Because the goal of the study was to assess the potential threat posed by capital murder defendants in Texas, the population of cases was drawn from the records of 10,121 murderers currently incarcerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Institutional Division. To ensure the reliability of these estimates, however, data were restricted to cases as similar as possible to the cases that would be predicted. The first step in performing this actuarial analysis was to construct the base rate of violence that can be expected from capital defendants. The next step in the analysis sought to identify factors that would aid in the prediction of violence. From the entire inventory of potential predictor variables available, only six were found to be significantly related to violence among the incarcerated murderers, with years at risk and the number of years incarcerated serving as the control variable. Involvement in a contemporaneous robbery/burglary, presence of multiple victims, and additional murder attempts/assaults related to the circumstances of the offense. Gang membership, having served a prior prison term, and age related to characteristics of the offender. The lives of capital murder defendants in Texas rest upon jurors' abilities to predict future behavior. The data obtained in this study not only provide jurors with accurate base recidivism rates for violence, but also provide information to assess the level of risk posed by a specific capital defendant. Risk assessments concerning future violence potential in prison have been upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Similar assessments based on the current study have already been presented in several capital trials and may be used by an expert witness charged with making a determination as to the "probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society." "Society" has been determined by the Court to include the prison population, should the offender be incarcerated rather than executed. 73 footnotes