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This is an extensive summary of the 9 lectures of risk assessment
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Lecture 1Risk assessment- 1. “Probability calculation that a harmful behavior or event will occur, and involves an
assessment about the frequency of the behavior (or event), its likely impact and who it will affect; 2.
“The attempt to predict the likelihood of future offending in order to identify individuals in need of
intervention” (the current view). Not only we try to explain why someone offended, but actually
understand how to prevent it. With risk assessment we talk about the future using the past and making
prediction with future events.
Risk Assessment must specify:
• Behavior (e.g. violent behavior) - need to be clear whether u r talking about violent behavior, sexual
behavior, etc. or both
• Potential damage or harm caused by the behavior (e.g. child sexual abuse). When we talk about
violent behavior it important to understand whether this behavior occurs in general regarding
multiple individuals, materials or domestic violence. Important to distinguish whether victims are
children on adults
• Probability that it will occur and under what circumstances. Relates to definition 1 and its
difficulties. We are never really able to predict with 100 % certainty that specific behavior will occur
and the frequency. Instead we have to create the larger picture of a criminal to understand why
they offended and whether those characteristics also could place someone at a risk to reoffend
again. These circumstances are important- with risk factors we can’t talk about in isolation, it’s
always a complex interaction between those characteristics.
Types of factors in Risk assessment:
Risk factors and protective factors both refer to biological, psychological or sociological characteristics,
BUT:
• If these characteristics increase the likelihood of antisocial or criminal behavior then we refer to
them as RISK FACTORS.
1. Static risk factors:
➢ Not changeable/treatable
➢ age, gender, ethnicity, first offender, type of offense, first conviction
➢ they provide important information but cannot be used in the handling of offenders
➢ Is not used in forensic psychiatry and psychology; only interesting for policy makers
➢ Past is the easiest way to predict the future
➢ Predictive validity of these instruments is often very good
➢ Example:
,StatRec, Static Risk of Recidivism (Wartna et al., 2009)
- gender
- age
- country of birth
- offence type
- early convictions
- sequence of judicial contacts
- Predictive validity is good Area Under Curve = ± .80 (range = 0 – 1)
AUC:
o Derived from Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC)
o gives indication of predictive validity
o illustrates diagnostic ability
o plotting true positive rates (sensitivity) against false positive rates (specificity)
o “Extent to which the risk assessment instruments accurately differentiate recidivists from
non-recidivists”
o Varies between 0 and 1
▪ 0 represents chance performance
▪ 1 represents perfect performance
▪ 0.5 = uninformative classifier
Static99-R- static risk assessment tool for sex offenders
2. Dynamic risk factors
➢ Changeable/treatable
➢ Interventions aim at the change of dynamic risk factors -> “causal” status
➢ Also called: criminogenic dynamic needs
8 central criminogenic needs:
,➢ RNR as theoretical Framework
Risk principle: offenders at higher risk for reoffending will benefit most from more
intensive treatment
Need principle: only those factors associated with reductions in recidivism should be
targeted during treatment
Responsivity principle: interventions should be matched to offender characteristics
such as level of motivation, personal circumstances and learning style
➢ Non criminogenic needs (general recidivism)- not associated with offending behavior in
general but do and play important role in reoffending
➢ Higher risk of offending but static risk factors an weaken this association
➢ Instruments measuring dynamic needs:
, Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI; Andrews, Bonta, & Wormith,
2004) -> RNR-informed
2.1 Stable dynamic factors:
➢ modifiable but unlikely to change -> changing maladaptive self-regulation happens
slowly
➢ personal skill deficits and learned behaviors
➢ can be changed through a process of effortful treatment
➢ e.g., impulse control, poor attachment with others
➢ Instrument:
Stable dynamic risk factors for sexual reoffending are represented by the following
domains (Hanson and Harris, 2001):
1. Sexual self-regulation
2. General self-regulation
3. Intimacy deficits
4. Compliance and understanding for the need of treatment and control
5. Existence of supportive significant others
6. Distorted attitudes or attitudes tolerant to sexual violence.
-> Stable-2000 and the Stable-2007
2.2 Acute dynamic factors:
➢ modifiable and likely to change
➢ highly transient conditions that only last hours or days
➢ rapidly changing because of environmental triggers or intrapersonal stresses related to
re-offense
➢ e.g., intoxication, negative mood
➢ Instrument:
ACUTE-2007 (Hanson et al., 2007)
Acute changing risk factors related to sexual recidivism (e.g., victim access, hostility,
sexual preoccupation, rejection of supervision) but also factors for general recidivism
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