Objectives

Prior studies indicate risk for recidivism declines with time spent in the community post-incarceration. The current study tested whether declines in risk scores occurred uniformly for all individuals in a community corrections sample or whether distinct groups could be identified on the basis of similar trajectories of change in acute risk and time to recidivism. We additionally tested whether accounting for group heterogeneity improved prospective prediction of recidivism.

Methods

This study used longitudinal, multiple-reassessment data gathered from 3,421 individuals supervised on parole in New Zealand (N = 92,104 assessments of theoretically dynamic risk factors conducted by community corrections supervision officers). We applied joint latent class modelling (JLCM) to model group trajectories of change in acute risk following re-entry while accounting for data missing due to recidivism (i.e., missing not at random). We compared accuracy of dynamic predictions based on the selected joint latent class model to an equivalent joint model with no latent class structure.

Results

We identified four trajectory groups of acute dynamic risk. Groups were consistently estimated across a split sample. Trajectories differed in direction and degree of change but using the latent class structure did not improve discrimination when predicting recidivism.

Conclusions

There may be significant heterogeneity in how individuals’ assessed level of acute risk changes following re-entry, but determining risk for recidivism should not be based on probable group membership. JLCM revealed heterogeneity in early re-entry unlikely to be observed using traditional analytic approaches.

中文翻译：

---

假释新西兰人的急性动态风险评级变化轨迹和相关的再犯风险：联合潜在类建模方法

目标

先前的研究表明，再犯的风险随着监禁后在社区度过的时间而下降。当前的研究测试了社区矫正样本中所有个人的风险评分下降是否一致，或者是否可以根据急性风险和再犯时间的相似变化轨迹来识别不同的群体。我们还测试了考虑群体异质性是否改善了累犯的前瞻性预测。

方法

这项研究使用了从新西兰 3,421 名假释监督者那里收集的纵向、多重重新评估数据（N  = 92,104 由社区矫正监督官进行的理论上动态风险因素的评估）。我们应用联合潜在类建模 (JLCM) 来模拟重新进入后急性风险变化的组轨迹，同时考虑由于累犯导致的数据丢失（即，不是随机丢失）。我们将基于所选联合潜在类模型的动态预测准确性与没有潜在类结构的等效联合模型进行了比较。

结果

我们确定了四个急性动态风险轨迹组。在拆分样本中一致地估计组。轨迹在方向和变化程度上不同，但在预测累犯时使用潜在类别结构并没有改善歧视。

结论

个人评估的急性风险水平在重新进入后如何变化可能存在显着的异质性，但确定再犯风险不应基于可能的群体成员身份。JLCM 揭示了使用传统分析方法不太可能观察到的早期再入的异质性。