(2) Risk Assessment Lectures

Question 1

What is the Importance of Risk Assessment?

Answer 1

 The most important aspect of forensic risk
assessment is its impact on public safety
by managing offenders based on their
level of risk to the community and
reoffending.
 Predicting violence is a complex and
controversial issues in behavioural
science in law because there is always
room for error and risk assessments play a
huge role in making important decisions
at all stages of the criminal justice system.
 For example, forensic risk assessments
inform:
• Sentencing,
• Classification,
• Treatment targets and intensity,
• Parole decisions,
• Level of supervision,
• Notification decisions,
• Release conditions.

Question 2

What is the Purpose of Risk Assessment?
It has dual purposes; both are needed and rely on one another-

What is a risk estimate based off of? What formats do they come in?

Answer 2

1. Prediction Classification:
   • An analysis of the likelihood of future
   criminal and violent acts (i.e., estimate of
   risk that they will commit another offense
   in the future).
   • The risk estimate is based on the number
   of risk factors present and their severity.
   • Risk estimates are communicated
   numerically (i.e., decimal point or
   percentage) or as a risk band/levels of risk
   (low, medium or high risk), they can be
   offense-specific or general (i.e., sexual
   recidivism, violence or general recidivism)
   within a specified time frame (i.e., fixed 8-
   year period post-release).
2. Informing Risk Management through
   Interventions:
   • The development of strategies to manage
   risk levels primarily through supervision,
   restrictions, and providing access to
   intervention.
   • It requires knowing the contextual and
   specific factors is needed to understand
   the relationship between risk factors and
   criminal behaviour.
   • This is where theory is important because
   it can explain “how” these factors lead to
   offending rather than just telling us what
   factors predict recidivism.

Question 3

History of Risk Assessment:

Answer 3

(A) 1960s-1970s:
• Unstructured Clinical Judgement was used
during this time period and is associated
with the Baxstorm and Dixon studies which
showed that the base rate of violence is
relatively low in released psychiatric
patients and ranged between 7-15% and
false positives are high 85-86% (i.e.,
classifying someone as high risk of violent
but they’re not violent) which meant that
people commonly had their rights and
freedoms taken away from them when
they were not actually violent.
• This method is entirely subjective and has
accuracy of barely above chance levels
and was term with the phrase “like flipping
coins in the courtroom”.

(B) 1980’s:
• People’s pessimism towards the accuracy
of unstructured clinical judgments “not
always wrong, but most of the time” lead
them to turn to Andrew and Bonta’s “what
works” research to identify the (8) central
risk factors to structure risk assessments
and remove clinicians’ biases from the
decision.
• This is the Actuarial Risk assessment
method which is highly structured and
based on empirically supported risk
factors.

(C) 1990’s:
• Structured Professional Judgements were
introduced in the 1990’s and is
characteristic of a shift in viewing risk
factors as a range (i.e., low, medium and
high risk) rather than dichotomous (i.e.,
dangerous and not dangerous) probability
estimates.

*overtime risk assessments have become more structured and grounded in empirically
supported risk factors which has increased its accuracy in predicting risk of recidivism.

Question 4

Measuring Risk:

Answer 4

• There are multiple assessment tools
available each designed for their own
specific purpose and populations (i.e., no
one scale can do everything or work well for
everyone).
• Risk assessment tools use statistical
techniques that identify risk factors and
combine them. This can be done by
weighting some factors more than others if
they’re more closely tied to recidivism or
reverse coding them (i.e., factors which are
negatively associated with recidivism, so
they need to be reverse coded).’
• Risk assessment tools require training to be
effectively administered and provide an
accurate risk estimate.
• There are different types of risk factors to
consider such as static/historical and
dynamic/criminogenic needs).

*scales should only be used in the groups they’re designed in. We should not assume that they work for all subgroups of offender, cultures, times or locations.

Question 5

There are (4) subgroups of risk factors:

Answer 5

o Dispositional:
 Demographic variables (i.e., younger/age
and gender/male)
 Personality variables (i.e., psychopathy and
impulsivity)

o Historical:
 Past Behaviour (i.e., violent and non-
violent)
 Age of onset (i.e., younger than 14)
 Childhood history of maltreatment (i.e.,
physical abuse and neglect but not sexual
abuse)

o Contextual:
 Lack of social support.
 Access to victims or weapons.

o Clinical
 Substance abuse (i.e., polysubstance use
and high-risk of violence)
 Mental illness (i.e., controversial,
relationship remains unclear and most
people who have a mental illness are not
violent).

Question 6

The (4) Steps of Developing a Risk Assessment Measure:

Answer 6

1. Identifying relevant risk factors from
   existing theory to meet the needs of the
   scales intended purpose (i.e., general or
   specific etc.)
2. Determine the scoring system of the
   scale (i.e., numerical score, yes or no
   format, or rating scales).
3. Determine who risk factors will be
   combined (i.e., each risk factor is an item,
   and we need to decide how the items will
   be collectively interpreted). Do some of
   them be weighted or reverse coded?
4. Provide an overall assessment of risk (i.e.,
   low medium, high or numerical risk
   estimate total score).

