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Risk Assessment: Summary Lectures
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Risk Assessment summaryLecture 1: Introduction into risk assessment
Case: the corn killing
- After a party, a guy takes a girl, rapes and kills her. It was sadistic killing. His
mother left him by the age of two, but was overall not suspicious before the act
of violence. During the rape his girlfriend called, he piked up the phone and talk
to her, saying that he is still at the party. After the murder he called his
girlfriend to pick him up and acted as if nothing happened.
- Key factors
1) Range
2) The mother
3) Need for control
- Court psychiatrist
- Introverted
- The tendency to bottle up his aggression
- Difficulty empathizing with the feelings
- No personality disorders
- Carried an underlying anger towards his mother
- The chance of recidivism= high since he did not show regret
Definition
Definition of risk assessment:
1) Probability calculation that harmful behavior or event will occur, and involves an
assessment about the frequency of the behavior (or event), its likely impact and who
will affect
2) The attempt to predict the likelihood of future offending in order to identify individuals
in need of intervention/treatment
- The 1) definition was just focused on identifying risk as risk factors and who will be
impacted by that. The 2) zooms in on something really important: who should we
treat.
- Risk assessment is also…
- Risk management: attempt to manage the risk or to reduce risk
We implement risk factors in risk management
- Example: follow addiction treatment, do not live in proximity of a school
(pedosexual)
Why do we need risk assessment?
1) Safety:
- Safety of staff/fellow residents
- Safety society
2) Public interest
- Prevention of (severe) recidivism by patients/offenders
3) Ethical importance
- No randomness. The same method is used for every patient
, - Give evidence for your decision
4) Therapeutic importance (RNR model)
- An adequate risk assessment leads to insight into risk factors in an individual
patient and to a risk management plan/treatment
5) Communication
- More transparency and uniformity in decision-making and to improve
communication about risk and risk management
History of risk assessment
Lombroso 1876
➢ Criminals have certain characteristics
- Large protruding jaws
- Deeper eyes
- Low forehead
- Large chin
- High cheekbones
- Hawk Like nose
➢ Further criticism of Lombroso's contribution relates to the methodology employed.
Rather than comparing non-criminals and criminals, Lombroso merely focused on
criminals, which questions the validity and reliability of the research. Lombroso could
not definitively say these features were present only in criminals.
➢ Not actual assessment tool, just bunch of characteristics
First risk assessment tool
Burgess 1928
➢ Developed tools to determine the risk of reoffense of offenders being released from
the Illinois prison
➢ Actuarial in nature
- Actuarial: any prediction of behavior based on purely statistical information
and not subjective judgment
➢ Marital status, criminal and employment history, and institutional misconduct
➢ Calculations based on analyses of data for 3 000 individuals paroled in Chicago
➢ 76% high risk status recidivated within 5 years
➢ Good tool
Baxstrom vs Herold
➢ 1966: Case Baxstrom vs Herold
➢ John Baxstrom was sentenced for 3 years and after the time passed, the prison
psychiatrist said that he cannot be set free since he is still dangerous and should
receive treatment in a mental health hospital.
➢ John Baxstrom asked to have his case revised since this was unfair
➢ After that, 967 “dangerous” psychiatric patients transferred to regular psychiatric
hospitals
➢ 121 patients subsequently released into society
➢ Those patients were followed-up by Steadman & Cocozza (1978)
➢ After 4 years
- 2,7 % sent back to forensic psychiatric hospitals
, - Patients in society
- 17% arrested
- 7% convicted
- Conclusion: those patients were not as dangerous as they were labeled to be
Expertise of the expert
- 2 groups
Control group: teacher
Experiment group: psychiatrists
- Questions regarding recidivism based on file information
- Results
- Teachers: IRR teachers low
- But IRR psychiatrists: even lower
- Averagely large similarity between psychiatrists and teachers
- The more information available, the more conservative in judgment
Conclusie anno ‘70-’80
- “Psychiatrists and psychologists are accurate in no more than 1 out of 3 predictions
of violent behavior” (APA Task Force, 1974)
The 90s
➢ Martien Philipse
➢ Dutch TBS system enjoyed great respect in the world at the time
- In the Netherlands the courts can impose a combination verdict on offenders
with severe mental disorders: a prison sentence and a penal hospital order,
which is called the `TBS' system (Ter Beschikking Stelling, meaning `at the
disposal of the government')
➢ Praised for their approach to forensic patients
➢ Research: how the Dutch behavioral experts from the forensic field made their risk
assessment in practice
➢ None of the predictors suggested by the clinicians (e.g., the denial factor or the
empathy factor) were predictive!
➢ There was also no link at all between the clinical assessment of relapse risk and
actual recidivism.
RNR model and criminogenic needs
Theoretical and empirical framework
Risk, need and responsivity (RNR) model Andrews and Bonta (1990)
- Evidence Based Practice: Interventions should be based on results from scientific
research into the effectiveness of those interventions
- Risk principle: offenders with a higher risk of recidivism benefit most from more
intensive treatment
- Need principle: only those factors associated with reduction of recidivism should be
addressed during treatment
- Responsivity principle: interventions should be tailored to the offender's
characteristics, such as motivation level, personal circumstances and learning style
Risk Principle
- Who do we need to treat?
, - The risk of recidivism is central; not the disorder
- Important to have a good balance between level of treatment and the risk of the
patient; misalignment (mispositioning) of treatment intensity may increase the risk of
recidivism
- When you apply the same treatment for high and low risk groups, the treatment effect
is greater in high risk groups: i.e. 10% less recidivism at high versus 3% at low risk
(Andrews & Dowden, 2006)
Need principle
➔ What to treat?
➔ Which criminogenic needs are actually related to future criminal behavior and
therefore should be treated
➢ Each individual has his own combination of factors that led to the crime
➢ These criminogenic needs are dynamic risk factors related to crime
➢ Dynamic risk factors: can be changed
➔ Why? Adequate treatment of criminogenic needs is associated with a 19% reduction
in recidivism; targeting an intervention to non-criminogenic needs is associated with a
slight increase of 1% (Andrews & Bonta, 2007; 10% according to McGuire, 2013)
1. History of Antisocial behavior
- STATIC risk factor
- History cannot be changed
- Risk: Early and ongoing involvement in a number and variety of antisocial
acts in a variety settings
- Dynamic need: Work on non-criminal alternative behavior
2. Antisocial Personality Pattern
- Risk: aggressive behavior, thrill seeking, low self-control, restless
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