Risk assessment is used to evaluate the probability that an individual will commit future criminal or violent acts based on risk factors. It has two components: prediction and management. Predictions involve estimating the likelihood of reoffending while management focuses on interventions to reduce risk. However, risk assessment has limitations as risk levels can change over time depending on offender characteristics and situations. Base rates, which represent the percentage of a population that reoffends, also impact predictions - it is difficult to make accurate predictions when base rates are too high or too low. Methodological issues like limited risk factors considered and how reoffending is measured can also weaken research on risk assessment.

1. Forensic Psychology
Lecture 7: Risk Assessment (risk assessments always have potential errors)
1. What is Risk Assessment?(Used to be viewed as a dichotomy; you are either dangerous or not.)
a. Risk is viewed as a range(now risk is viewed as a range; continuum; moderate low or
high; idea is people don’t generally fit in all categories)
i. Probabilities change across time
1. People change; people who are low risk might become high risk
2. The older the people get, the lower their risk becomes. Good predictor
for men.
ii. Interaction among offender characteristics and situation
1. Situations can impact; her thesis
2. Men who are more at risk in engaging in sexual coercion
3. Guys predicted to be high enages in more sexual coercion
4. But for the low-risk guys, the situation can make them highly coercive
too.
5. Very difficult to do though; hard to be accurate.
b. Risk Assessment has 2 components: (typically where it has been lost; normally we use
these assessments to come up with labels; low risk vs high risk. But what’s the purpose
of risk assessment? To label someone? No. We want to be able to do something about
it. So if they are continually coming into your office to with all these problems, you want
to treat them)
i. Prediction
1. probability that an individual will commit future criminal or violent acts.
2. Based on identifying the risk factors that are associated with future
criminal or violent acts.
ii. Management (How do we manage the people who are considered at risk?)
1. We spend more time on this aspect than prediction.
2. Interventions to manage or reduce the likelihood of future violence
3. Focus is on identifying what treatment(s) might reduce the individual’s
level of risk or what conditions need to be implemented to manage the
individual’s risk.
4. Most of the manuals are devoted to thinking about alternative scenario
5. What is the most likely scenario that will happen if this person
reoffends.
2. Risk Assessment: Civil Settings(private rights of individuals and the legal proceedings connected
with such right)
a. Civil commitment
i. Not always in forensic. To decide whether to admit people in the hospital or
not. What is based on? Threat to society and threat to self.
b. Child protection

2. i. Is this parent harming their child? Taking away rights of being a parent if high
risk.
c. Immigration laws
i. Laws prohibit the admission of individuals into Canada if there are reasonable
grounds for believing they will engage in acts of violence or if they pose a risk to
the social, cultural or economic functioning of Canadian society
d. School and labour regulations
i. To evaluate how safe a particular environment is.
e. Duty to warn and limits of confidentiality(decisions in when can we breach
confidentiality)
i. W.v. Egdell (1990) UK
1. Paranoid schizo who shot 7 people. His lawyer called a psychologist to
do an assessment. And said he has high risk. The lawyer did not submit
in the report because it was not in favor of his client. But psychologist
found out, got pissed and submit it into court anyway. However, job of a
lawyer is to ensure confidentiality. In this case, the psychologist violated
the confidentiality.
ii. Tarasoff case (1974) US
1. Landmark case in the state. Has to do with what happens if client
discloses to us that they are going to harm someone else. What steps do
we need to do to protect the individuals involved.
2. A men who got rejected by a women. He goes in school psychologist
and told him that he is planning to harm this girl. So the psychologist
reports the school and told the school officers to look after him.
However, later when the girl moved in which his brother, he went to the
house and killed her. So the girl’s family sue the psychologist for not
taking measures to stop him. The psychologist did take measure, but it
was the officers who didn’t fully do their job. As a result, psychologist
now has a right to breach client’s confidentiality if the client mentions
harming anyone. If they know someone is at risk, they have to take
reasonable steps to let that person knows.
3. Risk Assessments: Criminal Settings(risk assessments are requested at numerous points)
a. Risk Assessments conducted at major decision points:
i. Pretrial
ii. Sentencing
1. Get a referrer. Should they receive treatment should they be locked up?
What level of security should this person be in?
iii. Release
1. Should this person be let out completely or stay in jail?
b. Public safety outweighs solicitor-client privilege(very similar to the above case)
i. Smith v. Jones

