Treatment of Sex Offenders

70
R.J.B. Lehmann et al.
A good defense to this is to rely on tools with heavy empirical support and demonstrated
consistency and replicability; this leaves less room for argument. Actuarial
risk assessment meets four goals critical to any organization managing offenders:
(1) they identify the level of risk for an individual within a group or population of
individuals, (2) they identify contributing salient risk factors that are appropriate
targets for intervention (assuming dynamic risk assessment is used), (3) they identify
strategies that manage or minimize risk, and (4) they communicate risk information
(Mills, Kroner, & Morgan, 2011 ).
The identification of risk level within a population, along with the contributing
risk factors, appropriate treatment targets, and strategies for managing risk, has the
potential to directly impact policy in relation to management and intervention of
offenders within an organization. A clear management framework and consistent
structure for handling offenders within an organization (based on their risk assessment
results) should result in time and resource efficiencies. Additionally, a standardized
approach facilitates the identification of, planning for, and streamlining of
staff training needs. Good quality staff development and training along with subsequent
supervision can balance inequality in prior qualifications, knowledge, and
skill level among staff members (Mann, Fernandez, & Ware, 2011 ).
Additionally, the fourth goal of risk communication is critical to the ethical and
appropriate management of offenders within an organization. Mills and Kroner
( 2006 ) found that risk judgments given using high, moderate, and low categorizations
were overestimated, even when the base rate of offending was provided. They
note that subjective risk categories lack “solid empirical meaning” and may cause
under- or over-estimates of risk, resulting in suboptimal resource allocation to
offenders managed within the organization. As noted earlier, actuarial measures
typically provide multiple methods to quantify risk, including recidivism estimates,
percentiles, and risk ratios along with nominal risk categories. Thus an advantage to
actuarial measures is that they provide a common language for risk communication.
With appropriate training risk communication will hold the same meaning for
everyone within the organization, including decision makers, and directly impact
resource allocation.
The Societal Level
Controversy in the use of actuarial risk assessment has focused primarily on its
use for decisions related to incarceration (e.g., civil commitment) and release
(e.g., parole). There is less controversy over the use of risk assessment as part of
treatment planning or about the identification of treatment needs using dynamic
risk assessment measures, as is primarily discussed above. There is very little
empirical research on the consumption of actuarial risk estimates generally
(Scurich, Monahan, & John, 2012 ). Identified concerns include that decision makers
may be misled to think that actuarial tools are more precise than they in fact