Criminal Justice and Behavior, Ahead of Print.
Clinical discretion by youth probation officers to override the actuarial risk assessment classification on the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) is an important feature of case management practices. In a sample of 1,259 youth, the impact of clinical override on the predictive validity of the YLS/CMI and factors associated with override use were studied. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, the YLS/CMI demonstrated large effect size predictive validity values for general recidivism. Override occurred with 10.8% of youth and was more likely to be used with younger youth who had a sexual or violent index offense or those at the upper end of the moderate risk level. For youth where override was used, the YLS/CMI predictive validity became non-significant and fell to chance levels. The implications of these findings for field case management use, training, and probation officer decision-making practices are highlighted.