3. 1. It’s important for a psychiatrist to inform the law enforcers if they know
a client in risk and the defence lawyer hides it.
4. Textbook: A History of Risk Assessments
a. Debate about the credibility of psychologists risk assessments
5. Predictions: Decisions Versus Outcomes
Outcome
Decision Reoffends Does not reoffend
Predicted to Reoffend True Positive (Correct) False Positive (Incorrect)
Predicted to NOT reoffend False Negative (incorrect) True Negative (correct)
6. Base Rates(Types of errors)
a. Represents the % of people within a given population who commit a criminal or
violent act(i.e what is the base risk of schizophrenia, depression? Schizois 1%,
depression is 10%) so if someone sits in front of you, would you predict them to have
schizo or depression?
i. ACCURATE prediction difficult when base rates are too high or low
1. If we are in a situation, where base rate is really high, our best bet is to
say they are going to revoke their original statements or reoffend.
2. If base rate is too high or too low, we can not further use it.. we base
our answer on base rate)
3. Q: so how is it difficult with a high base rate? What sort of problems can
it cause? What is a good base rate then?
ii. False positives tend to occur with low base rates
1. When we have low base rate, we have higher false positives (which is
predicting that people will commit a crime when they won’t)
b. Easier to predict frequent vs infrequent events
i. Violence is not as frequent as the media portrays
7. Methodological Issues(what are the risk factors for reoffence)
a. Assumptions of risk assessment and measurement(score an idnvidiual on each of the
factors; they are low moderate or high. If we do an ideal assessment what would this
look like? We would take all of them, and put them back in society and see what
happens. What’s the problem? Ethical concerns. We can’t really release the high risk
people, because they are already put on a full term jail sentence.
i. Ideal evaluation vs reality
b. The weaknesses of research (Monahan & Steadman, 1994):
i. Limited number of risk factors (we need more predictor variables)
1. Sometimes, 30 different factors. Problem? We look at their records, but
the person has to be caught.
ii. How criterion variable (variable you are trying to measure) is measured
1. Official criminal records
2. However, many crimes may not be reported to police

4. a. i.eviolent sexual crimes might just be reported as simply violent
in nature
3. records underestimates
a. using official agency records, the base rate for violence was
4.5% (cause it goes unreported)
b. but when patient and collateral reports were added, the base
rate increased to 27.5%, a rate of violence six times higher than
the original base rate
iii. How criterion variable is defined
1. Coding should include severity of violence (severe to less severe)
8. Other Methodological Challenges (not mentioned in textbook?)
a. Measuring Recidivism
i. Problems with outcome measures
1. Some people will rely on arrest, or conviction. Each study is different.
ii. Length of outcome period
1. Each study also differs in the amount of time they follow an offender.
What would the results from 1 year suggest? Low.
iii. Categories of offenders
9. Judgment Error and Biases
a. Heuristics*
i. Illusory correlation
1. Definition: two things appear to be related but they are not
2. i.e hot weather and crime goes up
3. i.e violence and psychosis or violence and drug use
4. but violence and psychosis is not related.
ii. Ignore base rates
1. Whether than figuring out the base rate of homicide rate, people might
just look at how brutal it is…
iii. Reliance on salient or unique cues
1. i.e relying on whether people have delusion or not rather than asking
whether the delusion makes people at risk at harming people
b. Overconfidence in judgements(used to be thought of as a source of error; people who
are more confident are actually more accurate. Different from the 50’s though. This is a
current finding) (link between confidence and accuracy was minimal) : overconfidence
bias.
i. Role of gender
1. Woman psychologist tends to judge men as being more dangerous
2. Both men and women underestimates the dangerousness of women of
risk assessments.
10. Unstructured clinical judgement
a. Decisions characterized by professional discretion and lack of guidelines

5. b. Subjective
i. Criteria are very subjective. Each professional have their own judgement
c. No specific risk factors
d. No rules about how risk decisions should be made
i. Really, we are just going in there. Getting a gut report and deciding.
11. Dr. James Grigson
a. Nicknamed “Dr. Death” or “the hanging shrink”(a higher gun. If a lawyer wanted a
death sentence of someone, they higher him)
b. Forensic psychiatrist in Dallas
i. Used unstructured clinical judgment
ii. Expelled from professional association for claims of 100% accuracy in
predicting violence
1. Because of unstructured clinical judgement, we actually took a long
break in our assessments. Our chances were like flipping coins.
12. Measuring Accuracy of Dangerousness predictions
a. Ultimate Outcome
Clinician’s predictions Homicide No Homicide
Homicide 8 True Positives 1998 False Positives
No Homicide 2 False Negatives 7992 True Negatives
-let say a professional is really good at predicting homicide. Want to see whether someone is
likely to commit homicide . Say base rate is 10 for every 1000 people. 0.1 %. . We had people
being locked up … 1998. Our false positive rate is very high… In order to try to off set this, we
use actuarial prediction .Takes out the human aspect out of it. Take a whole bunch of cases.
Determine the statistical probability. That prints out, high risk, low risk.
13. Actuarial Prediction
a. Decisions based on risk factors that are selected and combined based on empirical or
statistical evidence
i. Takes a couple of known factors and determine the factors that determine risk
assessments
b. Evidence favours actuarial assessments over unstructured clinical judgments
i. So now we are not using gut judgements
c. Weakness (textbook)
i. Do not permit measuring changes in risk over time (very static), or provide
information relevant for intervention ( individual information)
ii. Did not allow for individualized risk appraisal or for consideration of the impact
of situational factors to modify risk level
14. Static-99-R- An Actuarial Measure(you score them on each of these factors)
a. Young(if you are older, it actually takes points away so that’s lowering risk factors)
b. Have not lived with a lover for 2+ years(more points you have, higher risk) at the end
you have a chart that measures their total percentage. Why is this a high risk factor?
People who stay longer than 2 years are (pertaining to lovers) more likely to not be

