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Risk assessments for individuals with a history of sexual crime

This presentation discusses the importance of risk assessments for individuals with a history of sexual crime in promoting public safety and allocating resources effectively. It explores the key components of an ideal risk assessment and the current status of offender risk assessments. The presentation also proposes standardized categories for risk assessment and outlines the way forward for improving risk communication and decision-making.

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Risk assessments for individuals with a history of sexual crime

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  1. Risk assessments for individuals with a history of sexual crime R. Karl Hanson, Ph.D. Karl.hanson@canada.ca rkarlhanson@gmail.com Presentation for Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, April 19th, 2017

  2. Why Assess Risk? Promote public safety Determine who receives routine interventions and who needs exceptional measures Strategic use of scarce resources Officer time Treatment Child Protection

  3. An Ideal Risk Assessment should Assess risk factors whose nature, origins and effect can be understood Enable reliable and valid assessment of clinically useful causal factors Provide precise estimates of recidivism risk Allow all relevant factors to be considered Inform the development of treatment targets and risk management strategies Allow the assessment of both long term and short term changes in risk

  4. Ideal Risk Assessment - continued Incorporate protective factors as well as risk factors Facilitate engaging the offender in the assessment process Be cost-effective Be easy to implement

  5. Current Status of Offender Risk Assessment • Structured risk assessment better than unstructured • Structured risk assessments are widely used • E.g., 47 jurisdiction specific tools in the US corrections; 100+ used internationally • Risk tools predict sexual, violent and general recidivism with moderate accuracy • No measure clearly superior

  6. Current Status II Measures focus mainly on static, unchangeable risk factors Incorporating psychologically meaningful factors generally enables improved predictive accuracy over purely static factors Low concordance of risk category labels across measures

  7. Standardized Categories Are Possible • Assumptions • Recidivism risk is dimensional • No true categories • Risk factors are stochastic and incremental • Measures agree for extreme cases • Risk for sexual recidivism • risk for general recidivism • sexual crime specific factors

  8. The calibration of Florentine alcohol thermometers was so arbitrary that a comparison of, say, ten of them would have shown not one to agree with any of the others – Father Lutz (1781) We are greatly at a loss for a standard whereby to measure cold. The common instruments show us no more than the relative coldness of the air, but leave us in the dark as to the positive degree thereof; whence cannot communicate the idea of any such degree to another person – Robert Boyle (1665)

  9. The Challenges of Standardization

  10. The Way Forward • Common language for risk communication • Standardize, evidence-based risk category labels • Construct validity • Interpretations supported by evidence • Relevant for policy and practice decisions

  11. Justice Center’s 5-Levels for General Offender Risk/Need Assessments

  12. Category I • Profile: • Criminogenic needs: none or transitory • Non-Criminogenic needs: none or transitory • Resources: clearly identifiable personal and social resources • Reoffending Base Rate: same as non-offender community at large (e.g., <5%) • Correctional Strategies: • Human services: unnecessary/ direct to social services if desired • Community Supervision: minimal as not necessary for compliance • Custody: counterproductive • Outcomes: • Short-term: No change in probability of re-offending • Life Course: Desistance

  13. Category II • Profile: • Criminogenic needs: Few, if any, more acute than chronic. • Non-Criminogenic needs: Few if any, transitory and quick to respond • Resources: Clearly identifiable personal and social resources • Reoffending Base Rate: Higher than individuals without a criminal record but lower than typical offender • Correctional Strategies: • Human services: Brief interventions: social problem solving aided through existing community services. • Community Supervision: simple case management with minimal supervision for compliance • Custody: may be productive for crisis management but unnecessary long-term • Outcomes: • Short-term: Probability of re-offending reduces quickly to non-offender levels (Category I) • Life Course: Desistance (i.e., one and done)

  14. Category III • Profile: • Criminogenic needs: Some; may be severe in one or two discrete needs or less chronic/severe across multiple needs • Non-Criminogenic needs: Some; typical to offenders • Resources: Some identifiable personal and social resources, sporadic use • Reoffending Base Rate: Same as the average rate for offenders as a group • Correctional Strategies: • Human services: Structured services target criminogenic needs over months; (e.g. ~ 100-200 hours of service); assist with non-criminogenic needs/responsivity factors. • Community Supervision: Change focused supervision with supervision for enhance engagement and compliance • Custody: may support short-term risk management • Outcomes • Short-term: Probability of re-offending can significantly ↓ with appropriate strategies BUT still higher than community at large (Category II) • Life Course: Expected involvement in crime over time but desistance possible over years

  15. Category IV • Profile: • Criminogenic needs: Multiple; may be chronic in one or two discrete needs and moderate in others • Non-Criminogenic needs: Multiple, moderate to severe. • Resources: Few identifiable personal and social resources, sporadic prosocial use • Reoffending Base Rate: Higher than the rate of “typical” offender • Correctional Strategies: • Human services: Structured comprehensive services target multiple criminogenic needs over lengthy period with community follow-ups and supports (e.g. ~ 300+ hours of service); assist with non-criminogenic needs/responsivity factors. • Community Supervision: Intensive and change focused supervision with supervision for enhance engagement and compliance as well as risk management • Custody: may be productive for short-term risk management and beginning treatment • Outcomes: • Short-term: Probability of re-offending can ↓ with appropriate strategies BUT still “average” for offender population at large. • Life Course: Chronic offending rate shows gradual decline with appropriate services and time (i.e., years/decades).

