Alex Kigerl
Biographic Data
| ID | 4199376 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Kigerl |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Kigerl |
| SIGNATURE | KIGERL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nebraska at Omaha |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0556-7423 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Risk-contamination and Dilution
The Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) model posits separating lower from higher-risk individuals to avoid “risk contamination.” In a prison setting, policies and restrictions lead to mixing different populations within a housing unit. While this may pose a threat, it may allow higher-risk individuals to gradually promote through security levels, reducing risk. We term this “risk dilution.” The current study compares the infraction behavior of individ…
Never Going to Let You Down
Risk-needs assessments (RNAs) are an evidence-based practice used by practitioners to assign supervision and programming. While foundational to day-to-day practices, these tools are typically applied ‘off-the shelf,’ and are mistakenly assumed to demonstrate equivalent prediction accuracy regardless of location or population. Although researchers and providers are aware these tools experience performance shrinkage, the issue is commonly ignored. …
Best Practices for Neglected Assumptions
In the assessment world, risk determines “who” to treat and needs determine “what” (Bonta & Andrews, 2016). Yet, for youth, greater emphasis is placed on needs that target recidivism reduction interventions. Unlike risk, needs represent dynamic domains, or latent constructs, requiring testing to assure adequate measurement. We conducted a multi-level, multi-group analysis of the Modified Positive Achievement Change Tool (MPACT) with a 10-state sa…
A methodological template for the next generation
Comparing Meters to Yards
Risk-needs assessments (RNAs) assist correctional staff in assigning supervision and programming. While gender is a well-known predictor of crime, for decades contemporary RNAs have claimed “gender-neutrality” or risk prediction equality for males and females. Unfortunately, females are frequently overclassified, relegated to a category higher than their risks indicate. Using ridge and mixed effects regression methods, we sought to enhance the pr…
Advancing pretrial assessments
Finding an answer in time
Protecting Against Adversity
An abundance of research has established Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs’) contributions to deviant behavior. Recently, studies have demonstrated the importance of Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs). Yet, the PCE establishment as a predictive scale is needed. In a multistate, robust sample (N = 254,874) of justice-involved youth, we examined PCE scale effects and ACE-PCE combinations on recidivism using mixed effects logistic regression w…
Prediction is Local
In most states and jurisdictions, risk assessments are incorporated into justice system practice. Despite decades of use, the methods of tool development are rarely translated to the field. Many agencies implement ‘off-the-shelf’ versions, where a tool developed with a unique set of methods and subjects demonstrates prediction shrinkage when applied to a new jurisdiction. Using a large, 10-state sample of assessed youth (N=494,050), we isolate, t…
Tailoring to a Mandate
In December 2018, the First Step Act of 2018 was signed into law, which required the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to begin using risk and needs assessment to assign programs and provide inmates with required treatment. The Attorney General was tasked to develop an assessment to assess and assign inmates to four possible risk levels. In response, BOP and National Institute of Justice (NIJ) researchers created the Prisoner Assessment Tool Target…
The great methods bake-off
Redesigning the Central Eight
Since their seminal work, Andrews and Bonta outlined the Central Eight assessment domains. As the landscape and utility of criminal justice assessments extended, tool developers expanded upon their initial development principles searching to further risk prediction gains. However, often overlooked in recent advancements is the foundation and usage of associated needs assessments. As a critical component of contemporary tools, particularly for you…
Routine activity theory and malware, fraud, and spam at the national level
Behind the Scenes of the Underworld
Cybercriminals operate in obscurity to avoid detection of their illegal deeds. This fact makes studying them more difficult. Many cybercriminals meet in illicit online market places such as carding forums. The forums are often visible, but the actual transactions are carried out in private messages beyond view. However, there is no honor among thieves, and sometimes a carding forum server database will be hacked and leaked to the public. Existing…
Recrafting Youth Risk Assessment
Risk assessments have become prevalent in the juvenile justice field. Many of these tools are adopted off-the-shelf and not adapted to fit the characteristics of a jurisdiction’s justice-involved youth. We examined the Positive Achievement Change Tool (PACT) in Iowa. Although used widely, the PACT is relatively unmodified. We updated the tool via item selection and weighting, gender-specific models and multiple outcomes, developing the Modified P…
Profiling Cybercriminals
Cybercrime has become a growing business. The marketplaces for such businesses tend to be online forums. Much of the research on carding forums has been qualitative, but there have been quantitative analyses as well. One such type of analysis is topic modeling, a clustering technique that groups forum users according to the textual comments they leave. However, this type of research so far has been exclusively quantitative, without qualitatively …
