LECTURE #4 - Criminal Justice System in Practice

four alternatives to incarceration

1. absolute or conditional discharge

2. restitution

3. fines/community service

4. conditional sentence

federal incarceration pathways

• serve sentence in federal prison

• most offenders get released on the same day or full parole or statutory release

more severe pathways of federal incarceration

• dangerous offender

  • indeterminate prison sentence

• long-term offender

  • regular sentence

  • long-term community watch

approaches to managing criminal behaviour (3r’s)

• retribution

• rehabilitation

• restoration

RNR

• risk

• needs

• responsivity

RNR: risk

• higher intensity security for those who are higher risk

• higher intensity programming

• determine risk through risk assessment

static factors

• unchangeable

• demographic variables

  • sex

  • age

• criminal history

dynamic factors

• changeable factors

• social and psychological

• “criminogenic needs”

RNR: needs

• treatment should target psychological factors that predict crime

RNR: responsivity

• style of treatment should match learning abilities of offender

• general & specific responsivity

general responsivity

• cbt is grounded in learning models

• focus on developing skills

specific responsivity

• individual differences in motivation and willingness to change

• match mental health and identity uniqueness

structured assessment of protective factors (SAPROF) includes three domains;

1. internal to the person

2. motivation

3. external to the person

internal to person

• intelligence

• empathy

• self-control

• coping

• childhood secure attachment

motivation

• prosoicial leisure

• work

• financial management

• treatment motivation

• positive attitudes toward authority

• life goals

• medication

external to person

• prosocial support network

• intimate relationships

• living accommodations

• professional care

• external control

when is risk not considered

• verdict (guilty or not)

  • involves identifying truth

when risk considered

• sentencing

• security classification

• treatment needs and intensity

• parole decisions

• level of supervision

risk assessment includes:

• risk prediction

• risk management

risk prediction

• assessing the risk that people will commit violence (or another crime) in the future

risk management

• developing effective intervention strategies to manage that risk

what is risk assessment

• a diagnosis

• prognosis

diagnosis

• detecting presence/absence of a condition

• dichotomous decision often made

• true state of affairs exist

prognosis

• predicting likelihood of future event

• probabilistic decision needs to be made

• no true state of affairs

risk factor

• a variable

• related to recidivism

• can be static or dynamic

two main types of dynamic risk factors:

• stable dynamic

• acute dynamic

stable dynamic

• persistent and change slowly

• personality features

• poor cognitive problem-solving skills

acute dynamic

• rapidly fluctuating

• access to victims

• sudden stressful experience

unique risk factors

• domestic violence

• sexual offending

domestic violence

• jealousy

• number of step-children

• hostility towards women

sexual offending

• sexual preoccupations

• deviant sexual interests

• stranger victims

static-99r

• position offenders in terms of their relative degree of risk for sexual recidivism

• based on commonly available demographic and criminal history info that has been found to correlate with sexual recidivism in adult males

four approaches to risk assessment

1. unstructured

2. actuarial

3. structured professional judgement

4. mechanical

actuarial tools

• collect empirically determined pre-specified risk factors

• enter them into statistical model

• risk score calculated from items and a probability of recidivism associated with each score

unstructured clinical judgement

• subkectively select, aalyze and interpret risk factors

• guided by:

  • professional training

  • clinical experience

  • gut instinct

structured professional judgement

• collect pre-specified risk factors

• assess and combine any case specific details deemed important

• final risk assessment is a clinical judgement based on combo risk factors

advantages and disadvantages: unstructured professional judgement

advantages

• convenient

• idiographic (aligned with law)

disadvantages

• subjective

• unreliability

advantages and disadvantages: actuarial

advantages

• objective

• probability estimates of risk

disadvantages":

• too nomothetic

• static factors

advantages and disadvantages: structured professional judgement

advantages:

• flexible

• less nomothetic

disadvantages:

• no probability estimate of risk

• less accurate

idographic

• case specific

• focus on each individual independently

nomothetic

• group based

• focus on individuals within a specific population