Lecture 9 Flashcards
1
Q
Settings of civil risk assessment
A
- Civil commitment
- Child protection
- Immigration laws
- School and labour regulations
- Duty to warn
2
Q
Settings of criminal risk assessment
A
- Pretrial
- Sentencine
- Release
- Public safety outweighs soliciter-client privilege when clear, serious and imminent danger
3
Q
Types of prediction outcomes
A
- True negative
- False negative
- False positive
- True positive
4
Q
Base rate
A
- Percentage of people in given population who commit a criminal act
- Low base rates can increase false positive decisions
- Base rates vary on group being studied, what is being predicted, and the length of follow up monitoring period
5
Q
Methological issues for risk assessment
A
- Assumptions of risk assessment and measurement
- Limited number of risk factors studied
- How criterion variable is measured
- How criterion variable is defined
6
Q
Types of risk factors
A
- Static risk factor
- Dynamic risk factors
7
Q
Static risk factors
A
- Cannot be changed
- Most convenient
- Most frequently used
- Reliably measured and very predictive
8
Q
Dynamic risk factors
A
- Change with time
- Less convenient, less reliable
- Less frequently used
- Sensitive to change
9
Q
Dispositional risk factors
A
- Demographics
- Personality characteristics
10
Q
Historical risk factors
A
- Past antisocial behaviour
- Age of onset of antisocial behaviour
- Childhood history of maltreatment
11
Q
Clinical risk factors
A
- Substance abuse
- Mental disorder
12
Q
Contextual risk factors
A
- Lack of social support
- Access to weapons
- Access to victims
13
Q
Protective factors
A
- Reduces likelihood of negative outcomes
- May help explain why some people with many risk factors do not become violent or criminal
14
Q
Big 4 risk factors
A
- Criminal history
- Procriminal personality
- Procriminal attitudes
- Procriminal associates
15
Q
Risk factors approaches
A
- Unstructured clinical judgement
- Actuarial tools
- Structured professional judgement
16
Q
Unstructured clinical judgement
A
- Subjectively select, analyze, and interpret factors
- Flexible, idiographic
- Inconsistent, low accuracy
17
Q
Actuarial tools
A
- Collect pre-specified risk factors and enter them into statistical model that combines and weighs them
- Most only include static risk factors
- Evidence favours actuarial assessments over unstructured clinical judgements
- Consistent, high accuracy
- Nomothetic, validity across different samples
18
Q
Structured professional judgement
A
- Collect pre-specified risk factors while adding in case specific details
- Final assessment of risk is a clinical assessment
- Flexible, nomotheic idiographic
- Moderate accuracy, Less consistent than actuarial
19
Q
Components of risk assessment approaches
A
- Identifying empirically valid risk factors
- Determining method to measure risk factors
- Establishing procedure for combining scores on the risk factors
- Producing element of violence risk
20
Q
Coping relapse model
A
- Used to explain recidivism
- Environmental triggers
- Cognitive appraisal
- Coping and response mechanisms
21
Q
Issues with risk assessment
A
- Mostly done with caucasion males
- Unclear when gender and age salient variables should be considered
- Indiginous offenders overrepresented in criminal justice system
- Role of protective factors not fully understood
- Limitations to risk assessment instruments
- Gap between science and practice
- Little research as to why offenders stop commiting a crime
22
Q
Receiver operating characteristic analysis
A
- Technique for measuring accuracy of risk assessments by examining false positive and true positives across decision thresholds
- Only unbiased procedure to summarize accuracy
