Discuss the use of various risk prediction scales. How might risk assessment best be used in community supervision?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Risk assessment provides a measure of the probationer or parolee's degree of dangerousness to the public and also measures the offender's propensity to engage in future criminal activity. Probation and parole jurisdictions have developed some form of risk prediction scale to assist them in developing supervision plans and in caseload classification. These instruments differ in some respects, but all of them place offenders in groups with a known statistical probability of committing new crimes or violating the conditions of supervision. The first-generation assessments relied on interviewing the offender and using case-by-case anecdotal information to make the decision about risk. The second-generation assessments include Client Management Classification (CMC), the Correctional Offender Management Profiles for Alternative Sentences (COMPAS), the Wisconsin Client Management Classification, and the Salient Factor Score. These assessments primarily use static questions about previous behavior, which has already happened and cannot be altered. More recent third-generation assessments are the Offender Inventory Assessment (OIA) and the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R). These assessments include both static and dynamic factors, which aid in measuring both negative and positive offender change over time. Research findings have led to one risk principle, which is to reserve the most intensive treatment programs for the highest-risk offenders, in part because this target population will benefit exponentially more from the intervention than the low-risk offenders (Hanley, 2002).