Understanding, Assessing, Managing and Reducing RISK Frank J. Porporino, Ph.D., Editor ICPA Advancing Corrections
As I write the Foreword to this 10th Edition of Advancing Corrections, the global COVID pandemic has continued to permeate our lives in significant ways. It has created a sudden and unprecedented level of social, economic and personal upheaval. It has also laid
bare some of the most entrenched structural inequalities in our communities where the most vulnerable and disadvantaged have been the most affected. The COVID virus has made most of us much more acutely aware of the notion of ‘risk’, and the complicated interplay of factors that can go into calibrating risk, how much of it we wish to take, and when, where and why. The COVID virus has presented some particular and serious risks for corrections, but RISK more broadly has long been a familiar concept in the world of corrections. Long before the advent of the RNR paradigm and our various risk assessment tools and risk management strategies, dealing with risk has always been
fundamental to good correctional practice. Whenever corrections seems to excite the public’s wrath, it is typically because of some kind of misstep in addressing some kind of risk --- a suicide in custody, escape, riot or disturbance, or most often, a sensationalized incident of serious re-offending. Dealing with risk is a constant, unavoidable and ubiquitous concern for corrections professionals and so I hope that the Theme of this Edition --- Understanding, Assessing, Managing and Reducing RISK --- will be of particular appeal.
Unlike efforts to understand the spread of the COVID virus, where the relevant risk-science is still in its infancy, there has been a rather long tradition of applied research on risk in corrections. Different aspects or types of risk have been studied --- and continue to be studied --- from different perspectives, in varied contexts, and using a range of methodologies. It would be fair to conclude that with all that focused research effort, we’ve achieved wide consensus on how we should Understand, Assess, Manage and Reduce RISK. Unfortunately, we mostly have not. Many of the articles in this Edition will try to explain why we may have to steadily refresh and re-conceptualize our notions of RISK and what that might mean for good correctional practice.
is not the same as understanding risk, and which typically leads us into applying ‘sticky labels’ and interpreting risk as a sort of Gremlin residing in the person (i.e., a packet of risk factors or personality characteristics). As an alternative, Maruna implores us to develop ‘an assessment process that incorporates ideas about social processes, interpretation, motivation, and the contexts in which individuals interact with each other and their social environment.’ Interestingly, this is a theme that keeps coming up in a number of the other papers in this Edition.
The second paper from ‘down under’ is by Yilma Woldgabreal, Andrew Day and Armon Tamatea. In this moment in time when there is renewed focus and concern regarding systemic racism, in America and elsewhere, the authors argue, quite convincingly, that ‘risk assessments are inherently biased and disproportionally disadvantage people of color in Western correctional systems.’ The evidence that there is a level of systemic racism in the broader criminal justice system is rather indisputable. In conducting risk assessments with people of color, the authors point to the reality that significant bias can occur in designating individuals as high risk when relying on such typical risk factors as criminal history, criminal attitudes or history of employment. Each of those factors, and many others, can be heavily biased against people of color and the consequence is that these individuals will ‘continue to be misclassified, over-assessed, placed in the wrong rehabilitation pathways, imprisoned and/ or supervised longer than needed, and consequently remaining overrepresented in the correctional system.’ The paper concludes with a call to action for researchers, to develop new methods, and for Associations like ICPA to promote new training initiatives for developing the ‘cultural competency of practitioners who engage in the administration of risk assessments with people of color.’
A third paper is by one of my many Canadian colleagues who have added to our understanding of risk in corrections. Ralph Serin introduces and explains several key concepts that need to be addressed in the real-world application of risk assessment instruments --- the shelf-life and potential risk decay for these instruments. Shelf life refers simply to the likely reduced predictive validity of a risk score derived from an instrument at one point in time (e.g., on admission to prison) when making decisions about an individual at a much later point in time (e.g., in considering release). Serin points to the importance of regular and timely re-assessments which include not just scoring on unchangeable static factors but assessment of more contemporaneous dynamic and protective factors. Risk decay refers to the likely half-life of risk prediction efforts, where there is a natural reduction in predictive strength over time when predicting for individuals who have remained offense free. In other words, though an instrument may have predictive validity at the beginning of a community supervision period, it will typically have less validity if applied after the individual has remained offense free for several years. Factors like criminal history, for example, become increasingly weaker as predictors over time.
and explosive outbursts might be the emergence of more effective ways of managing emotions and evidence of a more respectful and prosocial communication style. In essence, to be confident that we are impinging on risk, Olver and Stockdale argue that we should see clear evidence in day-to-day interactions that OABs are being replaced by prosocial alternative ORBs. Their paper gives us a detailed rationale and description for how we could go about monitoring, assessing and managing OABs and ORBs as a means of decreasing risk and increasing prosocial functioning.