Question 7

Static Risk Factors:

What are they? Includes \_\_ and \_\_\_
They're easy to....
More --- than dynamic Risk Factors
Good for....
Example scales (3)

Answer 7

 Are fixed and not amenable to change
even with intervention (i.e., demographic
and historical risk factors).
 Since they’re historical variables or
demographic variables they’re relatively
easy to score because the information is
kept on official records and can be
assessed without interviewing the
offender.
 The most frequently used type of risk
factors for triaging offenders into
treatment based on risk.
 They can be reliably measured and are
very predictive because the best predictor
of future behaviour is past behaviour (i.e.,
violent and non-violent).

 Example Static Risk Factors are:
 Young (age), Male (gender), age at first
offence (criminal history), victim type.

 Example risk assessment tools which use
static risk factors:
 Risk of Conviction and Risk of
Incarceration (ROCROI) is a statistical
software which automatically takes file
information to generate a risk estimate to
accurately and effectively triage offenders
into the appropriate risk level treatment
(i.e., general recidivism a year after
release).
 ASRS Algorithms is the “automated sexual
recidivism scale” is the sexual recidivism
specific scale of the ROCROI.
 The static-99 is another sexual offender
specific risk scale (i.e., only uses static risk
factors that have been empirically
supported and placed offender into a risk
band).

Question 8

Dynamic Risk Factors:

What are they…
They add ____ over static Risk Factors
Useful for…..
May include (4)

Answer 8

 They change over time through
maturation, intervention, changes in
environment and dispositional factors (i.e.,
treated or untreated).
 For example, impulsivity, attitudes,
antisocial peers and substance use.
 Less convenient to assess because it
requires a clinical assessment with the
offender and are thereby less reliable as
well (i.e., observation, self-report and
clinical judgement) because it is
subjective- clinicians will vary on their
judgments of whether dynamic risk factors
are present.
 They are more useful because they’re
sensitive to change and can be used as
target interventions (i.e., unlike static risk
factors which are not useful for this
purpose).
 There is evidence that adding DRF’s onto
Static RF’s increases its incremental
predictive validity.

Question 9

(2) Types of Dynamic Risk Factors:

what is a propensity model?

Answer 9

1. Stable:
   • Stable dynamic risk factors are persistent
   and change slowly if at all (i.e., traits and
   lifestyle choices; substance abuse and
   employment).
   • Over months or years and are resistant to
   change.
2. Acute:
   • Acute dynamic risk factors fluctuate rapidly
   and pose an imminent risk of violence (i.e.,
   emotional states or contextual triggers; job
   loss, intoxication).
   • Occurs over minutes, hours or days.
   • Most useful for probation officers to
   identify changes in risk which poses an
   immediate threat and requires prompt
   intervention.

*A Propensities Model of risk which states that individuals have stable dynamic risk factors which are enduring and are triggered by environmental triggers or contextual factors which lead to an increase of risk and reoffending behaviour.

Question 10

The Central (8) Risk Factors for General Offending

Andrew & Bonta (2010)

Answer 10

1. Criminal History (static)
2. Pro-criminal Personality (impulsivity,
   aggressive, sensation seeking)
3. Pro-criminal Attitudes
4. Pro-criminal Associates
5. Family/Marital Problems
6. School/Work Problems
7. Use of Leisure Time
8. Substance Abuse

*each of the (8) factors have their own sub-scale of items. These target risk factors for
general offending but other offense-specific risk factors can be added onto the scale.

Question 11

(4) NOT EMPIRICALLY SUPPORTED RISK FACTORS:

Answer 11

• Low SES
• Personal distress or mental illness (i.e., low
self-esteem, depression, psychosis etc.)
• Lack of remorse or empathy
• Low verbal intelligence
*these are not risk factors that predict offending behaviour at the population level but may be important at an individual level.

Question 12

Offense Specific Risk Factors:

(5) Sexual Offending:
(3) Domestic Violence:
(5) Terrorism:

Answer 12

(A) Sexual Offending:

a. Sexual preoccupation
b. Deviant sexual interests (i.e., paraphilia)
c. Emotional identification with children
d. Stranger victims
e. Male victims

(B) Domestic Violence:

a. Jealousy
b. Number of stepchildren
c. Hostility towards women

(C) Terrorism:

a. Social wellbeing
b. Economic indicators
c. Governance
d. Law enforcement
e. Armed conflict

Question 13

Protective Factors:
Whatever are they…
Are they integrated into risk assessment scales…
(4) examples

Answer 13

 Factors which predict reduced risk of
recidivism.
 Not in most risk assessment scales but
can be added as an additional sub-scale
(e.g., SAProF).
 For example, self-control, social support,
medication intelligence.

*protective factors should always be considered. Strength-based approach is better than a risk avoidance deficit approach.