  16. Category V • Profile: • Criminogenic needs: Multiple, chronic and entrenched • Non-Criminogenic needs: Multiple, moderate to severe • Resources: Few identifiable personal and social resources; use for procriminal pursuits • Reoffending Base Rate: 85% re-offending rate (Top 5% of offenders) • Correctional Strategies: • Human services: Structured comprehensive services target multiple criminogenic needs over years ideally prior to community release (e.g. ~ 300+ hours of service); assist with non-criminogenic needs/responsivity factors • Community Supervision: Long-term supervision begins with intensive/risk management focus and gradual change to change focus (Category IV) with success over time • Custody: incapacitation for community safety , long-term change strategy starts with behavioral management • Outcomes • Short-term: Probability of re-offending still significantly higher than offender population even with appropriate long-term correctional strategies • Life Course: Chronic offending rate gradually declines over decades or advanced age, cascade within custody envirnoments

  17. Justice Center’s 5-Levels for General Offender Risk/Need Assessments

  18. Standardized Risk/Need Levels for Sexual Recidivism Risk

  19. Approaches to Offender Assessment • Case formulation • Causes, treatment targets, understanding • Risk prediction • Empirical associations, rates, accuracy • Integrated Approach • Empirically validated assessment of psychologically meaningful risk factors

  20. Prediction of sexual recidivism

  21. BEWARE OF OVERRIDES

  22. A Method for Assigning Risk Level Membership • Initial Assessment: • Static Risk Factors • E.g., Static-99R, Static-2002R • Quality of Psychological and Community adjustment • E.g., STABLE-2007, SOTIPS, SVR-20 (SPJ) • Reassessment: • Years Sexual Offence Free • New Non-Sexual Offending • Quality of Psychological and Community adjustment (STABLE-2007, SOTIPS, SVR-20, etc.)

  23. Standardized Static-99R Risk Levels Communication-----S99R-----Model1-----Options-----Model2-----Selection-----Estimates

  24. Standardized Static-99R Categories General Criminality Separated From Parents, <16 Impulsivity Problems with Supervision Prior Involvement

  25. Standardized Static-99R Categories Sexual Criminality (0) (0) Prior Sex Sentence Stranger Victim Relationship Instability Sexual Preoccupation

  26. Next Step • Consider psychological and community adjustment • Mechanical combination methods preferred • VRS-SO (Mark Olver et al.) • SOTIPS (Robert McGrath et al.) • STATIC/STABLE (Hanson et al. )

  27. STABLE-2007 is Incremental to Static-99R (Brankley, Babchishin, & Hanson, 2017) NS

  28. Mechanical Method for Combining Static-99R/Static-2002R with STABLE-2007

  29. Example: Mr. Smith • Static-99R score of 5 • STABLE-2007 score of 8

  30. Reassessment • The longer individuals remain offence free in the community, the lower their risk for recidivism. • The quality of psychological and community adjustment matters. • Most recent assessment more accurate than previous assessments. • Eventually most individuals with a history of sexual offending drop below the desistance threshold (Level I)

  31. Dynamic Change Study of STABLE-2007(Babchishin et al.) • 1,947 sexual offenders from British Columbia, Canada. • At least 3 STABLE-2007 assessments • 41.1 years of age (SD=14.1 ; range= 18-91) • 2.3 on Static-99R (SD= 2.6, range= -3 to 11) • 22% Aboriginal, 65% Caucasian

  32. Sexual Recidivism 1947 cases; 130 recidivists (6.7% rec. rate); 7964 assessments BIC difference of 10 or higher are considered “very strong”

  33. Simple Marker Variables That Can Be Used To Revise Assessments • Current age (versus age at release) • Prison misconducts • Post-index violations of conditional release • Time since last known offence behaviour • No new offences given opportunity

  34. Alfred Blumstein & Kiminori Nakamura Blumstein, A. & Nakamura, K. (2009). Redemption in the presence of widespread criminal background checks. Criminology, 47, 327-359. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2009.00155.x

  35. Samples • 21 samples from the Static-99 re-norming project • N ranged from 133 to 1,278 (N = 7,740) • Majority from Canada (k = 9) or the U.S. (k = 5)

  36. Time to Sexual Recidivism by Risk Level

  37. 5 Years - no recorded recidivism

  38. 10 Years - no recorded recidivism

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