van der Merwe Amelia, Dawes Andrew
J Child Adolesc Ment Health. 2007 Jun;19(1):57-64. doi: 10.2989/17280580709486635.
There is a lack of research on violence risk assessment in South Africa, particularly on the assessment of risk for violence in children and adolescents. This is problematic, because of the strong association between conducting sound assessments and the appropriate referral of youths to intervention programmes. Considering the very high levels of violence in our country, the effective treatment of violent youths is imperative. International literature on violence risk assessment indicates that although a number of instruments designed to assess youth violence risk exist, many primarily focus on identifying psychopathic tendencies in young people, which has stimulated much debate amongst scholars. In addition to paying careful attention to the content of youth violence risk instruments, their administration should be monitored, to ensure that assessment practice is up to standard. Future research efforts in South Africa should be dedicated towards testing the applicability of instruments developed internationally in local settings, and towards the development and testing of local instruments.
南非缺乏对暴力风险评估的研究，尤其是对儿童和青少年暴力风险的评估。这是个问题，因为进行合理评估与将青少年适当地转介到干预项目之间存在紧密联系。鉴于我国暴力事件的高发程度，对暴力青少年进行有效治疗势在必行。关于暴力风险评估的国际文献表明，尽管存在一些旨在评估青少年暴力风险的工具，但许多工具主要侧重于识别年轻人的精神病态倾向，这在学者中引发了诸多争论。除了要密切关注青少年暴力风险工具的内容外，还应监测其使用情况，以确保评估实践符合标准。南非未来的研究工作应致力于测试国际上开发的工具在当地环境中的适用性，以及开发和测试本土工具。
