Risk Assessment Flashcards
The Case of Myles Brandon Sanderson
- 59 criminal convictions as an adult
- Upbringing: Physical abuse, instability, neglect
- PTSD and ADHD
- Several accounts of fights, threats, assaults, gunpoint robbery
Main Sentence: Domestic Abuse - beating until unconscious, kicking police office, stabbing 2 people with a fork - Statutory release on 4.5-year sentence (2/3 through sentence)
- Conditional: report domestic relationships, no alcohol or drugs, away from defendants
- Considered high risk for spousal abuse and medium-high risk for violence
- Went on stabbing spree on James Smith Cree Nation in 2022 - 11 people dead, 7 injured
The Case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard
- Victim of mother with Munchausen by proxy
- Physical, emotional and medical abuse (told she had an intellectual disability and that she was born 4 years younger to prolong childhood)
- Met boyfriend online and set a plan to kill her mother
- On June 10, 2015 her boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn entered house and killed mother and fled with gypsy
- Sentenced for 10 years, released after 8.5
Risk Assessment
Judgement made about likelihood of events, such as future criminal acts - specifically violent acts
- Balance keeping the community safe and not justifying extreme penalties
Risk Assessment Prediction
The probability that a person will commit future criminal or violent acts, which is determined by identifying risk factors that are related to this likelihood of future violence
Probability considerations
- Probabilities may change across time
- Low probability upon release, may increase overtime
- could also change in good way with increased life stability - Risk level reflects an interaction among a person’s characteristics, background and possible future situations
Risk assessment management
- The development of interventions to manage or reduce the likelihood of future violence
- Identifying what treatments might reduce the individual’s level of risk
- What conditions need to be implemented to manage the individual’s risk
Risk assessment throughout legal process
Pretrial
- Risk assessment for bail - reoffence, flight risk, people around them
- Teen tried as an adult (adult sentencing) - risk of reoffence
Sentencing/Type of Custody
- Probation or imprisonment
- Minimum, medium or maximum security prison - escape risk or risk of injuring other people
Release
- Statutory release could be denied
- risk could be too high to be released to mental health facility - stay in prison with mental health services
Risk assessment predictions: decisions vs outcomes
- True positive: We predicted it would and it did
- True negative: we predicted it wouldn’t and it didn’t
- False positive: we predicted it would and it didn’t - implications for person being accused
- False negative: we predicted it wouldn’t and it did - potentially dangerous implications for society and community
Def: Base Rate
the percentage of people within a given population who commit a criminal or violent act
The base rate problem
- Difficult to make predictions when base rates are too low
- If trying to make predictions based on low base rates - more false positives
- It is easier to make predictions within groups with high base rates
Factors effecting risk
- Social situation
- Background
- Psychological features
- Biological features
Unstructured clinical judgement
Decisions characterized by substantial amount of professional discretion and lack of guidelines
- Great variation between cases and clinicians
- Consider bias, no follow up
Mechanical Prediction
Predefined rules about what risk factors to consider, how much information should be collected, how information should be combined
- Doesn’t vary across clinicians but not necessarily valid
Actuarial Prediction
The risk factors used have been selected and combined based on empirical or statistical association with a specific outcome
- Account for static risk factors but not dynamic
- Makes mechanical predications valid
Def: Risk factor
Measurable feature of an individual that predicts the behavior of interest, such as violence
