The Correctional Assessment and Intervention System™ (or CAIS, used for adults) and the Juvenile Assessment and Intervention System™ (JAIS) were designed to provide criminal justice personnel with integrated assessment tools which identify evidence-based supervision strategies that emphasize public safety, rehabilitation, accountability, and criminogenic needs. CAIS™ and JAIS™ employ a single semi-structured interview to derive assessments of risk, strengths, and needs. The results of the interview are scored by an automated response system which produces an individualized case plan including risk, needs, and supervision strategy classifications, as well as recommendations for evidence-based programs and services. CAIS and JAIS include periodic reassessment components to automatically update individual case plans on a continuous basis. A reporting package provides real-time aggregate data reports for client monitoring, agency management and budgeting, and outcome measurement. The web-based system requires no agency investment in hardware or software, MIS redesign, or maintenance. Validity and reliability have been successfully demonstrated through multiple studies. CAIS and JAIS incorporate gender-responsive assessments and interventions to address the unique risk and needs areas of girls and women. Comprehensive training and technical assistance packages are offered.

The Circumstances, motivation, readiness, and suitability (CMRS) assessment tool comprises 25 questions that can be used to assess motivation to seek and engage in treatment, and to gauge the appropriateness of treatment for an individual. The CMRS scales are designed to predict treatment retention based on dynamic client factors in four areas: circumstances, or external conditions that influence people to seek treatment; internal motivation, or an individual’s inner desires for change; readiness, or the person’s perceived need for treatment; and suitability for treatment. Tests of the validity of the CMRS have found that it is possible to predict treatment results based on the tool, particularly in therapeutic community (TC) settings. A version of the CMRS is available for prison settings. It can be administered by lay staff (including corrections officers), and requires 10 minutes to complete.

The Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) system is a statistically based risk and needs assessment specifically designed to assess key risk and needs factors in adult and youth correctional populations and to provide decision-support for justice professionals who must make decisions regarding the placement, supervision, and case-management of individuals in community supervision and correctional institution settings. It achieves this by providing valid measurement and succinct organization of research supported risk/need dimensions. COMPAS scores each individual based on three different types of risk (violence, recidivism, and failure to appear in court) and 19 different criminogenic needs. The software also includes case planning, outcomes measurement, and reports generation modules. The internal Research Division (staffed by five PhDs) and IT Division provide the research and technical support to norm the assessment for the local population and configure the software to local policy and procedure. The time required to administer each battery of tests varies, and can be adapted to the needs of the jurisdiction. A peer reviewed validation study of the COMPAS has been accepted by Criminal Justice and Behavior for publication in the June 2009 edition. An additional independent validation of the COMPAS in a California study by Zhang and Farabee (2007) indicated predictive accuracies comparable to other major instruments.

The Criminal Sentiments Scale-Modified (CSS-M) is a 41 item self-report measure of antisocial attitudes, values, and beliefs related to criminal activity. The CSS-M is composed of five subscales: Attitudes Toward the Law, Court, Police, Tolerance for Law Violations, and Identification with Criminal Others. Respondents rate prosocial and antisocial statements on a 5-point Likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Research has established validity and reliability of CSS-M for adult and juvenile populations. There has been limited research to validate the CCS-M on the people committed of sex offenses. The test takes 10-15 minutes to complete.

The Hostile Interpretations Questionnaire (HIQ) is an instrument that measures an individual’s propensity towards hostile interpretations in social situations and interactions. It includes four subscales that measure components of hostility (attribution, external blame, hostile reaction, and overgeneralization) and five subscales that assess the social context that elicits hostility (acquaintance, anonymous, authority, family, and work). Its validity has been established against other anger assessment instruments. Its developer reports that, while research has not demonstrated a link between anger/hostility and recidivism, corrections staff can use the HIQ’s subscales to target interventions by identifying situations that elicit hostility, such as intimate/family settings. The instrument comprises 28 items and it requires approximately 30 minutes to complete.

The Jesness Inventory-Revised (JI-R) that has been normed to the general population and to adults and juveniles involved in the criminal justice system. The questionnaire assesses various levels of functioning, and includes 11 personality subtype scales that measure key traits and attitudes, including Social Maladjustment, Manifest Aggression, Value Orientation, Withdrawal-Depression, Immaturity, Social Anxiety, Autism, Repression, Alienation, Denial, and Asocial Index. The JI-R also provides subtype evaluation with nine distinct subtype areas: Undersocialized/Active, Undersocialized/Passive, Conformist, Group-Oriented, Pragmatist, Autonomy-Oriented, Introspective, Inhibited, and Adaptive. It includes 160-item true/false items and validity scales to assess potentially invalid response patterns. The tool requires 20-30 minutes to administer.

The Novaco Anger Scale and Provocation Inventory (NAS-PI) assesses cognitive, physiological, and situational contributors to anger. The NAS-PI is used to assess anger reactivity, anger suppression, and change in anger disposition It is composed of two parts: The Novaco Anger Scale (60 items), which assesses how an individual experiences anger; and the Provocation Inventory (25 items), which identifies the kind of situations that induce anger in particular individuals. The NAS-PI can be administered as a whole, or the two parts can be used independently. A study of the NAS with people who were incarcerated for violent offenses found that its scores were not correlated with prior convictions, institutional misconduct, or postrelease performance. This tool is in the form of a self-reporting questionnaire, and takes 25 minutes to complete.

The Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) is a 20-item, interview-based instrument that measures psychopathic attributes in individuals. Clinicians score each item on a scale of 0 (not present) to 2 (definitely present). The instrument measures two major factors that are correlated with psychopathy: a disregard for the feelings and rights of others, and the presence of persistent antisocial behavior. The instrument has been validated with adult males in institutional and community corrections settings, and its reliability has been established with women who are incarcerated. The instrument’s developer strongly cautions that, because the label of psychopathy can have lasting effects in an individual’s life, the PCL-R should only be used by trained mental health clinicians and with populations with which the instrument has been validated. The PCL-R takes 1-2 hours to complete and score.

TCU Criminal Thinking Scales (TCU CTS) is a supplement to the CJ-CEST-Intake and CJ-CEST and is designed to measure “criminal thinking.” The 6 CTS scales include Entitlement, Justification, Power Orientation, Cold Heartedness, Criminal Rationalization, and Personal Irresponsibility which represent concepts with special significance in treatment settings for correctional populations. (5-10 minutes)