Prevention of criminal recidivism is the primary objective in forensic psychiatric care. Risk management and assessment are hence critical throughout the forensic treatment process. Commonly used risk assessment instruments often focus on a specific population, with an emphasis on a specific type of crime, and most focus on societal reintegration. Although valuable, such perspective may not result in the most valid risk assessment for patients in a long stay forensic setting. Nevertheless, risk assessment in such setting is necessary for reasons of security of staff, other patients and visitors, as well as prevention of withdrawal from supervision.

One way to evaluate risk behavior for this group may be found in describing relevant risk domains on the basis of daily indicators of functioning within the long-stay context itself. The current PhD project aims to take this contextualized angle on risk assessment focusing on daily indicators of risk derived from the functional domains of living within the long-stay psychiatric unit. In addition, these daily risk indicators will be systematically mirrored against personality trait information.