Revalidation of a Gender- Informed Security Reclassification Scale for Women Inmates

Amid calls for gender-informed classification measures for women offenders, the Correctional Service of Canada developed and field tested the Security Reclassification Scale for Women (SRSW). In 2005, the SRSW was implemented nationally to anchor security level review decisions for federally sentenced women offenders. To reassess the scale’s psychometric properties, this study used the population of 448 consecutive security reviews conducted since the scale’s implementation. Results demonstrated that the SRSW continues to be a reliable measure with satisfactory convergent and predic-tive validity. Moreover, SRSW security classification recommendations equaled or outperformed correctional caseworker recommendations on all indices of validity. Keywords: classification; security classification; women offenders Offender Classification Offender classification is a process used to identify the degree of risk posed by individual offenders, both within a correctional institution and on release to the commu-nity, and is intended to inform the management of the assessed risk. In practice, offender classification influences security placements, supervision requirements, discretionar