6. offenders because they are more likely to be able to solve problems that occurs in the
rleationships and hence generalizes.
c. Index-non-sexual violence
i. Why is this a risk factor? What do you have to do, variations of sexual crimes, if
it is aggravated sexual assaults.
d. Previous nonsexual violence
e. Number of previous sentencing dates
f. Previous sexual offences
g. Physical harm to victim during sex offences, or use of weapon or threats.
h. Any non-contact sex offences (i.e exhibitionisms, viewing child porn)
i. Why? Indicative of an internal urge. Paraphilia. One of the main things that guys
tell her is that they didn’t harm anyone, didn’t touch anyone, what’s wrong with
that?
i. Any unrelated victim
i. Stronger desire on outside family
j. Any stranger victim
k. Any male victims
i. If you have a victim who is male, that automatically gets you a point.
ii. Take whole bunch of factors and see the ones that consistently predicts. But
does not look at idea why.
l. Do you see any problems with this?
i. It’s not looking at the invidual… but numbers. You are an individual, but here’s
their number. Takes away clinician abilities to use intuition.
15. Actuarial vs Clinical Judgment
Source # of Studies Variables Clinical Statistical Tie
Predicted Better Better
Grove et al. 136 Success in 8 63 65
(2000) school/military;
recidivism;
recovery from
psychosis;
personality; tx
outcome; dx;
job success and
satisfaction;
medical dx;
marital
satisfaction
Egisdottir et 51 Brain 5 25 18
al impairment;
personality;
length of stay;
dx; adjustment
or prognosis;

7. violence; IQ;
academic
performance;
suicide risk;
sexual
orientation;
MMPI – real or
fake
16. Acturial>unstructural. From study above. We just breezed through the study without looking at
it.
17. Structured Professional Judgment(now we use all the risk factors; structured and acturials)
a. Decisions guided by predetermined list of risk factors derived from research literature
b. Judgement of risk level is based on professional judgement
i. So the untimate decision
c. Diverse group of professionals
i. The term professional means even law enforcers, probation officers, and social
workers can do this.
18. Types of Predictors (traditionally risk factors were divided into two main types: static and
dynamic)
a. Static Risk Factors(unchangeable or fixed) i.e. things on the actuarial factors
i. Historical (i.e never living with a partner for 2 years)
ii. Factors that cannot be changed
1. i.e age at first arrest.
b. Dynamic Risk Factors (also been called criminogenic needs)
i. Fluctuate over time(i.e substance abuse)
1. i.eantisocial attitude
ii. Factors that can be changed
iii. Acute vs Stable Dynamic Risk Factors
1. Things that happen right the moment that can increase risk. Like
drinking alcohol.
2. Negative mood
19. Important Risk Factors(can be classified into 4 categories)
a. Dispositional
i. Are those that reflect the person’s traits, tendencies, or style and include
demographic (where the person lives), attitudinal, and personality variables,
such as gender, age, criminal attitudes, and psychopathy (antisocial ?)
ii. Age, gender (research shows that men tends to commit more violent crime than
women )
iii. Demographics
1. Young age and age of first offence
2. Mares > Females (more serious offence)