Question 14

(4) Possible Outcomes of Risk Assessment:

Link between false positive and flase negative?

Answer 14

1. True Positive:
   • Correct predictions that offender will be
   violent, and they are.
2. True Negative:
   • Correct prediction that an offender will not
   be violent, and they aren’t.
3. False Negative:
   • Inaccurate prediction that someone will
   not be violent, and they are.
   • Harm to victim.
4. False Positive:
   • Inaccurate prediction that someone will be
   violent, and they aren’t.
   • Loss of rights and liberty to the offender.

*False positive and false negatives are linked; by aiming to reduce making false positives we increase the risk of making false negatives. The aim of the game is to manage risk to offender and risk to the community.

Question 15

What is predictive accuracy:

testing predictive accuracy of a scale:

Answer 15

 Is a probability estimate in numerical form
as a decimal, percentage or level of risk
(i.e., 0.50, 70% or levels of risk to
communicate risk to CJS).
 Risk assessment is imperfect; it is a
prediction so there is always room for
error (i.e., false positives and false
negatives) are inevitable thus we must do
our best to balance these risks.
 Statistical methods can be used to test us
how well a specific risk assessment tool
can predict recidivism by comparing it to
actual recidivism outcomes.
 The predictive accuracy of a scale is
communicated with an effect size;
AUC/ROC curve or the Cohen’s D.

 One way is to compare a group assessed
on a tool where higher scores indicate
higher likelihood of recidivism.
 See who reoffends and who does not,
compare these groups on their scores
within a follow-up period.
 AUC and Cohen’s d tell us whether the
tool has predicted correctly based on the
proportion of true positives or mean
scores across groups.

*AUC and Cohen’s d values are not associated with the scores on the instrument! It only tells us the relationship between higher scores (risk) and recidivism (outcomes).

Question 16

AUC/ROC:

Area Under the Curve (AUC) or Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC)

Answer 16

 It assesses the proportion of true positives
 Accuracy values range between 0-1
o 0.5 is chance levels (i.e., scale predicts
recidivism at chance levels)
o 1 is perfect accuracy (i.e., 100% true
positives)
o Less than 0.5 means that the scale is
predicting recidivism in the wrong
direction (i.e., predicts recidivism at less
than chance levels, lower scores predict
recidivism better than higher scores on
the scale).

 Interpretation of Numerical Value:
o The probability that a randomly selected
recidivist will have a higher risk score than
a randomly selected non-recidivist when
using a risk-assessment tool.
o Effect Sizes:
 0.56 (small effect size)
 0.64 (moderate effect size)
 0.71 (large effect size)
o The scale’s ability to accurately to predict
recidivism is small, moderate or large.

Question 17

Cohen’s d:

Answer 17

 Compares recidivists to non-recidivists on
their mean score (i.e., on the risk
assessment tool), relative to the standard
deviation.
 0 = no difference between recidivist and
non-recidivists mean scores of risk
 more than 0; is the desired result. Where
recidivists have a higher mean score than
non-recidivist groups on risk.
 less than 0; is an undesirable result.
Where non-recidivist score higher on risk
than recidivist groups. Scale predicts in
wrong direction!

 Interpretation:
o 0.20 = small effect size
o 0.50 = moderate effect size
o 0.80 = large effect size
 The minimum cohen’s d effect size is 0.15
for risk factors to be psychologically
meaningful. This is equivalent to an AUC of
0.54 (small effect size).

Question 18

If a risk assessment tool predicts better than chance levels and in the correct direction:
 AUC score will be ___
 ROC score will be ___

If it predicts worse:
 AUC score will be ___
 ROC score will be ___

Answer 18

 If a risk assessment tool predicts better 
  than chance levels and in the correct 
  direction:
o AUC will be above 0.5.
o Cohen’s d will be above 0.

 If it predicts worse:
o AUC will be below 0.5, more false
positives than true positives than true
positives if you randomly select a
recidivist and non-recidivist the recidivist
is more likely to have a lower score.
o Cohen’s d will be below 0 (the average
score for recidivists is lower than non-
recidivists).

Question 19

(3) Methods of Risk Assessment:

Answer 19

1. Unstructured Clinical Judgement:
   a. Practitioners subjectively select, analyze,
   and interpret factors deemed by them to
   be relevant to risk on any given case.
   b. No formal guidance or rules to structure
   judgements.
   c. Completely at the discretion of the
   practitioner.
   d. Often guided by past experience,
   heuristics, and traditional models of
   psychopathology (i.e., personality, mental
   disorders and personal distress as
   perceived risk factors even though they’re
   not empirically supported at group level).

Example: Dr Death:
o Gave unstructured clinical assessments to
advise sentencing for death penalty.
o He sometimes used interviews, otherwise
looked at official data on their family
background, remorse, diagnosis, IQ, and
responses to hypothetical situations.
o He was very over-confident and claimed
his judgments were 100% accurate.

