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THE RISK-NEED-RESPONSIVITY MODEL OF ASSESSMENT AND HUMANE SERVICE IN PREVENTION AND CORRECTIONS: CRIME-PREVENTION JURISPRUDENCE
D.A. Andrews and Craig Dowden
Department of Psychology
Carleton University
The general personality and social psychology underlying the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model of rehabilitation recognizes the importance of the personal, interpersonal, and relatively automatic sources of control over human behaviour as well as the power of cognitive-social-learning approaches to interpersonal influence in many social settings. In terms of both prediction and intervention, the RNR model has impressive but limited research support and is widely implemented, albeit with mixed support in routine correctional practice. This article suggests that RNR and the psychology that underlies it may also assist justice agencies and the courts through crime-prevention jurisprudence (CPJ). Always in the context of ethical, legal, just, and otherwise normative interventions, the first task is to help keep low-risk cases low risk and not interfere with existing strengths. The second task is to identify moderate and higher-risk cases and arrange crime-prevention activities consistent with ethical, legal, and just applications of the principles of RNR. Not the least of the benefits is the provision of an evidence-based set of crime-prevention practices as well as a language system that will facilitate inter-agency and intra-agency communication both within and outside of the justice, court and correctional systems.
UNDERSTANDING RISK IN THE CONTEXT OF THE YOUTH CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT
Paula Maurutto
Department of Sociology
University of Toronto-Mississauga
Kelly Hannah-Moffat
Department of Sociology
University of Toronto-Mississauga
Increasingly, risk assessments are being adopted throughout the criminal justice system in Canada, and they are playing a significant role in the preparation of pre-sentence reports. Over the past five years, nine of Canada’s jurisdictions have adopted the use of risk assessments for the preparation of youth pre-sentencing reports (PSR). While ample theoretical knowledge about risk exists, there are noticeably fewer empirical studies of how risk frameworks (re)shape and (re)organize local institutional decision-making practices or of what the socio-political effects of these processes are. Drawing on interviews, case law review, and analyses of risk-assessment documents, this article considers the implications of using risk assessments in the preparation of youth pre-sentencing reports (PSRs). In particular, attention is paid to the tensions between emerging risk practices and the emphasis on proportional sentencing under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA).
THE UMPIRES STRIKE BACK: CANADIAN JUDICIAL EXPERIENCE WITH RISK-ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS
Justice David P. Cole
Ontario Court of Justice, Toronto
As Canadian correctional policy makers have begun to embed usage of risk-assessment instruments in various forms of penal and probation decision making, judges are frequently being asked to rule upon their admissibility and evidentiary relevance in a variety of contexts, most particularly sentencing. Judges have commented in a number of contexts to date: non-disclosure (by counsel or by correctional officials) of the fact that a risk-assessment instrument is being used; the use of "ministry override" policies for certain offences; the qualifications of the assessor; and the information used to formulate the assessment. At a broader level, judges have joined academic commentators in expressing concerns that over-reliance on risk assessment may trump proportionality.
