Lecture 9

Question 1

Settings of civil risk assessment

Answer 1

• Civil commitment
• Child protection
• Immigration laws
• School and labour regulations
• Duty to warn

Question 2

Settings of criminal risk assessment

Answer 2

• Pretrial
• Sentencine
• Release
• Public safety outweighs soliciter-client privilege when clear, serious and imminent danger

Question 3

Types of prediction outcomes

Answer 3

• True negative
• False negative
• False positive
• True positive

Question 4

Base rate

Answer 4

• Percentage of people in given population who commit a criminal act
• Low base rates can increase false positive decisions
• Base rates vary on group being studied, what is being predicted, and the length of follow up monitoring period

Question 5

Methological issues for risk assessment

Answer 5

• Assumptions of risk assessment and measurement
• Limited number of risk factors studied
• How criterion variable is measured
• How criterion variable is defined

Question 6

Types of risk factors

Answer 6

• Static risk factor

- Dynamic risk factors

Question 7

Static risk factors

Answer 7

• Cannot be changed
• Most convenient
• Most frequently used
• Reliably measured and very predictive

Question 8

Dynamic risk factors

Answer 8

• Change with time
• Less convenient, less reliable
• Less frequently used
• Sensitive to change

Question 9

Dispositional risk factors

Answer 9

• Demographics

- Personality characteristics

Question 10

Historical risk factors

Answer 10

• Past antisocial behaviour
• Age of onset of antisocial behaviour
• Childhood history of maltreatment

Question 11

Clinical risk factors

Answer 11

• Substance abuse

- Mental disorder

Question 12

Contextual risk factors

Answer 12

• Lack of social support
• Access to weapons
• Access to victims

Question 13

Protective factors

Answer 13

• Reduces likelihood of negative outcomes

- May help explain why some people with many risk factors do not become violent or criminal

Question 14

Big 4 risk factors

Answer 14

• Criminal history
• Procriminal personality
• Procriminal attitudes
• Procriminal associates

Question 15

Risk factors approaches

Answer 15

• Unstructured clinical judgement
• Actuarial tools
• Structured professional judgement

Question 16

Unstructured clinical judgement

Answer 16

• Subjectively select, analyze, and interpret factors
• Flexible, idiographic
• Inconsistent, low accuracy

Question 17

Actuarial tools

Answer 17

• Collect pre-specified risk factors and enter them into statistical model that combines and weighs them
• Most only include static risk factors
• Evidence favours actuarial assessments over unstructured clinical judgements
• Consistent, high accuracy
• Nomothetic, validity across different samples

Question 18

Structured professional judgement

Answer 18

• Collect pre-specified risk factors while adding in case specific details
• Final assessment of risk is a clinical assessment
• Flexible, nomotheic idiographic
• Moderate accuracy, Less consistent than actuarial

Question 19

Components of risk assessment approaches

Answer 19

• Identifying empirically valid risk factors
• Determining method to measure risk factors
• Establishing procedure for combining scores on the risk factors
• Producing element of violence risk

Question 20

Coping relapse model

Answer 20

• Used to explain recidivism
• Environmental triggers
• Cognitive appraisal
• Coping and response mechanisms

Question 21

Issues with risk assessment

Answer 21

• Mostly done with caucasion males
• Unclear when gender and age salient variables should be considered
• Indiginous offenders overrepresented in criminal justice system
• Role of protective factors not fully understood
• Limitations to risk assessment instruments
• Gap between science and practice
• Little research as to why offenders stop commiting a crime

Question 22

Receiver operating characteristic analysis

Answer 22

• Technique for measuring accuracy of risk assessments by examining false positive and true positives across decision thresholds
• Only unbiased procedure to summarize accuracy