2. Actuarial Risk Scales:
   a. Empirically supported risk factors, mainly
   static, are used to develop risk
   assessment scales to provide structure to
   risk assessment and reduce the
   subjectivity of clinical judgments and
   decision-making errors.
   b. They use statistical methods to make an
   equation, formula, graph, or actuarial table
   to arrive at a probability of risk of
   recidivism.
   c. Usually place offenders into risk bands
   (low, medium, high).
   d. E.g., static-99, Violence Risk Appraisal
   Guide (VRAG) and ROC*ROI.
3. Structured Professional Judgments:
   a. Developed in mid 1990s in response to
   problems with unstructured and actuarial
   methods of risk assessment.
   b. Typically uses 20-30 predetermine
   dynamic risk factors that are guided by
   theory, research and clinical experience
   which increases the scope of the scale to
   be applicable to more groups.
   c. The items are selected in a logical and
   rational manner.
   d. Similar narrative approach to
   communicating risk and uses case
   specific details to express the presence
   and severity (i.e., may or may not be rated
   numerically with no predetermined cut
   offs of risk).
   e. Narrative means to communicate risk with
   (i.e., high, medium and low) based on a
   combination, relevance, severity, and
   number of risk factors present.
   f. Geared towards informing risk
   management plans (i.e., treatment and
   formulation and scenario planning).

Question 20

(3) Advantages and (3) Disadvantages of Unstructured Clinical Judgement:

Answer 20

Advantages
 Is a convenient and cheap risk
assessment tool because it requires no
scale, training for a judgement to be
made.
 It is flexible and done at the practitioner’s
discretion.
 Idiographic; the risk assessment is very
individualized rather than based on group
level supported risk factors.

Disadvantages
 Highly influenced by judgement biases
(i.e., illusionary correlations between
mental health and violence etc., salient
aspects such as bizarre delusions are
focused on).
 Low Inter-rater reliability (i.e., clinicians’
judgements are subjective and
unstructured so the agreement between
independent raters is poor).
 Lower accuracy than other methods (i.e.,
barely above chance accuracy).

Question 21

(4) Advantages and (7) Disadvantages of Actuarial Risk Assessment:

Answer 21

Advantages
 Its objective (i.e., removes subjectivity in
clinical risk assessment by structuring the
RF’s assessed).
 It produces a probabilistic estimate of risk
(i.e., numerical value rather than narrative
to communicate risk).
 More consistent and valid at population
level (i.e., looking at empirically validated
RFs at the population level rather than
individual level is more accurate).
 Speed: its quick to assess risk because it’s
done automatically in some cases, with
official records and doesn’t require an
interview with the offender.

Disadvantages
 Nomothetic: “broken leg” dilemma- the
scale identifies the risk factors present but
doesn’t take into account their protective
factors or barriers they face that inhibit
their likelihood to commit a crime (i.e., can
be labeled high risk when they have a
broken leg that prohibits their ability to
offend).
 Overlooks contextual factors that
precipitate crime; rigid structure and
doesn’t allow for clinical judgment to focus
on factors most relevant to the specific
individual being assessed.
 Room for bias/judgement in applying
coding rules (i.e., there is subjectivity in
the clinician’s judgement of how that code
the risk severity on each factor based on
the quality of the official records available
to them).
 Numerical estimates vary across samples:
the scales predictive accuracy is not the
same in all populations.
 Weighting presumes that the relationship
between RFs and recidivism is the same
across all samples and individuals.
 Often do not include dynamic risk factors
so there is limited utility for guiding
intervention.
 Important risk factors omitted if not
predictive in calibration sample (i.e.,
sample the scale is developed in).

Example: Static-99R Scale

Question 22

(4) Advantages and (3) Disadvantages of Structured Professional Judgments:

Answer 22

Advantages
 Can adapt faster to new research.
 Flexible; allows for more professional
discretion.
 No “broken leg” dilemma; responsive to
individual differences in the relevance or
function of risk factors.
 Reduced sample dependency.

Disadvantages
 Re-introduces judgement biases.
 No probabilistic estimate of risk.
 Requires an understanding of the function
of risk factors (i.e., underlying theory).

Example: HCR-20 
o Historical and Clinical Risk-20
 Developed to assess risk of violence.
 Consists of 20-items to guide formulation 
   of risk assessment.
 Rated 0-2 (with a max score of 40)
 Can include any other case-specific 
   information that the professional feels is 
   important.

Question 23

____ risk assessment methods outperform both ___ and ___ judgments.

Answer 23

Actuarial risk assessment methods outperform both unstructured and structured professional judgments.

Question 24

What is the base rate problem?

Answer 24

Predicting recidivism of an offense type with a low base rate increases the risk of making false-positive risk judgments and leads to offenders being kept being detained because they’re perceived to be high risk but actually don’t re-offend.

With very low base rates it would be more accurate to predict when someone won’t offender than does.

The more frequent the behavior the easier it is to predict its future frequency.