8. a. But some studies suggest that females > M in less serious
offence
iv. Personality Characteristics
1. Psychopaths and impulsiveness are linked to higher risk factors
b. Historical (Sometimes called static risk factors)
i. Events experienced in the past and include general social history of violence
ii. Looking at the static things (were they abused as kids)
iii. Past Behavior
1. Offenders who have a history of break and enter offences are at a n
increased risk of future violence
iv. Age of Onset
1. Individuals who start their antisocial behaviors at an earlier age are
more chronic and serious offenders
v. Childhood History Of Maltreatment
1. Victims of sexual abuse were no more likely to commit criminal acts
than non-abused
2. But physical abused is.
c. Clinical
i. Symptoms of mental disorders that contribute to violence, such as substance
abuse or major psychosis
ii. Do they have substance abuse issues. Do they have mental illness. There are
some psychotic disorders where rate of violence is higher.
iii. Substance use
1. Both direction; less clear
a. People offend to get drug and people who use drug maybe
offend
2. Alcohol has been linked to general violence
iv. Mental Disorder
1. Although most people with mental disorders are not violent, a diagnosis
of affective disorders and schizophrenia has been linked to high rates of
violence
2. Patients who were suicidal and have self-harm behaviors were more
likely to engage in verbal and physical aggression than were other
patients
3. Threat/control override (TCO)
a. Feeling if your mind is being dominated by forces beyond your
control or thinking that someone is planning to hurt you
b. Is a significant predictor of violence
d. Contextual (situational risk factors)
i. Aspects of individual current environment that can elevate the risk, such as
access to victims or weapons, lack of social supports, and perceived stress.

9. ii. Things that happen at the moment. Like the environment.
e. Some of these factors can be treated whereas others are in past or fixed.
f. Meta-analysis: (Q: page 271)
i. First, factors that predict general recidivism also predict violent or sexual
recidivism
ii. Second, predictors if recidivism in offenders who do not have a mental overlap
considerably with predicotrs found among offenders who do not have a mental
disorder
iii. The strongest predictors were age of first police contact, nonsevere pathology
(i.e stress or anxiety), family problems, conduct problems (i.e presence of
conduct disordered symptoms), ineffective use of leisure time, and delinquent
peers.
g. Lack Of Social Factors
i. Instrumental “to provide the necessities of life’
ii. Emotional ‘to give strength to’
iii. Appraisal ‘to give aid or courage to’
iv. Information ‘ by providing new facts’
h. Access to weapons or victims
20. Risk Assessments Instruments: HCR-20(Most frequently used structured judgment)
a. Ie. A teenager who was involved with gang. Drugs. Became a hitman for gang. Went to
jail. While in jail, became psychotic. Refused treatment. First degree murder over
6year+. Gets released back into home with wife and kids. Started to think that he was
part of an experiment that a probe was talking to him. That if he does everything the
probe tells him, the probe would be released. So he comes home to his wife and kids.
The voices start to tell him that the children aren’t really his. So before they thought he
was not a harm to community, so they let him out. But now they put him back in
hospital. Refused treatment. So he walks back home. So then he gets send to us. Before
he did that, he used risk assessments. Decided that he was high risk. Where would you
put his risk? High..why? He ended up spending 3 months at the locked yard. He was
psychotic that it was impossible for him to have a plan.
b. Historical Items
i. Previous Violence
1. 2
ii. Young age at first violent incident
1. 2
iii. Relationship problems
1. 1
iv. Employment problems (2) was part of gang
v. Substance use problems 1 (used cocaine)
vi. Major mental illness 2
vii. Psychopathy (1) he was more antisocial and psychopathic

10. viii. Early maladjustment
ix. Personality disorder
x. Prior Supervision Failure
xi. Based on these factors would you give him low, moderate or high? High.
c. Clinical Items
i. Lack of insight (all he thought was that it was a probe and that there was probe
in his brain and that one day it would be remove)
ii. Negative attitudes (he had previously endorsed violence; does he still endorse
these)
iii. Active symptoms of major mental illness (2)
iv. Impulsivity (0) gave him a pass and takes out his wife. Very predictable.
v. Unresponsive to treatment (especially responsive to treatment; didn’t want to
take it)
d. Risk Management Items(what do we do with them?)
i. Plans lack feasibility (he was going to live in the basement sweep that his
parents has prepared for him?
ii. Exposure to destabliizers (wasn’t using drugs anymore
iii. Lack of personal support (his family was really taking care of him
iv. Noncompliance with remediation attempts (he’s still out in community without
any problems
v. Stress (
e. This is different from the actuarial measures. Allows us to look more at the individual;
like how they would be if we let them out.
f. Q: how is the HCR – 20 an example of a structured risk assessment? Which part of it
contains the actuarial?
21. Video:
a. Police officer was killed.
b. Adams random is false positive
c. David harris is false negative. He got executed.
22. Paper is due on the 17th. Setting up office hours on the 10th.
23. Current Issues
a. Protective factors
i. Factors that reduce or mitigate the likelihood of violence
b. Use of scientific research
i. Practitioners not using instruments
c. Where is the theory?
i. More attention on WHY is needed