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 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 ecomap is a visual representation of a family’s strengths and social and material resources. It also displays positive and conflicted relationships between families and services, and between service agencies. Family case managers can use the ecomap to identify sources of support that people who are being released from prisons and jails can draw upon within their families and communities during the re-entry process.

Genograms are a type of family-mapping tool that diagrams a person’s family and social network. Family Justice encourages the use of strength-based genograms with families that have a loved one involved in the justice system or at risk of such involvement. The history represented visually reflects not only a family’s challenges (such as health issues and involvement with the juvenile or criminal justice system), but assets, such as education, child care, employment, and religious affiliation. It also displays information such as age and gender, as well as the nature and relative strength of the bonds among members of the family, broadly defined.

Government agencies (particularly parole and probation) as well as community-based organizations are increasingly using strength-based genograms as part of their efforts to change the conversation between workers and people involved in the justice system, to help identify the resources available to these individuals and their families. Participants in this process identify social supports in their lives, often as a result of questions a case manager asks. The tool helps recognize strengths within the family (for example, someone who has been steadily employed), and address issues that may recur across generations (such as harmful involvement with drugs or involvement in the justice system). Information about the family and domestic responsibilities provides a basis for programming and informs reentry planning. The genogram is not intended primarily to document lineage, but to assist case managers in exploring a social network’s patterns and dynamics, including a family’s relationships and strengths.

The Rikers Island Discharge Enhancement (RIDE) is a discharge planning program that uses a one page questionnaire (Form 983) at the time of intake to ascertain an individual’s housing and social service needs in preparation for release from jail. The housing section includes questions about past housing situations, homelessness, and the need for housing assistance upon release. Other sections assess the need for employment, healthcare, identification, transportation, substance abuse treatment, etc. The questionnaire includes a section that jail staff can use to make service referrals.

The Level of Services Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) is a 54 item rating scale that measures static factors related to an individual’s risk of committing a new crime and identifies dynamic areas of risk and need that may be addressed through programming. Areas evaluated by the LSI-R include criminal history, leisure / recreation, education / employment, associates, finances, substance abuse, family / marital status, emotional / personal well-being, housing, and attitude. The LSI-R may be administered at intake to aid in security classification and programming decisions. The instrument is also commonly used to determine and modify levels of community supervision. Research on the validity of the LSI-R indicates that certain items and sub-scales are more closely correlated with recidivism than others, in part because inter-rater reliability can be difficult to achieve on many of its items. Among the sub-scales, one study found that the general risk/need score correlated highly with general recidivism. It also predicted recidivism among subgroups of people convicted of sexual offenses, domestic violence, and people with mental health problems. The specific risk/need scale produced a slightly higher correlation with violent recidivism. The LSI-R requires 30-45 minutes to complete.

The Level of Services Inventory-Revised: Screening Version (LSI-R: SV) consists of eight of the 54 items contained in the full Level of Services Inventory-Revised (LSI-R). The eight items cover four risk factors: criminal history, criminal attitudes, criminal associates, and antisocial personality patterns. It also samples the domains of employment, family relationships, and substance abuse. The LSI-R: SV was designed to provide a brief and inexpensive means to establish whether the full LSI-R should be administered, and is not intended as a stand-alone assessment instrument. It takes about 10-15 minutes to complete.

The Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire (NSSQ) assesses the level of social support available to an individual. Respondents are asked to list each significant person in their lives who provides personal support to them. The instrument measures multiple components of social support including functional properties of social support (e.g., emotional and tangible support) and network properties (e.g., stability of relationships, frequency of contact), as well as eliciting descriptive data about recent losses of supportive relationships. The instrument’s validity and reliability have been demonstrated; however the tool was developed and normed to female graduate nursing students, and may not be generalizable to people who are incarcerated or under community supervision. It is available in English and Spanish.

With support from the National Institute of Corrections, Family Justice developed the Relational Inquiry Tool in partnership with state departments of corrections in Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and Oklahoma, and the Safer Foundation in Chicago. The tool is a list of eight carefully crafted questions supported by a training module. The Relational Inquiry Tool is designed for use by corrections staff providing day-to-day case management and for developing reentry plans. As a complement to standard risk and needs assessments, the tool helps staff learn about a key resource for successful reentry: families and social networks.

The goals of the tool are:

• To provide staff with a user-friendly method of recognizing and reinforcing positive connections to family and social networks during and after incarceration
• To build rapport between the professional using the tool and the incarcerated individual

The American Correctional Association’s Corrections Today published an article about the Relational Inquiry Tool in its December 2007 issue. Read the article here.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Family Justice is developing a second version of the tool, the Juvenile Relational Inquiry Tool.