Chapter 10 Risk Assesment Flashcards
What is Risk Assessment?
Risk is viewed as a range (Steadman, 2000)
- Probabilities change across time
- Interaction among offende characteristics and situation
Risk assessment has 2 components:
- Prediction
- Management
Risk Assessment: Civil Settings
- Civil commitment
- Child protection
- Immigration laws
- School and labour regulations
- Duty to warn
- Limits of confidentiality
Risk Assessment: Criminal Settings
Risk assessments conducted at major decision points:
- Pretrial
- Sentencing
- Release
Public safety outweighs solicitor-client privilege (Smith v. Jones, 1999)
Types of Prediction Outcomes
- True Positive(predicted to reoffend; reoffends)
- True Negative(predected to not reoffend; does not reoffend)
- False Positive(predicted to reoffend; does not reoffend)
- False Negative(predicted to not reoffend; reoffends)
Two types of errors are dependent on each other
Each outcome has different consequences for offender or society
Base Rates
Represents the % of people within a given population who commit a criminal or violent act
- Prediction difficult when base rates are too high or low
- False positives tend to occur with low base rates
- Easier to predict frequent vs. infrequent events
Methodological Issues
Assumptions of risk assessment and measurement
-Ideal evaluation vs. reality
Three weaknesses of research (Monahan & Steadman, 1994):
- Limited number of risk factors
- How criterion variable is measured
- How criterion variable is defined
Judgement Errors and Biases
- Heuristics
- Illusory correlation
- Ignore base rates
- Reliance on salient or unique cues
- Overconfidence in judgements
Unstructured Clinical Judgement
- Decisions characterized by professional discretion and lack of guidelines
- Subjective
- No specific risk factors
- No rules about how risk decisions should be made
Dr. James Grigson
- Nicknamed “Dr. Death” or “the hanging shrink”
- Forensic psychiatrist in Dallas
- Used unstructured clinical judgement
- Expelled from professional association for claims of 100% accuracy in predicting violence
Actuarial Prediction
- Decisions based on risk factors that are selected and combined based on empirical or statistical evidence
- Most actuarial risk instruments include only static risk factors
- Evidence favours actuarial assessments over unstructured clinical judgement
Structured Professional Judgement
- Decisions guided by predetermined list of risk factors derived from research literature
- Judgement of risk level is based on professional judgement
- Diverse group of professionals
Risk factor Definition
Risk Factor – measurable feature of an individual that predicts the behaviour of interest (e.g., criminal behaviour or violence)
Types of Predictors
- Static Risk Factors
- Historical
- Factors that cannot be changed - Dynamic Risk Factors
- Fluctuate over time
- Factors that can be changed
- Acute vs. stable dynamic risk factors
Important Risk Factors
- Dispositional
- Historical
- Clinical
- Contextual
Dispositional Risk Factors
- Demographics
- Age
- Gender - Personality characteristics
- Impulsivity
- Psychopathy
Historical Risk Factors
- Past antisocial behaviour
- Age of onset of antisocial behaviour
- Childhood history of maltreatment
- Past supervision failure, escape, or institution maladjustment
Clinical Risk Factors
- Substance use
- Mental disorder
- Diagnosis of schizophrenia or affective disorders
- Threat/control override” (TCO) symptoms
Contextual Risk Factors
- Lack of social support to help individual in his or her day-to-day life
- Easy access to weapons
- Easy access to victims
Risk Assessment Instruments
- Actuarial Instruments
2. Structured Professional Judgement Instruments
Current Issues
- Where is the theory?
- More attention on WHY is needed - Protective factors
- Factors that reduce or mitigate the likelihood of violence - Limitations of risk assessments
- Use of scientific research
- Practitioners not using instruments
Females Offenders and Crime
- Women engage in less crime
- Women reoffend at lower rates
- Childhood victimization more prevalent
- Mental disorders more prevalent
Females Offenders and Risk
- More similarities in risk factors for men and women than differences
- Gender-specific risk factors
- History of self-injury
- Poor self-esteem - How well do risk assessment instruments developed with male offenders work with female offenders?
- LSI-R has predictive validity
Desistance From Crime
- Desistance: process of ceasing to engage in criminal behaviour
- Little research on why offenders stop committing crime
- Factors relating to desistance:
- Age
- Employment
- Marital relationships