Our fifth paper is another contribution from the Singapore Prison Service where some of the most interesting applied research in corrections is currently being conducted. Boon Siang Kwek and his co-authors ask and answer the question ‘How Does “Context” Influence Risk and Needs Assessments in Correctional Settings.’ This is an encouraging and outstanding example of how psychologists can self-reflect in improving their own practice --- in this case, acknowledging the fact that ‘risk assessment’ is much more than just administration of a given instrument following a standard protocol. As the paper’s authors note, we need to attend to the ‘who with’ and ‘why’ of the assessment context since ‘there are policy, organizational, cultural, intra-, and extra-individual, developmental, and socio-economic factors to be considered during offender risk and needs assessments.’ Adopting a simple but insightful case-study approach to make some key points about context in risk assessment, the paper highlights how risk assessment can be appropriately individualized rather than routinized.
In the sixth paper for this Edition, yet several more Canadian colleagues, Larry Motiuk and Leslie Anne Keown, give us both an interesting historical account and a detailed description of the current focus within the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) in developing a streamlined process for offender risk/needs assessment. The ultimate intent is to accurately and consistently inform the correctional planning process from intake to post-release. The CSC should be credited for being the first correctional jurisdiction to formalize and implement a risk/needs assessment process system wide. Since the late 80s, there has been consistent effort to study, validate and improve that process. Motiuk and Keown present some impressive recent results regarding the predictive accuracy of particular static and dynamic factors grouped into scoring algorithms for major offence types. As they note, a next step in modernizing CSC’s risk/needs assessment process will be the implementation of a ‘nation-wide mobile-based structure for systematically collecting and integrating streamlined offender evaluations … for correctional planning and reporting on progress.’
and increase the likelihood of violence. PRISM provides an innovative but very practical approach to considering ‘context’ and not just ‘persons’ when we think about managing violence or disruption in prisons.
The last four papers in this Edition of Advancing Corrections all have something to do with ‘reducing’ the individual’s risk of re-offending. Each paper suggests adoption of a somewhat different approach to reducing risk, but the overarching theme is the same --- that we can’t just ask or force individuals to change, we have to figure out ways to spark and strengthen their own ‘motivation’ to change. The paper by Michael Clark, ‘Empowering Risk Reduction: Increasing Responsivity with Motivational Interviewing’, elaborates on the key point of how the second R (Responsivity) in the RNR paradigm has been relatively neglected by researchers in comparison to the first R (Risk). Michael is also the co-author of what is perhaps the most compressive treatment of the role of MI in corrections, the book ‘Motivational Interviewing with Offenders: Engagement, rehabilitation, and re-entry.’ MI is indisputably evidence-based and a good fit for corrections even though it is often critiqued as ‘too soft’ or ‘too slow.’ In his paper in this Edition, Michael dispels the critiques and offers a convincing argument for broader adoption of MI. He suggests that when some typical barriers to implementation are overcome, the many ‘relational’ benefits of applying MI in corrections can be relatively easily accrued.
Another contribution from Singapore by Shermaine Chionh and her colleagues provides some interesting empirical evidence that giving offenders ‘strength-based and desistance-informed’ feedback on their risk/needs profiles can actually serve to increase their motivation to change and desire to engage in programs. Looking at a sample of substance-abusers within one of their Drug Rehabilitation Centers, the authors show that when motivational feedback was effective, it helped offenders recognize offending as a problem, and both express and set meaningful goals for change with details of their plans to achieve them.
The next paper by Jane Mulcahy is a quite passionate treatise on the ‘problematic trauma-blindness and non-existent healing focus of the dominant risk management approach.’ Jane argues that our understanding of risk and criminogenic need should be informed by developments in neuroscience about how the brain adjusts to the experience of accumulated stress and/or trauma. The paper lays out the evidence supporting a trauma-focused approach and three short case studies are presented giving us a ‘reality check’ on how ‘offending behavior may often be the least of a person’s worries.’ Jane concludes with her vision of what our overtures of help should look like if we truly want to reduce risk --- ‘People who commit crimes should be encouraged to remember (if they are able) and recount (if they are inclined) their painful stories, so as to develop compassionate curiosity about the ways they adapted and the means they adopted to survive.’ That sort of says most of it.
certainly not dispute the therapeutic benefits of interacting with our two dogs. A wide range of dog training programs (DTPs) have proliferated in corrections over the last decade, and there is now quite decent evidence of impact on both prison institutional climate and rates of re-offending. The paper by Houser and Furst nicely elaborates a framework for understanding the impact of DTPs in carceral facilities from a strengths-based perspective, pointing to ways which can even possibly enhance their impact.
It has been especially rewarding to put together this Edition of Advancing Corrections on RISK. A number of the papers challenge our thinking and present fresh ideas for reconceptualizing our view of RISK in corrections. I hope this can lead to some further dialogue in some fashion, perhaps by capitalizing on our new-found experience with virtual communication where we can organize some ‘ideas exchange’ sessions on Zoom. I want to thank all of the contributors to this Edition for their patience and responsiveness during the Editorial review process. I end again by also sending my usual thanks to the reviewers on our Editorial Board for this and other Editions of Advancing Corrections. Please send your feedback, either regarding this Edition or any other matter pertaining to our Advancing Corrections vision. Stay safe and stay sane!
Frank J. Porporino, Ph.D.
Editor, ICPA Advancing Corrections Journal
