Answer from RSAT program staff member, Roberta Churchill: Thanks for your question! The most common risk and needs assessment instruments that RSAT Programs across the country indicate they are using are the Risk and Needs Triage (RANT), Level of Service Inventory – Revised (LSI-R), Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (LSCMI), Ohio Risk Assessment System (ORAS), Global Appraisal of Individual Needs (GAIN), and COMPAS. However, none of these are available without training or within the public domain (free). Costs of materials / training vary. The RANT and versions of the ORAS are specifically designed to be used for people at or near disposition of their case.
A specific pre-trial assessment instrument that seems to be in the public domain is the Colorado Pre-Trial Assessment Tool. This instrument addresses new violations / criminal activity and FTAs but does not predict new violent criminal behavior. It is also normed on the Colorado justice involved population which is a smaller sub-population with specific needs versus other jurisdictions. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find free, valid and reliable assessment based on the criminal justice population that don’t have a cost to them and don’t need training. Ensuring the integrity of the instrument to make sure it that remains a reliable and valid tool results in thorough training by professionals, some kind of built in quality assurance and ongoing research on the instrument.
There may be other effective pre-trial assessments available as well that have lower costs – I hope that others reading the forum can offer some other suggestions!