The Effects of Sanction Intensity on Criminal Conduct - JDAI Helpdesk

To what extent do the risk/need levels <strong>of</strong> program participants affect their response to
changes in supervision intensity?
Based on the principles <strong>of</strong> effective intervention (PEI), we speculated that
supervision may be more effective if more intensive programs are targeted at the highest
risk/need <strong>of</strong>fenders, and vice versa. <strong>The</strong>re are several impediments to assessing this
question in great detail. First, we could not examine whether low-intensity probation is
effective for low-risk probationers across a range <strong>of</strong> studies. Second, very few studies
included needs assessments, and those that did lacked detail. Thus, we decided not to use
the need variable in our analysis. Finally, many <strong>of</strong> the studies discussed the PEI or
evaluated programs that had made an attempt to target higher-risk <strong>of</strong>fenders, so we do not
have much variation in our data. We are only able to examine whether programs
including either all or a majority <strong>of</strong> high-risk <strong>of</strong>fenders were more or less likely to
prevent re<strong>of</strong>fending than those including <strong>of</strong>fenders <strong>of</strong> any risk level or not utilizing a risk
assessment. A further caveat related to this final point is that programs that did not
formally assess participants for risk may still have had inclusion criteria that targeted
more serious <strong>of</strong>fenders.
<strong>The</strong> results in Table 1.3 may lend some support to this caveat. <strong>The</strong>re is no
difference between programs that targeted higher-risk <strong>of</strong>fenders and those that accepted
any <strong>of</strong>fender type (Q B < .01, p ≤ .981), and neither risk category is associated with
recidivism outcomes. <strong>The</strong> odds ratio for studies involving higher risk <strong>of</strong>fenders was .96
(N = 11, p ≤ .798), and for all risk levels .97 (N = 27, p ≤ .735). For technical violations,
there is also very little variation in the odds <strong>of</strong> failure by risk level (Q B = .04, p ≤ .836;
high risk: N = 10, OR = 1.59, p ≤ .092; mixed risk: N = 6, OR = 1.45, p ≤ .292).
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