Impact of Swift and Certain Sanctions
Research Summary In the wake of the mass incarceration movement, many states must now manage the rebound of decarceration. Thermodynamic forces of the justice system, however, have pushed former fiscal pressures of institutions onto that of community corrections. Encouraged by the positive findings of recently piloted innovations, several jurisdictions have taken great interest in the implementation of deterrence‐based sanctioning models when dea…
Evaluation of the CAN SPAM Act
E-mail spam has been growing since its inception. The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN SPAM Act) is U.S. federal legislation that was passed in response to the growing spam problem. A series of evaluations followed after the Act, most of which reported that compliance with the Act’s requirements among spammers had not been affected. However, none of these evaluations used methods that were sufficiently r…
Routine Activity Theory and the Determinants of High Cybercrime Countries
Cybercrime and the threat it creates are growing in its reach, in accordance with similar growth in information technology. Some countries account for more of the variation in cybercrime activity than others, which affects less criminally involved nations as well, considering that cybercrime does not respect national borders over the Internet. Routine activity theory (RAT) has been used to explain cybercrime at the individual level, but not at th…
Routine Activity Theory and the Determinants of High Cybercrime Countries
Cybercrime and the threat it creates are growing in its reach, in accordance with similar growth in information technology. Some countries account for more of the variation in cybercrime activity than others, which affects less criminally involved nations as well, considering that cybercrime does not respect national borders over the Internet. Routine activity theory (RAT) has been used to explain cybercrime at the individual level, but not at th…
Recrafting Youth Risk Assessment
Risk assessments have become prevalent in the juvenile justice field. Many of these tools are adopted off-the-shelf and not adapted to fit the characteristics of a jurisdiction’s justice-involved youth. We examined the Positive Achievement Change Tool (PACT) in Iowa. Although used widely, the PACT is relatively unmodified. We updated the tool via item selection and weighting, gender-specific models and multiple outcomes, developing the Modified P…
Impact of Swift and Certain Sanctions
Research Summary In the wake of the mass incarceration movement, many states must now manage the rebound of decarceration. Thermodynamic forces of the justice system, however, have pushed former fiscal pressures of institutions onto that of community corrections. Encouraged by the positive findings of recently piloted innovations, several jurisdictions have taken great interest in the implementation of deterrence‐based sanctioning models when dea…
Profiling Cybercriminals
Cybercrime has become a growing business. The marketplaces for such businesses tend to be online forums. Much of the research on carding forums has been qualitative, but there have been quantitative analyses as well. One such type of analysis is topic modeling, a clustering technique that groups forum users according to the textual comments they leave. However, this type of research so far has been exclusively quantitative, without qualitatively …
Evaluation of the CAN SPAM Act
E-mail spam has been growing since its inception. The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN SPAM Act) is U.S. federal legislation that was passed in response to the growing spam problem. A series of evaluations followed after the Act, most of which reported that compliance with the Act’s requirements among spammers had not been affected. However, none of these evaluations used methods that were sufficiently r…
Behind the Scenes of the Underworld
Cybercriminals operate in obscurity to avoid detection of their illegal deeds. This fact makes studying them more difficult. Many cybercriminals meet in illicit online market places such as carding forums. The forums are often visible, but the actual transactions are carried out in private messages beyond view. However, there is no honor among thieves, and sometimes a carding forum server database will be hacked and leaked to the public. Existing…
Routine Activity Theory and the Determinants of High Cybercrime Countries
Cybercrime and the threat it creates are growing in its reach, in accordance with similar growth in information technology. Some countries account for more of the variation in cybercrime activity than others, which affects less criminally involved nations as well, considering that cybercrime does not respect national borders over the Internet. Routine activity theory (RAT) has been used to explain cybercrime at the individual level, but not at th…
Evaluation of the CAN SPAM Act
E-mail spam has been growing since its inception. The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN SPAM Act) is U.S. federal legislation that was passed in response to the growing spam problem. A series of evaluations followed after the Act, most of which reported that compliance with the Act’s requirements among spammers had not been affected. However, none of these evaluations used methods that were sufficiently r…
Impact of Swift and Certain Sanctions
Research Summary In the wake of the mass incarceration movement, many states must now manage the rebound of decarceration. Thermodynamic forces of the justice system, however, have pushed former fiscal pressures of institutions onto that of community corrections. Encouraged by the positive findings of recently piloted innovations, several jurisdictions have taken great interest in the implementation of deterrence‐based sanctioning models when dea…