Question 25

How do we Report the Results?
There are two main methods used to communicate the results of a risk assessment, which by itself, is not useful for decision making in the CJS:

What are they?
and provide an example statement with joe who scored (7) on the Static-99R-

What are two considerations to keep in mind when communicating a risk estimate to the parole board?

Answer 25

1. Relative Risk:
o Where the offender’s level 
   of risk relative to other 
   offenders.
o E.g., Joes’ score of 7 on the 
   Static-99R places him in the 
   97th percentile which is 
   within the high-risk band for 
   sexual recidivism.

2. Absolute Risk:
o Where the offender’s level 
   of risk is compared to other 
   offenders who have the 
   same risk score as them.
o E.g., 27% of offenders who 
   also score a 7 on the Static- 
   99R and share similar 
   characteristics to Joe tend 
   to sexually re-offend in 5 
   years.

Things to keep in mind:
o We need to be careful that 
   we use simple terminology 
   clear of jargon to ensure 
   that we are effectively  
   communicating the 
   offender’s risk to individuals 
    in the CJS who are making 
   parole and sentencing 
   decisions.
o Research is currently being 
   conducted on developing 
   “common risk language” 
   this is to address the fact 
   that the score cut offs for 
   bands of risk are different 
   for each scale. Thus, it 
   would be beneficial to have 
   a universal level of risk 
   classification system.

Question 26

What are the (4) Generations of risk assessment?

Which of the (3) risk assessment methods is NOT included?

Answer 26

1. The First Generation:
o 1960s-1970s:
o Unstructured Professional 
   Judgement method of risk 
   assessment, which is very 
   biased, with no structure to 
   the factors associated with 
   risk used, low interrater 
   reliability and poor 
   predictive accuracy!

2. The Second Generation:
o 1970s-1980s:
o Actuarial risk assessment  
   method which uses 
   structured risk assessment 
   based on empirically 
   supported static factors to 
   reduce the subjectivity of 
   clinical judgement and 
   increased its predictive 
   accuracy.

3. The Third Generation:
o 1980s-1990s: Andrew and 
   Bonta’s Central (8) Risk 
   Factors.
o Actuarial risk assessment 
   method which used both 
   static and dynamic risk 
   factors.

4. The Fourth Generation:
o 1990s-till now:
o Comprehensive risk 
   assessment tools which 
   guide case management: 
   assessment, management, 
   and treatment progress.

Where does SPJ fit?
o It is not included in the (4) 
   generations of risk 
   assessment:
 However, Andrews et al. 
   (2009) argue that SPJ is a 
   variation of the first- 
   generation tools, but 
   evidence supports that SPJ 
   has way more predictive 
   accuracy than UCJ’s.

Question 27

Do actuarial risk assessments only use static risk factors and SPJ only use dynamic and/or static risk factors?

Answer 27

 No, as we can see from the 
   (4) generations of risk 
   assessment. Only the 
   second-generation actuarial 
   scale used only static risk 
   factors and the third 
   generation uses both. 
 In terms of SPJ, they can 
   also use both.

Question 28

Does it Matter which Risk Assessment Scale you Use?

Do they all do the same task?
Can they all inform treatment design?
Are they appropriate for all populations?
Is there consistency or interrater reliability in scores across scales?

Answer 28

 The two primary methods 
   (actuarial and SPJ) which 
   have their own respective 
   strengths, weaknesses and 
   purpose.
o E.g., the actuarial scale is 
   more precise gives a risk 
   estimate and has issues with 
   “the broken leg dilemma”.
o E.g., if advising the parole 
   board, you may use both 
   actuarial and SPJ.
 There are scales for general 
   or offense specific risk 
   assessment scales (i.e., 
   terrorism, IPV, Sexual 
   Offending, Violence etc.).
 There are different scales 
   for different populations (i.e., 
   gender, cultures, age etc.).
 Not all scales can inform 
   interventions (i.e., actuarial 
   with only predominantly 
   static factors).

*even scales designed for the same purpose provide different answers (i.e., there is a lack of consistency between them; predominantly those with DRF’s in them that increases the subjectivity in ratings by various clinicians).

Question 29

(4) Criteria for Evaluating Risk Assessment Instruments:

Which two are most important?

Answer 29

1. Predictive Accuracy: does it 
   make more true 
   positives/negatives than false 
   positives/negatives (i.e., error; 
   are they balanced?).
2. Validation: has the scale 
   been validated in different 
   contexts than western 
   settings across time?

3. Others:
   a. Is it easy to use?
   b. Is it easy to learn and train
   people on? Is it costly to train
   people?
   c. Is it quick to rate?
   d. Consistent ratings across
   practitioners? i.e., is their
   strong inter-rater reliability.
4. Does the scale have
   construct validity? Does the
   scale measure the risk factors
   it claims to?

The most important two are predictive accuracy and validation.

Question 30

Which risk assessment method is most subject to cultural bias?

