Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

have yielded moderate levels of internal consistency

and item homogeneity. Interrater reliability has been

found to be high for judgments regarding the presence

of individual risk factors and good for overall summary

risk ratings. Research conducted by the instrument’s

authors showed that SARA ratings yielded good con-

vergent and discriminant validity when compared with

other measures of risk for general and violent criminal-

ity, and good concurrent validity when scores were

compared with another domestic violence instrument.

Evidence of predictive validity with respect to future

violence is only modest at present; however, this may be

accounted for, in part, by the risk management and vio-

lence prevention applications of the instrument. Data

concerning the SARA’s ability to discriminate between

spousal assaulters who re-offend and those who do not

re-offend have been mixed. In some samples, SARA

total scores have discriminated between recidivistic and

nonrecidivistic spousal assaulters but have failed to dis-

tinguish between the groups in others. Current evidence

supports the predictive validity of several individual

items, and the SARA total score has demonstrated a

modest, statistically significant improvement in predict-

ing spousal violence over chance. However, some

research has shown that the SARA does not add incre-

mentally to the prediction of wife assault recidivism

after controlling for alcohol abuse, severe psychological

problems, and childhood abuse or neglect. It should be

noted that SARA items were selected on the basis of

their established association with interpersonal violence

in the empirical literature.

Much of the published literature on the SARA has

used offender interviews and file review data to make

risk judgments, and it is difficult to ascertain the nature

and depth of the information included in these ratings. It

is possible that the full assessment procedures described

earlier and recommended in the SARA manual have not

been followed; this could include failure to conduct vic-

tim interviews or use standardized measures. As a result,

the generalizability of these research studies to general

clinical practice may be limited. Future research incor-

porating these multiple sources of information may

prove informative. While prospective research on the

SARA is also needed to further advance the use of this

instrument in forensic decision making, additional

research is required to evaluate the effectiveness of this

risk assessment approach in preventing violence.

Karen E. Whittemore

and Kaitlyn McLachlan

See alsoRisk Assessment Approaches; Violence Risk

Assessment

Further Readings

Kropp, P. R., & Hart, S. D. (2000). The spousal assault risk

assessment (SARA) guide: Reliability and validity in

adult male offenders. Law and Human Behavior,

24,101–118.

Kropp, P. R., Hart, S. D., Webster, C. W., & Eaves, D.

(1995). Manual for the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment

Guide(2nd ed.). Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada:

B.C. Institute on Family Violence.

Kropp, P. R., Hart, S. D., Webster, C. W., & Eaves, D.

(1998). Spousal Assault Risk Assessment: User’s guide.

Toronto, ON, Canada: Multi-Health Systems.

Whittemore, K. E., & Kropp, P. R. (2002). Spousal assault

risk assessment: A guide for clinicians. Journal of

Forensic Psychology Practice, 2(2), 53–64.

STABLE–2007 AND

ACUTE–2007 INSTRUMENTS

Sexual offenders do great societal damage that causes

justifiable public concern. Over the past 10 years, psy-

chology has developed the ability to reliably classify

male sexual offenders as low, moderate, and high risk for

sexual recidivism (Minnesota Sex Offender Screening

Tool–Revised, Risk Matrix–2000, Rapid Risk Assess-

ment for Sexual Offense Recidivism, and STATIC–99)

based on historical, static, nonchangeable risk factors.

The “static” structure of these tests effectively precludes

their ability to measure changes in risk. The STA-

BLE–2007 and the ACUTE–2007 instruments are spe-

cialized tools designed to assess and track changes in risk

status over time by assessing changeable “dynamic” risk

factors. “Stable” dynamic risk factors are personal skill

deficits, predilections, and learned behaviors that corre-

late with sexual recidivism but that can be changed

through a process of “effortful intervention” (i.e., treat-

ment or supervision). Should such intervention take

place in such a way as to reduce these risk-relevant fac-

tors, there would be a concomitant reduction in the like-

lihood of sexual recidivism. “Acute” dynamic risk

factors are highly transient conditions that only last hours

or days. These factors are rapidly changing environmen-

tal and intrapersonal stresses, conditions, or events that

have been shown by previous research to be related to

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