Recently the report on Interrater and Intrarater Reliability of the Violent Extremism Risk Assessment tool has been published.
The Violent Extremism Risk Assessment - Version 2 Revised (VERA-2R) is an evidence-based structured professional judgement (SPJ) tool for ideologically motivated violence. Use of the tool can help professionals in risk assessment and risk management of terrorists and violent extremists. It is important that the tool leads to reliable and valid risk assessments.
In general, the average amount of agreement on the indicators and structured professional risk judgements can be classified as good to excellent, for both the interrater- and intrarater reliability. However, six indicators were found to have low reliability. In addition to clarifying the reliability of the VERA-2R, this study also showed how the interrater- and intrarater reliability of a SPJ tool can be investigated with trained assessors based on judicial files. This can be of added value, because existing reliability studies often use case vignettes, have small sample sizes and/or do not include a stringent training program. However, in order to develop a more reliable and valid VERA-2R tool, the remaining psychometric properties of the tool must be investigated.
Interrater and Intrarater Reliability of the Violent Extremism Risk Assessment tool