Risk Assessment concerns prediction and management of people who are at risk of committing a criminal act. This includes Acturial reports which statistically determine the top risk factors, structured and unstructured interviews.

1. Risk Assessment
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2. What is Risk Assessment?
 Risk is viewed as a range (Steadman,
2000)
 Probabilities change across time
 Interaction among offender
characteristics and situation
 Risk Assessment has 2 components:
 Prediction
 Management
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3. Risk Assessments: Civil Settings
 Civil commitment
 Child protection
 Immigration laws
 School and labour regulations
 Duty to warn & limits of confidentiality
 W. v. Egdell (1990) (UK)
 Tarasoff case (1974) (US)
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4. Risk Assessments: Criminal
Settings
 Risk assessments conducted at major
decision points:
 Pretrial
 Sentencing
 Release
 Public safety outweighs solicitor-client
privilege
 Smith v. Jones
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5. Predictions:
Decisions Versus Outcomes
OUTCOME
Reoffends Does not
DECISION reoffend
Predicted to True positive False positive
reoffend (correct) (incorrect)
Predicted to False negative True negative
not reoffend (incorrect) (correct)
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6. Base Rates
 Represents the % of people within a
given population who commit a criminal
or violent act
 Accurate 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
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7. 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
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8. Other Methodological Challenges
 Measuring recidivism
1. Problems with outcome measures
2. Length of outcome period
3. Categories of offenders
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9. Judgment Error and Biases
 Heuristics
 Illusorycorrelation
 Ignore base rates
 Reliance on salient or unique cues
 Overconfidence in judgements
 Role of gender
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10. Unstructured Clinical Judgment
 Decisions characterized by professional
discretion and lack of guidelines
 Subjective
 No specific risk factors
 No rules about how risk decisions should
be made
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11. Dr. James Grigson
 Nicknamed “Dr. Death” or “the hanging
shrink”
 Forensic psychiatrist in Dallas
 Used unstructured clinical judgment
 Expelled from professional
association for claims of 100%
accuracy in predicting violence
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12. Measuring Accuracy of
Dangerousness Predictions
Ultimate Outcome
Clinician’s predictions Homicide No Homicide
Homicide 8 (True Positives) 1,998 (False Positives)
No Homicide 2 (False Negatives) 7,992 (True negatives)
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13. Actuarial Prediction
 Decisions based on risk factors that are
selected and combined based on empirical
or statistical evidence
 Evidence favours actuarial assessments
over unstructured clinical judgment
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14. Static-99-R – An Actuarial
Measure
young
have not lived with a lover for 2+ years
index-non-sexual violence
previous nonsexual violence
number of previous sentencing dates
previous sexual offences
physical harm to victim during sex offence(s), or use of weapon or
threats
any non-contact sex offences
any unrelated victims
any stranger victims
any male victims
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15. Actuarial vs. Clinical Judgment
Source # of Variables Predicted Clinical Statistical Tie
studies Better Better
Grove et al. 136 Success in 8 63 65
(2000) school/military;
recidivism; recovery from
psychosis; personality; tx
outcome; dx; job success
and satisfaction; medical
dx; marital satisfaction
Ægisdóttir et 51 Brain impairment; 5 25 18
al. (2006) personality; length of
stay; dx; adjustment or
prognosis; violence; IQ;
academic performance;
suicide risk; sexual
orientation; MMPI – real
or fake
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16. Structured Professional Judgment
 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
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17. 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
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18. Important Risk Factors
 Dispositional
 Historical
 Clinical
 Contextual
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19. HCR-20
 Historical items
1. Previous violence
2. Young age at first violent incident
3. Relationship instability
4. Employment problems
5. Substance use problems
6. Major mental illness
7. Psychopathy
8. Early maladjustment
9. Personality disorder
10. Prior supervision failure
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20. HCR-20
 Clinical items
1. Lack of insight
2. Negative attitudes
3. Active symptoms of major mental illness
4. Impulsivity
5. Unresponsive to treatment
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21. HCR-20
 Risk management items
1. Plans lack feasibility
2. Exposure to destabilizers
3. Lack of personal support
4. Noncompliance with remediation attempts
5. Stress
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22. Current Issues
 Protective factors
 Factors that reduce or mitigate the
likelihood of violence
 Use of scientific research
 Practitioners not using instruments
 Where is the theory?
 More attention on WHY is needed
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