We used archival data to examine the predictive validity of a pre-release violence risk assessment battery over six years at a forensic hospital (N=230, 100% male, 63.0% African-American, 34.3% Caucasian). Examining “real world” forensic decision-making is important for illuminating potential areas for improvement. The battery included the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20, Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, Schedule of Imagined Violence, and Novaco Anger Scale and Provocation Inventory. Three outcome “recidivism” variables included contact violence, contact & threatened violence, and any reason for hospital return. Results indicated measures of general violence risk and psychopathy were highly correlated but weakly associated with reports of imagined violence and a measure of anger. Measures of imagined violence and anger were correlated with one another. Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analyses revealed, unexpectedly, that none of the scales or subscales predicted recidivism better than chance. Multiple regression indicated the battery failed to account for recidivism outcomes. We conclude by discussing three possible explanations, including timing of assessments, controlled versus field studies, and recidivism base rates.

In his essay Evolution and Tinkering, published in
Science in 1977, Francois Jacob argued that a common analogy
between the process of evolution by natural selection and the
methods of engineering is problematic. Instead, he proposed to
describe the process of evolution with the concept of
bricolage (tinkering). In this essay, Jacob did not deny the
importance of the mechanism of natural selection in shaping complex
adaptations. Instead, he maintained that the cumulative effects of
history on the evolution of life, made evident by molecular data,
provides an alternative account of the patterns depicting the
history of life on earth. Jacob's essay contributed to
genetic research in the late twentieth century that emphasized
certain types of topics in evolutionary and developmental biology,
such as genetic regulation, gene duplication events, and the genetic
program of embryonic development. It also proposed why, in future
research, biologists should expect to discover an underlying
similarity in the molecular structure of genomes, and that they
should expect to find many imperfections in evolutionary history
despite the influence of natural selection.