Violence Risk Assessment through a gendered lens - is there a need to develop gender-specific risk assessment tools

Abstract: Violence risk assessment is important given the impact and consequences it has on offenders, victims and the public. Different tools have been developed to assess an offender’s risk. However, so far these tools are based on male theories of offending and its applicability among female offenders has been questioned by proponents of the gendered perspective. The gendered perspective argues that violence and criminal behaviour emerges based on experiences that are different between men and women. The present systematic review aims to inform about the predictive validity of current risk assessment tools among female offenders to establish whether there is a need to develop female-specific tools. 17 studies have been reviewed and evidence overall supports the gendered perspective by showing that current tools have no, or only a limited, ability to predict future behaviour among women. Some promising results have been delivered by tools that include the ‘central eight’ risk factors which indicates that some of these factors might be relevant for female risk assessment. However, consideration of qualitative and quantitative differences of risk factors should be included in risk assessment among women to improve the predictive validity. The results are discussed in the light of a feminist perspective but also give a critical view on violence risk assessment in general. Overall, this systematic review calls for more research thatfocuses on gender-specific risk factors and that promotes the development of new tools.