Profiling Cybercriminals
Cybercrime has become a growing business. The marketplaces for such businesses tend to be online forums. Much of the research on carding forums has been qualitative, but there have been quantitative analyses as well. One such type of analysis is topic modeling, a clustering technique that groups forum users according to the textual comments they leave. However, this type of research so far has been exclusively quantitative, without qualitatively …
Behind the Scenes of the Underworld
Cybercriminals operate in obscurity to avoid detection of their illegal deeds. This fact makes studying them more difficult. Many cybercriminals meet in illicit online market places such as carding forums. The forums are often visible, but the actual transactions are carried out in private messages beyond view. However, there is no honor among thieves, and sometimes a carding forum server database will be hacked and leaked to the public. Existing…
Recrafting Youth Risk Assessment
Risk assessments have become prevalent in the juvenile justice field. Many of these tools are adopted off-the-shelf and not adapted to fit the characteristics of a jurisdiction’s justice-involved youth. We examined the Positive Achievement Change Tool (PACT) in Iowa. Although used widely, the PACT is relatively unmodified. We updated the tool via item selection and weighting, gender-specific models and multiple outcomes, developing the Modified P…
Redesigning the Central Eight
Since their seminal work, Andrews and Bonta outlined the Central Eight assessment domains. As the landscape and utility of criminal justice assessments extended, tool developers expanded upon their initial development principles searching to further risk prediction gains. However, often overlooked in recent advancements is the foundation and usage of associated needs assessments. As a critical component of contemporary tools, particularly for you…
Routine activity theory and malware, fraud, and spam at the national level
Prediction is Local
In most states and jurisdictions, risk assessments are incorporated into justice system practice. Despite decades of use, the methods of tool development are rarely translated to the field. Many agencies implement ‘off-the-shelf’ versions, where a tool developed with a unique set of methods and subjects demonstrates prediction shrinkage when applied to a new jurisdiction. Using a large, 10-state sample of assessed youth (N=494,050), we isolate, t…
Tailoring to a Mandate
In December 2018, the First Step Act of 2018 was signed into law, which required the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to begin using risk and needs assessment to assign programs and provide inmates with required treatment. The Attorney General was tasked to develop an assessment to assess and assign inmates to four possible risk levels. In response, BOP and National Institute of Justice (NIJ) researchers created the Prisoner Assessment Tool Target…
The great methods bake-off
Protecting Against Adversity
An abundance of research has established Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs’) contributions to deviant behavior. Recently, studies have demonstrated the importance of Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs). Yet, the PCE establishment as a predictive scale is needed. In a multistate, robust sample (N = 254,874) of justice-involved youth, we examined PCE scale effects and ACE-PCE combinations on recidivism using mixed effects logistic regression w…
Comparing Meters to Yards
Risk-needs assessments (RNAs) assist correctional staff in assigning supervision and programming. While gender is a well-known predictor of crime, for decades contemporary RNAs have claimed “gender-neutrality” or risk prediction equality for males and females. Unfortunately, females are frequently overclassified, relegated to a category higher than their risks indicate. Using ridge and mixed effects regression methods, we sought to enhance the pr…
Advancing pretrial assessments
Finding an answer in time
Never Going to Let You Down
Risk-needs assessments (RNAs) are an evidence-based practice used by practitioners to assign supervision and programming. While foundational to day-to-day practices, these tools are typically applied ‘off-the shelf,’ and are mistakenly assumed to demonstrate equivalent prediction accuracy regardless of location or population. Although researchers and providers are aware these tools experience performance shrinkage, the issue is commonly ignored. …
Best Practices for Neglected Assumptions
In the assessment world, risk determines “who” to treat and needs determine “what” (Bonta & Andrews, 2016). Yet, for youth, greater emphasis is placed on needs that target recidivism reduction interventions. Unlike risk, needs represent dynamic domains, or latent constructs, requiring testing to assure adequate measurement. We conducted a multi-level, multi-group analysis of the Modified Positive Achievement Change Tool (MPACT) with a 10-state sa…
A methodological template for the next generation
Risk-contamination and Dilution
The Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) model posits separating lower from higher-risk individuals to avoid “risk contamination.” In a prison setting, policies and restrictions lead to mixing different populations within a housing unit. While this may pose a threat, it may allow higher-risk individuals to gradually promote through security levels, reducing risk. We term this “risk dilution.” The current study compares the infraction behavior of individ…
Computer Science (14 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (10 works) · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Business (7 works) · Computer security (7 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Law (6 works)