Answer 30

o Actuarial tools are subject to 
   cultural biases, more so SPJ 
   (i.e., their more strict/rigorous 
   with less room for 
   adjustments).
o It’s an enduring concern 
   about the cultural 
   appropriateness of risk 
   assessment scales for 
   Aboriginals, can have 
   implications for other 
   jurisdictions (including NZ).

Question 31

Cultural and Ethical Issues is Risk Assessment?

Why is cross-cultural validation important?
Who scores higher? Why is this important?

Answer 31

o Cross-cultural validation: 
   most scales are supported in 
   a white western context and 
   have not been validated in 
   other cultural contexts.
o There is inconclusive 
   evidence on the cross- 
   cultural generalizability of 
   scales (i.e., mixed findings; 
   equal predictive accuracy or 
   less accurate for indigenous 
   communities).
o Indigenous individuals tend 
   to score higher: which 
   impacts on sentencing and 
   parole conditions (i.e., over- 
   supervision, denied parole, 
   harsher sentences etc.).

• This is important because biased scales that present aboriginals as higher risk in cultural contexts where minorities are overrepresented in the CJS is going to lead to people accepting the adequacy of the scale without rigorously testing its cross-cultural appropriateness.
• Biases in the CJS and scale interact and negatively impact cultural minorities’ quality of life.

Question 32

(5) Types of Biases in Risk Assessment scales?

Answer 32

1. Item Bias:
o Items don’t have the same 
   meaning across cultures, or 
   they do not have the same 
   relationship with offending in 
   all groups (i.e., the items, 
   which measure RFs, are not 
   understood the same across 
   cultures).

2. Construct Bias:
o Constructs (i.e., RFs) being 
   measured are not the same 
   across cultures (i.e., the 
   influence of cultural norms 
   means that what is 
   considered to be risk factors 
   differs across cultures and 
   makes some items more or 
   less appropriate.

3. Method Bias:
o The administration and 
   assessment conditions the 
   scale is used in can vary 
   across cultures (i.e., 
   language barriers between 
   practitioner and offender, the 
   response styles will vary).

4. Judgement Error:
o Biases due to subjective 
   components of assessing 
   risk: heuristics, illusionary 
   correlation, overconfidence 
   and the quality of the 
   information provided (i.e., 
   official records, self-report or 
   observation).

5. Over-Confidence:
o Confidence is not associated 
   with accuracy! (i.e., being 
   confidence doesn’t mean 
   the risk judgment is 
   accurate).

Question 33

How does Culture Impact Risk Assessment?

Three possible problems

Answer 33

 Risk assessment is 
   normatively developed on 
   white western people (i.e., 
   Canadian or US samples 
   which is a small percentage 
   of the world population).

 It ignores that cultural 
   differences in practice, 
   expectations, beliefs about 
   health and mental illness, 
   what deviancy is, 
   worldviews, social and 
   environmental experiences 
   that influence the predictive 
   accuracy of the scale.

 Three possible problems:
o Overlooking relevant factors 
   to that population not 
   included on the scale.
o Including factors that are 
   not relevant or less relevant 
   to the population.
o Variation in the expression 
   and manifestation of risk 
   across populations.

 SPJ maybe better able to 
   accommodate to variation 
   (i.e., cultural responsivity) 
   but is also subject to biases 
   (i.e., +/-‘s to clinical 
   discretion).

 Actuarial tools are ridged

(i. e., do not allow for cultural
responsivity) .

Question 34

(4) Solutions to Cross-Cultural Biases in Risk Assessment?

Answer 34

 Cross-Cultural Validation (i.e., 
   testing the predictive 
   accuracy of the scale across 
   groups, time and contexts).
 Ensure that practitioners are 
   trained in cross-cultural 
   differences in understanding 
   risk, its links to recidivism 
   and how it is manifested (i.e., 
   adjust the scale accordingly 
   to be responsive to cultural 
   variation).
 Reducing Method Bias (i.e., 
   language barriers, 
   understandings of risk, 
   deviancy, well-being, and 
   factors which influence their 
   responsivity to treatment and 
   how the items are 
   explained).
 Identification of risk factors 
   which are more/less relevant 
   to the population being 
   studied (i.e., use the Maori 
   culture related needs: 
   MaCRNs; cultural identity, 
   cultural tension, whanau, 
   whakapapa and weight the 
   risk factors accordingly or 
   adding/removing them).

Question 35

(6) Methodological Issues in Validating Instruments Cross-Culturally:

Answer 35

1. Safety Concerns regarding 
   the release of high-risk 
   offenders into the 
   population to test actual 
   recidivism rates which 
   makes it unethical and 
   restricts our samples to 
   low-risk offenders.

2. False Positives are 
    common but maybe the 
    result of effective 
    treatment which reduces 
    the risk of recidivism.

3. Recidivism is under- 
    reported (x6) in official 
    records with self-report 
    data also under reporting 
    when recidivists who 
    haven’t been caught will 
    not want to admit to a 
    crime. The use of 
    dichotomous recidivism 
    scoring (yes/no) leaves out 
    important information 
    about the offense type and 
    the severity of the offense.

