RISK ASSESSMENT YEAR 3
THIS SUMMARY DOES NOT GUARANTEE A PASSING GRADE ON THE EXAM. PLEASE READ
AND STUDY THE MATERIAL PROVIDED BY THE LECTURER.
ALL IMAGES BELONG TO THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNER AND ARE NOT MINE.
TIP: look for ‘the criminologist’ on YouTube for great example videos. Here’s an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=filtuNCRqvg
The Area Under the Curve (AUC) is the measure of the ability of a classifier to distinguish
between classes and is used as a summary of the ROC curve. The higher the AUC, the better
the performance of the model at distinguishing between the positive and negative classes.
Lecture 1 - introduction
Definition
The attempt to predict the likelihood of future offending in order to identify
individuals in need of intervention
Risk assessment must specify
o Behaviour (e.g., violent behaviour)
o Potential damage or harm caused by the behaviour (e.g., child sexual abuse)
o Probability that it will occur and under what circumstances
Types of factors in risk assessment
Risk factors
o Characteristics that increase the risk of offence
o Static and dynamic
protective factors
o Characteristics that decrease the likelihood of offence
o Treatment is not only fixing what has been broken, but also the preservation
and strengthening of what is good
o Protective factors can be conceptualized as prosocial means to achieve life
goals
o Good lives model (GLM) of rehabilitation
Accomplish a good life by fulfilling the primary prosocial goals
Offending = maladaptive attempt to attain the primary goals
o Interaction with risk factors
If the protective factors are strong enough, they can buffer the
chances of risk factors
Potentially more engaging and effective interventions
Improvement protective factors → recidivism
o SAPROF
Structured assessment of protective factors for violence risk
,
Risk factors
Static risk factors
o Not used in forensic psychiatry, only interesting for policy makers
o Not changeable/ treatable
o E.g., age, gender, ethnicity, first offense, type of offense, first conviction
o StatRec
Static risk of recidivism → give general risk of re-offence
Gender, age, country of birth, offence type, early convictions,
sequence of judicial contacts
o Static99-R
Static risk assessment tool for sex offenders
Dynamic risk factors
o changeable/ treatable
, o Interventions aim at the change of dynamic risk factors
Causal status
o Also called cimininogenic dynamic needs
o RNR
Risk, need responsivity model
Risk principle
Offenders at higher risk of 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
o Central eight criminogenic needs
Antisocial attitudes/ orientation
Antisocial peers
Antisocial personality
Antisocial behaviour patterns
Absence of prosocial leisure/ recreational activities
Dysfunctional family
Employment issues
Substance abuse problems
o Influential factors that are not necessarily related to criminal activities
Personal distress
Major mental disorder
Low self-esteem
Low physical activity
Poor physical living conditions
Low conventional ambition
Insufficient fear of official punishment
o LS/ CMI
Level of service/ case management inventory
Stable and acute dynamic factors
Stable
o Modifiable but unlikely to change
Changing maladaptive self-regulation happens slowly
o Personal skill deficits and learned behaviours
o Can be changed through a process of effortful treatment
o E.g., impulse control, poor attachment style
Acute
o Modifiable and likely to change
o Highly transient conditions that only last hours or days
o Rapidly changing because of environment triggers or intrapersonal stress
o E.g. mood, intoxication
, DRAOR
o Dynamic risk assessment for offender re-entry
o Recidivism risk in the community
o Inform case planning and risk management
o Stable and acute dynamic risk factors + protective factors
o Predicts: reconvictions, reimprisonment, breaches of parole
Dynamic risk factors, dual status
Predictors of recidivism
Potential causes of recidivism form and explanatory point of views and as predictors
Cause effect hypothesis
o Assumptions
Evidence for an association between risk factors and outcome, namely
reoffending
There must be a causal relationship in the opposite direction
The cause must precede the occurrence of the effect
Do other inter-correlated factors for an observed association exist?
When there is a cause between risk factor A and outcome B, the
mechanism must be explained
Composite constructs
Each factor consists of several sub-factors and/ or single factors
o Antisocial cognition → attitudes, value, identity, anger management, etc.
Risk factor consists of social factors, mental-state factors, biological factors, etc.
Lack specificity
Risk factor A causes reoffending
Very often, there is lack of explanatory theories
Grain problem
Dynamic risk factors often have different levels of a more general to a more specific
domain
Do we say narcissistic personality disorder is the risk, or the cluster B personality
disorder is the risk?
Normative concepts
Behaving according to the rules of your culture, community, country, social setting
Social and legal norms may not be violated
Dynamic risk factors are difficult to translate in risk bands (low/ medium/ high)
o Dynamic, can change over time and is related to social triggers
When we talk about dynamic risk factors, we CANNOT speak about causal relationships!!
Generations of risk assessment instruments
1st generation
o Unstructured professional judgment
No underlying assessment instrument
Not expensive, flexible, convenient, broadly accepted
