Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

equal-focus camera perspective be used at the time of

the initial recording.

G. Daniel Lassiter, Lezlee J. Ware,

and Jennifer J. Ratcliff

See alsoCapacity to Waive MirandaRights; Competency to

Confess; Confession Evidence; Detection of Deception in

Adults; False Confessions; Interrogation of Suspects;

Wrongful Conviction

Further Readings

Geller, W. A. (1992). Police videotaping of suspect

interrogations and confessions: A preliminary

examination of issues and practices(A report to the

National Institute of Justice). Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice.

Lassiter, G. D., Ratcliff, J. J., Ware, L. J., & Irvin, C. R.

(2006). Videotaped confessions: Panacea or Pandora’s

box? Law and Policy, 28,192–210.

Lego v. Twomey,404 U.S. 477 (1972).

State v. Scales,Minn.518 N.W.2d 587 (1994).

Stephan v. State, Alaska, 711 P.2d 1156 (1985).

Sullivan, T. P. (2004). Police experiences with recording

custodial interrogations. Chicago: Northwestern

University School of Law, Center on Wrongful

Convictions.

VIOLENCERISKAPPRAISAL

GUIDE(VRAG)

The violence risk appraisal guide (VRAG) is an actuar-

ial instrument that assesses the risk of further violence

among men or women who have already committed

criminal violence. On average, it has yielded a large

effect in the prediction of violent recidivism in more

than three dozen separate replications, including sev-

eral different countries, a wide range of follow-up

times, several operational definitions of violence, and

many offender populations. It is the most empirically

supported actuarial method for the assessment of vio-

lence risk in forensic populations.

The VRAG is a 12-item actuarial instrument that

assesses the risk of violent recidivism among men

apprehended for criminal violence. It was developed

on 618 male violent offenders assessed pretrial in a

secure psychiatric hospital; about half of them

returned later for treatment, whereas the others were

imprisoned. Most of the approximately 50 variables

considered for the VRAG had predicted criminal or

violent recidivism in previous research, and a few

were nominated by clinicians. All variables were

scored from institutional records by researchers blind

to outcomes and were from four domains: childhood

history, adult adjustment, referral offense details and

circumstances, and assessment results. The outcome

was whether, according to criminal records, there was

a criminal charge for subsequent violence in an aver-

age of 7 years’ access to the community; 31% of the

offenders met this recidivism criterion.

Many candidate variables predicted recidivism, but

multiple regression selected the best combination for

the VRAG. Several steps maximized the likelihood

that the VRAG’s predictive validity would replicate—

requiring that each item uniquely predict violence,

ensuring the inclusion of items from all four domains,

and requiring that items predict recidivism in each of

several subsamples (randomly selected halves, treated

and imprisoned subjects) plus the entire sample. Item

weights were based on the bivariate relationship

between each item and recidivism. The VRAG items

in descending order of the weights are the Hare

Psychopathy Checklist–Revised, elementary school

maladjustment, a diagnosis of personality disorder,

age (negatively related), having been separated from

one or both parents prior to 16 years of age, failure on

a prior conditional release, nonviolent offense history,

never having married, a diagnosis of schizophrenia

(negatively related), victim injury in the referral

offense (negatively related), alcohol abuse, and not

having a female victim in the referral offense. The

VRAG can be used when as many as 4 items are miss-

ing and scored by prorating.

The VRAG predicted violent recidivism in the

development sample with a high degree of accuracy—

the area under the relative operating characteristic

(ROC) was .76. (The ROC area is a measure of effect

size equivalent to the common language effect size—

the probability with which a randomly chosen violent

recidivist will have a higher score than a randomly

chosen nonrecidivist.)

The original sample (plus additional men who had

not been released at the time) was followed again at

10 years’ average opportunity. The violent recidivism

rate was .43 and the ROC area .74. There have been

more than 36 replications with nonoverlapping sam-

ples, and the VRAG’s average ROC area is .72—a large

Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)——— 847

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