4. Base Rates: there is more 
    predictive accuracy when 
    the offense type has a 
    higher base rate of 
    recidivism (i.e., more 
   frequent behaviours are 
   easier to predict).

5. Follow-up periods needed 
    to capture information 
    about recidivism makes 
    cross-cultural validation 
    very time consuming.

6. Subjectivity of SPJ: means 
    there is variation across 
    practitioners which makes 
    cross-cultural comparisons  
    hard to make because the 
    groups are not equivalent.

Question 36

(5) Ethical Issues in Risk Assessment:

Answer 36

 Not having scales to 
   account for cultural variation 
   has implications on 
   indigenous people (i.e., risk 
   estimates, CJS decisions, 
   responsivity to treatment 
   and rehabilitation etc.).

 Gap between research and 
   practice (i.e., practice is not 
   up to date with research; it 
   takes time to update 
   treatment to suit theory, it 
   takes time and money to 
   train and update practice, 
   frequently changing 
   treatment and create 
   instability and reduce 
   effectiveness of treatment).

 Balancing false positives 
   with false negatives. For 
   example, the public would 
   be in favour of false 
   positives in keeping people 
   looked up to reduce risk of 
   harm to the community, but 
   this impairs the rights and 
   freedoms of the offender 
   and impacts their QOL.

 Risk bands are arbitrary, and
variable across clinicians
and scales.

 Focusing on Risk 
   Avoidance is one side of 
   the puzzle, what about 
   protective factors which 
   reduce the risk of 
   recidivism?

Question 37

Protective Factors:

Theoretical confusion?
Can they be measured?
(5) examples?

Answer 37

 Factors which mitigate or predict the
reduction in risk of recidivism.

 There is a lot of conceptual confusion
around what protective factors actually
are: are they the opposite of RFs, the
absence of RFs or something else? The
evidence says they’re their own thing.

 Difficulty with extended temporal
relationship between variables being
studied (i.e., youths vs. adults, onset vs.
maintenance).

 Protective factors can be measured and
are shown to predict the reduced
likelihood of recidivism.

 For example,
  o Prosocial involvement.
  o Social Support.
  o Intelligence.
  o Attachment.
  o Employment.

Question 38

Example Protective Factor Scale:
SAPROF

Adults or children?
Static or dynamic Risk Factors?
Used in conjunction with —- scale
3 substances are…

Answer 38

 First protective factor tools designed for
adults.
 Used for in-patients alongside the HCR-20
(SPJ).
 It has 17 items: static and dynamic which
are broken into (3) sub-scales:

o Internal:
   Intelligence.
   Secure attachment style.
   Empathy.
   Coping.
   Self-control.

o Motivational:
   Work.
   Leisure activities.
   Financials management.
   Motivation for treatment.
   Attitudes towards authority.
   Lifegoals.
   Medication.

o External:
 Social network.
 Intimate relationship.
 Professional care.
 Living circumstances.
 External control.
 There have been additional scales
developed to fit other populations: SO,
Gender, Age or Disability.
 Includes goals: space for SPJ where they
develop goals with the offender, and
includes actuarial risk scoring for each
item to provide a risk estimate.

Question 39

Risk Assessment in NZ:

___ and ___mainly do Risk Assessments
Are there many validated scales in nz?
Examples (5) two already talked about and three new scales

Answer 39

 Mainly probation officers and
psychologists make risk assessments
(albeit for different reasoning, monitor risk
vs. treatment efficacy).

 Risk assessments are used to advise the
day-to-day management of offenders and
advising the parole board and courts.

 ROC*RIC is a static RF Actuarial tool that
makes automatic risk estimates of
offender’s official records and is widely
used in NZ.

 ASRS is another static actuarial tool to
automatically estimates offender risk but is
specific to sexual offending (i.e., adjusts
for lower base rates).

 Dynamic risk assessment for offender re-
entry (DRAOR) is only used by probation
officers to monitor for changes in risk.

 Stable and Acute (2002) is a dynamic
actuarial tool for sexual offending (static
and dynamic risk factors).

 Violence risk scale (VRS) includes STURP
treatment planning and monitoring
change in risk and provides estimates of
risk for the parole board

Question 40

Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Re-Entry (DRAOR)

Developed in Canada and NZ

Answer 40

 Three-point scale ranging from 0-2.
 Comes with a manual that provides 
   examples on how to score each factor.
 The scores from the (3) sub-scales are 
   aggregated to find a total score.
 Typically, monitors offenders quite 
   regularly (i.e., weekly for high risk or once 
   a month for lower risk offenders).

*Acute sub-scale is for monitoring changes in risk that may require immediate intervention regularly by the probation officer.

