Risk & Dangerousness Flashcards
Risk and dangerousness
Consideration is given to protecting…
Protecting the general public
Protecting staff of institutions
Protecting other inmates
Protecting individuals from self harm and suicide
Definition of risk
Likelihood of an act occurring
Risk relates to likelihood
Definition of dangerousness
The likely severity of the act
Dangerousness relates to consequences of reoffending
Significance of Tarasoff case
Psychologist has a duty to protect - requires the psych to take active steps to protect the potential victim but not necessarily warn them
Duty to warn/protect in Australia
Psychs can disclose confidential info if there’s a legal obligation or if there is immediate and specified risk of harm to an identifiable person
Predicting risk and dangerous
Dangerousness is related to past violent or serious behaviour and the likelihood of similar conduct in the future
2 activities: who will be violent? Under what conditions will an individual will be violent
Clinicians traditionally over-predict the likelihood of both risk and dangerous
Limitations of predicting risk and dangerous
Limited number of risk factors used to make predictions
Def of violence or dangerousness vary
Research design and participant samples
Separate studies rarely compared or replicated
Clinical approaches:
Linear model
Hypothetico-deductive model
Risk assessment model
Linear model - limited no. of decision choices
H-D model - deduce from knowledge about previous behaviour and theory what behaviour will occur
Risk assessment model - considers risk and protective factors
Statistical/actuarial approaches
Attempt to replace subjective clinical methods with empirically based prediction methods
Based on large data samples (uses static factors)
Structured clinical approaches
Combined actuarial measures and clinically relevant variables
Clinical measures include:
Psychopathy checklist, violence risk appraisal guide, rapid risk assessment for sexual offender recidivism
Weakness - people can lie
Predicting recidivism
Predicted: will offend, if reoffend = True Positive; if does not offend = False positive
Predicted will not offend, if reoffends False negative, if does not reoffend = True negative
*it is easier to predict common events than rare events (can predict domestic violence but difficult to predict murder)
predictive accuracy of test: Sensitivity vs specificity
Sensitivity - correctly identify true positives
Specificity - correctly identify true negatives
Best if base rate for offending is 50% (DV)
Preventative detention of sexual offenders
Sex offending - risk of reoffending is low but level of dangerousness is high
Sex offenders create the most moral panic
Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offences) Act 2003 - permits detaining serious sexual offenders beyond sentence
DPSO Act 2003
Court decides whether prisoner poses unacceptable risk
Standard - acceptable, cogent evidence (realistic, verifiable, scientific)
Focus on community need/protection, swing away from offender’s condition towards risk potential
Robert Fardon first offender to have DSPO Act applied (served an extra 10years)
Issues in assessing risk and dangerousness
Risk and dangerousness are dynamic - multiple sources and contexts
Risk factors carry diff weights (what about protective factors?)
Can’t predict violence when there is no previous history
Definition of recidivism
