The Offender Assessment System:an evaluation of the second pilot r278

The Offender Assessment System (OASys) is a structured clinical assessment tool used by adult correctional services in England and Wales. It was developed to assess offending related needs, likelihood of reconviction and risk of serious harm. Offenders are assessed at pre-sentence stage, at the start of most community and custodial sentences and at regular intervals during the sentences. These assessments aid effective management of offenders and targeting of interventions designed to reduce reconviction. This Findings reports on offenders’ risk/need profiles, predicting reconviction with OASys and actions taken since the pilots. The key findings are that OASys reveals considerable variation in risk/need profiles between different groups of offenders, and OASys scores are a good predictor of reconviction, with 2 year reconviction rates of 26% for ‘Low’, 58% for ‘Medium’ and 87% for ‘High’ likelihood offenders.