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Criminal Behaviour > Lecture 3A: Risk Assessment > Flashcards

Lecture 3A: Risk Assessment Flashcards

1
Q

What are distal determinants of crime?

A

Historical factors

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2
Q

What are proximal determinants of crime?

A

Immediate and situational factors

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3
Q

How do we identify the factors that are most strongly associated with criminal behaviour?

A

use of meta-analysis

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4
Q

What is a correlate of crime and how do we discover them?

A
  • A variable that is positively associated (correlated) with criminal behaviour.
  • Discovered using cross-sectional research design.
    When measured at the same time (number of criminal peers and involvement in crime), there is a strong association (e.g., r > .20)
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5
Q

What are the problems with correlates?

A
  • Cannot infer causality
  • Reverse causation, which came first? (criminal conduct or criminal peers).
  • Some other factor may be the true causal factor (e.g., criminal thinking).
  • BUT…a cost-effective starting point to test a research hypothesis
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6
Q

What is a risk factor (predictor)?

A
  • A variable that precedes an outcome of interest and increases the probability that the outcome will occur (Kraemer et al., 1997)
  • Discovered using longitudinal designs.
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7
Q

What are the problems with risk factors?

A
  • Still cannot infer causality.
  • Risk factors are typically correlated with other risk factors that also predict the outcome of interest.
  • Maternal smoking during pregnancy is a risk factor for childhood conduct problems, BUT…
  • But… not very important in criminal risk assessment.
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8
Q

What is a causal risk factor?

A
  • the holy grail
  • A risk factor that precedes criminal conduct and when changed/manipulated results in changes in the outcome of interest.
  • Discovered using:
    • Randomized controlled treatment designs (RCTs)
    • Quasi-experimental designs (match controls and experimental groups)
    • Propensity score matching
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9
Q

Why do we strive to identify causal factors?

A

-Explains crime and thus helpful for theory development and validation.
-Leads to effective intervention and (should) discourage
ineffective intervention.

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10
Q

What are the first and second-order correlates of criminal conduct?

A
  • Andrews et al: Central Eight risk/need factors with embedded Big Four (major causal variables) - > 1000 studies; > 1770 Pearson r’s
  • Minor, moderate and major risk factors
  • Static and dynamic risk factors
  • Assessment & treatment must attend to risk/need factors
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11
Q

What are the eight factors in the central eight?

A
  • history of antisocial behaviour
  • antisocial personality pattern
  • antisocial cognition
  • antisocial associates
  • family and/or marital
  • school and/or work
  • leisure/recreation
  • Substance use
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12
Q

What does the risk and need model of criminal conduct assist in?

A
  • Provincial and federal corrections utilize risk and need assessments (versus psychopathology)
  • Assist in identification of levels of criminal risk, treatment targets, treatment planning
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13
Q

What are some examples of risk assessment scales?

A

SIR-R1, SARA, VRAG

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14
Q

What are the 4 generations of risk assessment?

A

1st Generation: Unstructured professional judgment
2nd Generation: Actuarial, empirical, typically static factors
3rd Generation: Typically actuarial. Static AND dynamic factors
4th Generation: Comprehensive guide from intake to case closure. Assessment, management, treatment progress

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15
Q

What are the 3 approaches to risk assessment?

A

1) unstructured clinical judgement
2) actuarial tools (2nd to 4th generation)
3) structured professional judgement

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16
Q

What is unstructured clinical judgement?

A

Subjectively select, analyze, and interpret risk factors

17
Q

What are the advantages and disadvantages of unstructured clinical judgement?

A

Advantages: Flexible, Idiographic
Disadvantages: Inconsistent, Low accuracy

18
Q

What are actuarial tools?

A

Collect pre-specified risk factors and enter them into a statistical model that combines and weights them

19
Q

What are the advantages/disadvantages of actuarial toold?

A

Advantages: Consistent, High accuracy, Often has recidivism estimates
Disadvantages: Nomothetic, Validity across different samples

20
Q

What are some issues regarding actuarial scales?

A
  • Items are statistically chosen and do not greatly inform treatment (mainly static items)
  • Most items are equally relevant for general recidivism
  • Few items are unique to violence
21
Q

Where does SPJ fit into the generations?

A

Andrews, Bonta, & Wormith (2006)
-Variation of first generation
Quinsey, Rice, Harris, & Cormier (2006)
-“Actuarial methods are too good and clinical judgment too poor to risk contaminating the former with the latter”
-BUT, qualitatively and empirically different from unstructured judgment. SPJ likely fits somewhere within the 2nd and 3rd generation.

22
Q

What are the more recent approaches to risk and need assessment?

