Female Offenders and Risk Assessment: Hidden in Plain Sight (Criminal Justice: Recent Scholarship)

Davidson draws on both quantitative and qualitative analyses to demonstrate that there are significant contextual differences between the onset and continuation of female and male offending. In turn, this challenges the underlying assumptions of risk and need assessments for female offenders. While her research supports the predictive validity of a commonly used risk/need instrument (the LSI-R), the results of in-depth interviews with male and female offenders challenge the content validity of this instrument. Although this instrument appears to gender-neutral, the veil of objectivity masks the role, especially, of victimization in the lives of female offenders and the manner in which this affects their risks and needs.