Stable DRFs:
 Peer associates
 Attitudes towards authority
 Impulse control
 Problem-solving
 Sense of entitlement
 Attachment with others

Acute DRFs:
 Substance abuse
 Anger/hostility
 Opportunity/Access to victims
 Negative Mood
 Employment
 Interpersonal Relationships
 Living Situation

Protective Factors:
 Response to advice
 Prosocial identity
 High expectations
 Cost/Benefits
 Social support
 Social control

Question 41

Conclusions:

Answer 41

 Risk assessment is a crucial part of the CJS
which has many cultural and ethical
implications that need to be addressed.

 Validating the predictive accuracy of scales
is important to minimize error (i.e., false
positives/negatives).

 It’s important that when picking a scale,
you choose one that is appropriate for the
population being studied and the task at
hand.

 The most common and widely used risk
assessment methods that have predictive
accuracy at above chance levels.

 It’s important to have risk assessment tools
which have the capacity to monitor change
in risk and inform case management and
intervention (i.e., the (4) generation of risk
assessment).

 We need more knowledge on risk factors
and desistance from crime to provide
balanced scales with more predictive
ability, and better treatments for offenders.

Question 42

Quiz:
True or False-

1. Risk factors are used in both prediction
   and intervention:
2. A false negative occurs when people
   with a high risk score reoffend:
3. Static risk factors can be targeted in
   treatment:
4. Dynamic risk factors can change without
   treatment:
5. A “propensities model” of risk states that
   all individuals with acute dynamic risk
   factors will reoffend:
6. An AUC of 0.2 indicates a small effect
   size:
7. A cohen’s d of 0.8 indicates a large effect
   size:
8. Structured Professional Judgment is
   more accurate than actuarial assessment:
9. Actuarial assessment uses only static risk
   factors:
10. Protective factors can also be measured:

Answer 42

 Yes, the dual aims of risk assessment is
predicting risk of recidivism which can
help triage people into interventions of
the right intensity, and provide targets for
interventions to manage risk.
 Yes, a false negative is an incorrect risk
prediction where an offender is expected
to not reoffend but they do.
 No, Static RFs are not amenable to
change even with treatment.
 Yes, they can change due to changes in
situational factors or maturation over time.
 No, the model shows that their risk of
recidividm has increase and intervention
is needed but it doesn’t garuntee
offending will occur!
 No, 0.5 score indicates the scale performs
at chance levels. Thus, 0.2 is below
chance accuracy which sugests it is
prediciting in the wrong direction (i.e., low
risk offenders are more likely to reoffend
than high-risk).
 Yes, A score of one means perfect
predictive accuracy so a socre of .8
indcates a large effect size.
 No, the actuarial scale has more predictive
accuracy because it largely focuses on
static risk factors, more rigorous and less
room for clinician discretion and therefore
biases relative to SPJ.
 No, it can use static and dynamic risk
factors!
 Yes, they’re measurable.

Question 43

Quiz:
Short Answer-

1. What are the four types of factor 
   discussed in this lecture? Not just risk 
   factors!
2. An example of each?
3. What does the broken leg dilemma 
    mean?
4. What is the main benefit of assessing 
    DRF?
5. Why should we consider PF?
6. Why is predictive accuracy important?
7. What else is important in selecting a 
   tool?
8. What are the 4 generations of risk 
    assessment?

Answer 43

 Static RFs, Stable DRFs, Acute DRFs and
Protective Factors.

 Age of first offence, alcoholism,
intoxication, prosocial involvement.

 Rigidness of scales to set list of risk factors
(population level) without room for
adjustment to individual factors that may
mitigate risk of offending (i.e., having a
broken leg).

 They can be used as treatment targets,
monitoring changes in risks and compare
before/after treatment risk to test
treatment efficacy.

 To provide a balanced picture of risk of
offendng. Protective factors mitigate risk
of offending and we need to assess them
to 1) provide strength-based treatment
thats more effective, increases offenders
responsisivity to treatment and can
increase QOL; 2) to reduce risk of broken
leg dilemma which increases risk of
incarcerating people who are lower risk
than the scale predicts and infringing on
their personal rights and freedoms.

 It mesaures the true positive/negatives with
false negative/positives. This is important
becasue the conclusion of the risk
assessment impacts decisions at all stages
of the CJS which has a large reppurcisons
on the offender and society (i.e.,
financial/social costs, harm, QOL).
 Important issue for cultural concerns; can
the scale be validated across cultural
samples?

 Does it fufil the desired task, does it suit
the sample being studied (i.e., gender,
race, age, disability etc.), is it cost-effective,
is it easy to learn or train, is it quick to rate
and does it have good inter-rater
reliability?

 Unstructured Clinical Judgement.
 Actuarial (static)
 Actuarial (static/dynamic)
 Case Management and Treatment 
   Planning

Question 44

The predictive accuracy of a scale is communicated through ____ or ____

Answer 44

Auc/Roc Curve or Cohen’s D

Question 45

Does Auc/Roc Curve and the Cohen’s D methods of communicating the predictive accuracy of a scale refer to specific items on the scale?

Answer 45

No. They refer to higher scores on the scale being associated with more recidivism or mean group scores on the scale are higher for reoffender than non-reoffender groups.