The Role of Screening and Assessment in Jail Reentry

“Consistent with effective correctional practice, jails and their community partners should identify risk levels and criminogenic needs of returning [offender] populations and should focus their resources on individuals with the highest levels of both ... This brief presents the two-stage screening and assessment process to determine risk and needs levels that is a core element of the Transition from Jail to Community (TJC) model” (p. 1). Sections of this publication include: the TJC initiative; risk and need in a triage approach; risk screening-selecting a screening instrument, administering risk screening, norming and validating the screening instrument, and using screening data; TJC screening principles; proxy triage risk screener; key implementation lessons learned-screening to determine risk of offending and assessment of criminogenic need; TJC assessment principles; assessment of criminogenic need--selecting an assessment instrument, administering assessment, and using assessment information; key implementation lessons learned-assessment of criminogenic risk/need; and lessons learned from the TJC site implementation.