Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

These findings extend partly to children as well.

Child eyewitnesses perform worse when under stress,

but it is unclear whether stress has a disproportionately

negative effect on children. Stress effects can also be

complicated by the presence of a particularly arousing,

eye-catching aspect of the event, such as gore or a

weapon. Research on stress and memory also suffers

from methodological complications. There are limits to

the amount of stress that one can ethically induce in an

experimental situation, and even with highly arousing

materials, research participants are usually not person-

ally threatened by the witnessed event; that is, they are

bystanders rather than victims or potential victims,

which is likely to influence not only their stress level

but also their behavior, degree of attention, and so forth.

Some innovative research designs have attempted to

overcome this limitation by studying victims/witnesses

of real crimes or individuals undergoing stressful med-

ical procedures.

In conclusion, it is hard to generalize about the

effects of stress on eyewitness memory. The findings

are somewhat mixed, and the explanation for stress

effects on memory is far from clear, making general-

ization difficult. More research is necessary to resolve

this uncertainty. However, it is clear that, overall, high

levels of stress harm eyewitness memory in more ways

than they help it.

Ani A. Aharonian and

Brian H. Bornstein

See alsoChildren’s Testimony; Lineup Size and Bias;

Weapon Focus

Further Readings

Deffenbacher, K. A., Bornstein, B. H., Penrod, S. D., &

McGorty, E. K. (2004). A meta-analytic review of the

effects of high stress on eyewitness memory. Law and

Human Behavior, 28,687–706.

Peters, D. P. (1997). Stress, arousal, and children’s eyewitness

memory. In N. L. Stein, P. A. Ornstein, B. Tversky, &

C. Brainerd (Eds.),Memory for everyday and emotional

events(pp. 351–370). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Reisberg, D., & Heuer, F. (2006). The influence of emotion

on memory in forensic settings. In M. Toglia, J. D. Read,

D. F. Ross, & R. C. L. Lindsay (Eds.),Handbook of

eyewitness psychology: Vol. 1. Memory for events

(pp. 81–116). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

STRUCTUREDASSESSMENT

OFVIOLENCERISK IN

YOUTH(SAVRY)

The Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth

(SAVRY), developed by Randy Borum, Patrick Bartel,

and Adelle Forth, is a risk assessment instrument

designed to structure appraisals of violence risk and

risk management plans for adolescents. Such assess-

ments are routinely required by juvenile and criminal

courts and at nearly every juncture of the juvenile jus-

tice system. In the SAVRY, one’s risk for serious vio-

lence is viewed as the result of dynamic and reciprocal

interplay between factors that increase and factors that

decrease the likelihood of violence in the developing

juvenile over time. Its central objective is to facilitate

assessments that are systematic, empirically grounded,

developmentally informed, treatment oriented, flexible,

and practical.

The SAVRY is based on the “structured professional

judgment” (SPJ) risk assessment framework, and is

designed for use with adolescents between the approx-

imate ages of 12 and 18 who have been detained or

referred for an assessment of violence risk. Evaluators

systematically assess predetermined risk factors that

are empirically associated with violence, consider the

applicability of each risk factor to a particular exami-

nee, and classify each factor’s severity. The ultimate

determination of an examinee’s overall level of vio-

lence risk is based on the examiner’s professional judg-

ment as informed by a systematic appraisal of relevant

factors. In this way, the SPJ model draws on the

strengths of both the clinical and actuarial (formula-

driven) approaches to decision making and attempts to

minimize their respective drawbacks.

The SAVRY protocol is composed of 6 items defin-

ing protective factors and 24 items defining risk factors.

Items are coded on the basis of reliable, available infor-

mation. Information should be obtained from multiple

sources, including an interview with the youth and a

review of records (e.g., police or probation reports and

mental health and social service records). Risk items

are divided into three categories: historical, individual,

and social/contextual, and each is coded for severity

according to a three-level coding structure (high, mod-

erate, or low). Protective factors are coded as present or

770 ———Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY)

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