You can use TAG to assess offenders for many purposes. An offender's aptitude can be assessed to determine if he/she is suitable for an occupational re-training program, or an offender's psychological state can be assessed to determine if he/she needs medical treatment.
For community users, assessments form the basis of a case plan with specific goals for the offender. For institutional users, assessments most often determine an offender's supervision level. When an offender is first admitted into an institution, TAG automatically assigns the highest level of supervision. However, an offender assessment is still required to determine the appropriate level of supervision, and assignment to a specialized caseload.
When an offender intake is performed at a community office, TAG only assigns a supervision level after an assessment is completed and a supervision level is recommended. Until then, TAG displays an offender's supervision level as pending.
Offender assessments are performed on the Assessment screen. In an assessment, there are sections with questions that have been specially defined for your site by your TAG application administrator. Each response has a numeric score, which TAG tallies.
You can accept TAG’s assessment result, or override the result to select another security level. An Assessment Approval screen allows for a final approval or rejection of the assessment.
The TAG offender assessment is flexible because of the following features:
Updateable assessments: you can update your assessment until the assessment is approved, or until the next re-assessment date.
Mutually exclusive and inclusive answers: your TAG administrator can set up a question so it has a mutually exclusive answer (only one answer for the question), or mutually inclusive answers (more than one answer for the question) so you get complete information.
Section scoring: in a supervision level questionnaire, an offender supervision level can be determined by a total score of all of the sections, or by a section score, whichever is higher. If you reach a section score, then you have the option of completing the questionnaire or not. A higher supervision level section score supersedes a lower total score.
Automatic scoring: with automatic scoring, TAG searches the database and, based on the data found, automatically fills in a value in the questionnaire. Data can include the offender's prior felony convictions, and the severity of the current offenses.
Disallowed minimum supervision level: your TAG administrator can set up an override to disallow an offender from obtaining a minimum supervision level. If a certain score is achieved for a particular question (e.g. arson), and your TAG administrator has set up the override, you must assign a higher offender supervision level than minimum.
Subsequent assessments: subsequent assessments can be performed on the Assessment screen. TAG also tracks changes in an offender’s imprisonment status.