A
  • Improved domains (acute dynamic, mental health)
  • Risk status (group) versus state (acute vs. stable factors)
  • Longer follow-ups and larger samples
  • Use of meta-analytic studies to show trends in the research
  • Development of purpose-specific measures (SO, DV, gender-specific)
23
Q

How do we understand risk ratings?

A
  • (Nominal Categories – L, M, H)
  • No agreement regarding what these categories mean.
  • Base rates vary by type of outcome (general recidivism, violence, sexual, technical violations).
24
Q

What is Hanson et al., emerging model for risk communication?

A
  1. Very low (equivalent to young males in community)
    Circumstantial crime, no overt criminogenic needs.
  2. Low (½ the BR of the moderate group)
    Transient criminogenic needs, problem solving issues, not criminal lifestyle.
  3. Moderate (average BR on risk scale used)
    Multiple needs, requires structure programming (~200 hours). Months to get to Level 2.
  4. Moderate-high (twice the BR)
    Chronic with multiple severe needs, requires multiple programs (~300 hours). Years to get to level 3.
  5. Extremely High (~80-85% failure rate on risk scale)
    Persistent, active criminal (in and out of prison), requires motivational change prior to other programming.
25
Q

Why should we care about risk assessment?

A
  • Recent news articles –> media
  • Risk assessment informs: Sentencing (especially D.O. hearings), classification, treatment needs, treatment intensity, parole decisions, level of supervision, notification decisions, release conditions…
  • risk is at the foundation of everything that occurs in the CJS after you get arrested, it informs multiple decisions
26
Q

What is risk assessment vs. risk management?

A
  • Risk assessment refers to process: Content to consider (instruments), Linked to question(s) of interest throughout sentence
  • Risk prediction refers to using information to distinguish likelihood of failure. Weighting information for accuracy
  • Risk management requires using static & dynamic risk information. Who is at risk, when they are at risk, and how/
27
Q

What are the goals of risk assessment?

A
  • Improve accuracy of decision-making
  • Improve transparency
  • Improve consistency
  • Meet CCRA requirements
  • Inform case management
  • Limit liability
28
Q

How do we measure predictive accuracy?

A
  • Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis
  • A technique for measuring the accuracy of risk assessments by examining false positives and true positives across decision thresholds
29
Q

What are the 4 decision thresholds in roc analysis?

A
  • True positive: when you predict an outcome to be true and your prediction was correct
  • False positive: when you predict an outcome to be true and you were incorrect
  • False negative: when you predict an outcome to not be true but it was true (eg., predict not violent but they were violent)
  • True negative: When you predict that an outcome is not true and you are correct
30
Q

How does a roc graph work?

A
  • For each possible cutoff value (score), plot false positive rate (x axis) as function of true positive rate (y axis)
  • Connect the dots and get a curve
  • We can then measure the area under that curve to get an overall measure of predictive accuracy
31
Q

How do we interpret a ROC analysis?

A
  • AUC ranges from 0.50 (indicating chance accuracy) to 1.00 (indicating perfect accuracy)
  • In other words, the probability that a randomly selected recidivist will have a higher risk score than a randomly selected non-recidivist
  • Also, can be directly converted to a Cohen’s d effect size (no math required! Just look it up in a table!!) r =.33 / AUC=.80
32
Q

What are the strengths and limitations of the ROC?

A

-A procedure that allows researchers to establish accuracy scores that are not biased by decision thresholds (i.e., scores on an assessment tool) or impacted by base rate (like the correlation)

33
Q

what are the levels of predictive accuracy for the different risk assessment methods?

A
  • Clinical judgments: AUC = 0.55
  • Actuarial tools: AUC = .68 to .80
  • Structured Professional Judgment: AUC = .62 to .75
34
Q

What is the bottom line about risk assessment?

A
  • The risk scales used by CSC and Provinces have acceptable predictive validity.
  • Ignoring them will increase decision errors and liability (without compelling rationale).
  • Scales (VRAG, PCL-R, LSI-R, LS/CMI) used by psychologists may be slightly more accurate BUT their application in terms of gender and race is hotly debated.
35
Q

What is the Ewert Decision?

A

Supreme court decision, ruled that risk assessment cant be used on indigneous offenders (Sept. 18, 2015)

36
Q

What do we find when we compare risk assessment generations for violent recividism?

A

-third generation is slightly better

37
Q

What do we find when we compare administrative methods for prediction of violent recidivism?

A
  • File (.26)
  • interview (.11)
  • Self Report (.12)
  • File & Interview (.30)
  • May not want to rely on interviews

Criminal Behaviour (13 decks)

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