Forensic Psychology - Lecture 8 - Risk Assessment
Facors related to desistance
-Age -Employment -Marital relationships
Unstructured Clinical Judgment
-Decisions are characterized by professional discretion and lack of guidelines -Subjective -No specific risk factor -No rules about how risk decisions should be made
Structured Professional Judgment
-Decisions are guided by predetermined list of risk factors derived from research literature -Judgement of risk level is based on professional judgement -Diverse group of professional
Dispositional Risk Factors
-Demographics (age, gender) -Personality characteristics (compulsivity, psychopathy)
Four kinds of Important Risk Factors
-Dispositional -Historical -Clinical -Contextual
Female specific risk factors
-History of self-injury -Poor self-esteem
Risk Assessments are conducted at three major decision points
1) Pretrial 2) Sentencing 3) Release
Heuristics
A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgment and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier, but more error-prone than algorithms
Two kinds of Dynamic Risk Factors
Acute Stable
Predictions are difficult when
Base rates are too high or too low
Six Civil Settings
Civil commitment Child Protection Immigration laws School and labour regulations Duty to Warm Limits of confidentiality
Actuarial Prediction
Decisions based on risk factors that are selected and combined based on empirical and statistical evidence; calculates risk by comparing characteristics of the individual to those of individuals for whom we know behavior; evidence favors this over unstructured clinical judgment
5 Judgement Errors and Biases
Heuristics Illusory Correlation Ignore Base Rates Reliance on salient (significant) or unique cues Overconfidence in judegment
Risk
Interaction among offender characteristics and situation Degree of uncertainty.
Contextual Risk Factors
Lack of social support to help individual in their day to day life Easy access to weapons Easy access to victims
Three weaknesses of Research
Limited to number of risk factors How criterion variable is measured How criterion variable is defined
Define Risk Factor
Measurable feature of an individual tat predicts the behaviour of interest (e.g criminal behaviour or violence)
Dr. James Grigson
Nicknamed "Dr. Death" or "The Hanging Shrink" He was a forensic psychologist in Dallas who used unstructured clinical judgment. He testified in over 167 trials where the culprit was put to death because Dr. Death had labeled them a sociopath and they were going to commit another crime if set free. He was expelled from his professional association for claims of 100% accuracy in predicting violence
Historical Risk Factors
Past antisocial behaviour Age of onset of antisocial behaviour Childhood history of maltreatment Past supervision failure, escape, or institutional malajustment
Ignore Base Rates
People tend to discount the importance of prior odds when making decisions
Risk assessment has two components
Prediction Management
Desistance
Process of ceasing to engage in criminal behaviour There is literally research on why offenders stop committing crime
___ Outweighs _____
Public safety outweighs solicitor-client privilege
Base Rates
Represents the percentage of people within a given population who commit a criminal or violent act.
Risk is viewed as..
Risk is viewed as a range. Probabilities change across time.
Two types of Predictors
Static Risk Factors (historical, factors that cannot be changed) Dynamic Risk Factor (fluctuate overtime, factors can be changed)
Clinical Risk FactoRs
Substance use Mental Disorders (schizophrenia or affective disorders) "Threat / Control Override" (TCO) symptoms
Illusory Correlation
The tendency to see relationships, or correlations, between events that are actually unrelated
There are more ______ for men and women
There are more similarities in risk factors for men and women than differences
Four types of prediction Outcomes
True Positive: Predicted to reoffend, and does. True Negative: Predicted to not reoffend, and does not. False Positive: Predicted to reoffend, and does not False Negative: predicted to not reoffend, and does.
Gender Differences in Criminality
Women engage in less crime Women reoffend at lower rates Childhood victimization is more prevalent with female offenders Mental disorders are more prevalent with female offenders
Easier to predict __
easier to predict frequent vs. infrequent events.
Each prediction outcome
has a different consequence for offender or society
False positives tend to occur..
with low base rates.