By Samuel A. Torres

This report investigates the alignment of scores on the Criminogenic Risk and Behavioral Health Needs Framework (“risk-needs framework”) with recidivism likelihood as part of a broader evaluation of the Resource Reentry Center (RRC) and Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) in Bernalillo County. Recidivism is operationalized as a subsequent arrest beyond an initial booking into the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC). The capacity of the risk-needs framework to predict new bookings is compared with that of the Proxy Risk to Recidivate Screener (“Proxy”), one of the screening tools used to construct risk-needs framework scores. Retrospective analysis of jail data over an eight-month period for over 6,000 inmates originally released between July and October 2019 indicates that risk-needs framework scores do not correspond to jail readmission rates or length of stay in a consistent manner. The Proxy scores align much more closely with subsequent bookings and length of stay. If the goal of the risk-needs framework is at least partly to predict recidivism risk, this report recommends the Proxy be used in lieu of the full framework to screen arrestees’ risk to reoffend.

Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, Institute for Social Research, Center for Applied Research and Analysis, 2021. 13p.