the new instrument.