Summary: The Use Of Risk Assessment In Sentencing

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• 1 A brief history of risk assessment in sentencing

• 1.1 First generation: clinical judgement and penal welfarism

• What was the general belief in the heyday of the rehabilitative ideal (roughly 1950-60s, beginning to descent in 70's)?

  That causes of criminality could be 'diagnosed' and 'treated' using an individual approach.

• What was the consequence of the general belief in the heyday of the rehabilitative ideal?

  Many offenders recieved indeterminate sentences that were terminated upon the apparent rehabilitation (and thus low risk) of the individual.
  
  (consequently;)
  This put a great deal of sentencing discretion at the back door with parole boards, as judges would only impose a sentencing range of maximum sentence.

• How would parole boards (in 1950-60s) make judgements about rehabilitation?

  These judgements were were normally informed by clinical assessments of dangerousness, which were not restricted by rules or guidelines about the use of information to reach decisions.

• Unstructured clinical risk assessments are considered to be the first generation of risk instruments. What have they been criticised for?

  For their lack of reliability and predictive validity

• 1.2 Second generation: actuarial assessment and selective incapacitation

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• Which shift, in sentencing, took place in the 1970-80s and on what basis?

  A shift towards determinate sentencing on the basis of retributive and crime controle considerations.

• What was a claim a 1982 RAND study (as part of a large research programme) made?

  That crime could be reduced through selective incapacitationof offenders who are most likely to re-offend.

• With what chimes the idea of selective incapacitation?

  That a high proportion of crimes are committed by a small proportion of the most prolific offender.

• What is a defining characteristic of second-generation risk assessment instruments?

  They only use static factors.
  These factors are fixed and unamendable to intervention.
  
  They are actuarial risk assessments in the sense that they calculate risk based on a formula, which may be a regression equation or simple adding of points and can combine more typical information than the typical human expert.

• What is an example of a widely used second-generation instrument?

  The Static-99 for predicting sexual offending.
  The instrument consists of 10 items, including age, offence history, victim typology and whether the offender lives with a partner.
  A total risk score is calculated by adding points for each risk factor.
  A total score of 6 or higher (0-12) is labelled as 'high risk'.

• A validation study of the Static-99 researched the actual number of reoffenders who were labelled as 'high risk', what was the outcome?

  After 15 years, the recidivism rate of the sex offenders who were labelled as 'high risk' was 59%.