CHAPTER 12: CORRECTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Correctional psychology is the application of psychological theory and research to the correctional system (Clements et al., 2007). We begin this chapter with an overview of the structure of the correctional system in Canada and then we discuss two of the most important topics in correctional psychology: offender assessment and management.

 

In Case Study 12.1, setting aside conflicting views regarding whether Robert Latimer’s killing of Tracy was morally defensible—and there are fierce proponents on both sides of this argument—the Supreme Court of Canada decided in no uncertain terms that it was illegal. Mr. Latimer has spent many years now under the supervision of the corrections system, both in custody and in the community. His case is a powerful reminder of the diversity of offenders; people end up in prison in many different ways and for many different reasons. But in every case, the corrections system is responsible for supervising offenders according to court orders, making sure they are housed and even punished in a safe and humane manner; determining what problems offenders have and trying to broker the services that will help them make positive changes; and identifying the risks posed by offenders and how best to contain or mitigate them. Think for even a few seconds about the scope and complexity of this task and the limited resources available, and you might conclude it is impossible, but it is a task the corrections system must undertake.

The Correctional System in Canada

Part of the larger criminal justice system, the corrections system is responsible for supervising people who have been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of criminal offences. When most laypeople think of the corrections system, they think about prisons, but only a small percentage of people in the criminal justice system, perhaps 20 percent, are imprisoned; the rest are supervised in the community. Depriving people of their liberty by institutionalizing them is considered a major infringement of civil rights, and it is permitted only in limited circumstances.

The History of Corrections in Canada

Prior to 1835, people convicted of crimes in Canada were dealt with swiftly and harshly: they were executed, whipped, branded, made to remain in pillories or stocks for hours or days, or simply sent away to other countries.

The first Canadian prison was built in Kingston, Ontario, in 1835. It operated as a provincial jail until 1868, when the Penitentiaries Act established it, along with pre-Confederation jails in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as federal penitentiaries.

The construction of more federal penitentiaries began in 1873. Over the next seven years, four more institutions were opened: St. Vincent de Paul in Quebec (now Laval Institution), Manitoba Penitentiary (now Stony Mountain Institution), British Columbia Penitentiary, and Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick. The regime was harsh: hard work during the day, solitary confinement during leisure time, inadequate diet, and a code of silence at all times. Frequent punishment included flogging, shackles, a diet of bread and water, and having 35-pound yokes attached to one’s body—all administered by prison guards who had no special training.

Inmate strikes and riots during the 1930s led to the creation of the Archambault Royal Commission of Inquiry. Its mandate was to investigate and report on the condition in Canadian prisons. The commission found that almost 70 percent of the inmates were repeat offenders! A significant focus of the report, released in 1938, was rehabilitation, and it included radical recommendations such as separate facilities for young offenders, training for correctional officers, leisure activities for inmates, and, most important, a national independent board that would consider applications for early release. Prior to this, early release was sometimes granted by the government under the Ticket to Leave Act (1899), but this was done haphazardly, at best. Some of the Archambault report’s recommendations became part of the Penitentiary Act that was drafted, but the new law’s passage was stalled by Canada’s entry into World War II. The act was finally passed in 1947. Canada was on its way to prison reform with some consideration given to rehabilitation. The stage was set for the development of correctional psychology.

Correctional Institutions

Provincial and the federal governments have jurisdiction over different kinds of correctional institutions in Canada. The provincial/territorial system has jurisdiction over adult offenders serving custody sentences that are less than two years, individuals who are being held while awaiting trial or sentencing (remand), as well as offenders serving community sentences, such as probation.

Jails house offenders who have been given a sentence of less than two years. Remand centres house individuals awaiting trial who were either denied bail or could not meet the conditions of bail, those awaiting transfer to another provincial or federal facility, and detainees held under federal immigration and refugee laws. Most jails are closed, maximumsecurity facilities—movement in or out of the facility is very restricted, and the perimeter is demarked with high walls or fences and razor wire. The population of jail detainees includes people whose lives are in a state of major disruption or confusion: some are acutely distressed about being separated from their loved ones or losing their jobs due to arrest; others are intoxicated or in withdrawal, or suffering symptoms of mental disorder; yet others are fearful of the possibility that they may be sentenced to many years in prison. But because the typical stay in jail is quite short—ranging from a few days to a few months, on average—the opportunities to offer programs or services are limited.

Prisons or penitentiaries are under the jurisdiction of the federal government and are used to house people who receive custodial sentences of two years or more. The length of the sentences may range from two years to many years or even life, reflecting the diversity of offenders and crimes for which they have been convicted. To deal with this diversity, there are typically several types of prisons in a jurisdiction’s correctional system. Some institutions are very low security, perhaps including open or unsecured settings such as work camps. These low-security institutions permit the semblance of a normal life for offenders and facilitate rehabilitation and readjustment to the community. Medium- and high-security institutions, in contrast, focus on keeping offenders separated from the community, but also may offer a variety of treatment and rehabilitation programs.

An Overview of the Inmate Population

Canada falls in the middle of 34 countries reporting incarceration rates. The United States has, by a large margin, the highest rate at 730 people incarcerated per 100,000 population, with Chile far behind in second place at 295. Canada’s rate is about one-sixth of the U.S. rate, at 117 incarcerated per 100,000.

Table 12.1 shows the federal and provincial incarceration rates from 2002– 03 through 2010–11 (Public Safety Canada, 2012). Let’s look first at the federal offenders (those serving a sentence of two years or more in a federal or provincial facility). It should be readily apparent that the number incarcerated has steadily increased since 2002–03. As of 2010–11, there were 14,221 male and female incarcerated federal offenders, which is a 12.4 percent increase over 2002–03. It is expected that this number will continue to increase, as Criminal Code changes implemented in 2012 have resulted in an increase of mandatory minimum sentences and increased use of incarceration for a range of crimes (Cook & Roesch, 2012). Table 12.1 also shows that the majority of incarcerated offenders are held in provincial/territorial facilities. The total for 2010–11 was 24,339, which represents about 63 percent of all incarcerated offenders.

Most custodial sentences are for short periods of time—over half are for one month or less, and about 90 percent receive a sentence of six months or less (Public Safety Canada, 2012). Only slightly more than 4 percent of those individuals found guilty receive a sentence of two years or more.

Table 12.1 Federal and Provincial/Territorial Incarcerated Offenders
Year	Federal	Sentenced	Provincial/Territorial Other/Temporary Remand Detention		Provincial/ Territorial Total	Total
2002–03	12,652	10,555	8,703	337	19,595	32,247
2003–04	12,413	9,801	9,149	328	19,278	31,691
2004–05	12,624	9,778	9,619	330	19,727	32,351
2005–06	12,671	9,560	10,875	290	20,725	33,396
2006–07	13,171	9,978	12,128	297	22,403	35,574
2007–08	13,581	9,750	12,931	332	23,013	36,594
2008–09	13,286	9,887	13,502	328	23,717	37,003
2009–10	13,531	10,002	13,691	319	24,012	37,543
2010–11	14,221	10,873	13,033	433	24,339	38,560
Source: Public Safety Canada (2012). 2012 annual report on corrections and conditional release. Ottawa: Author. Table C2, p. 36. Accessed at www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2012-ccrs/2012-ccrs-eng.pdf. Reprinted with permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2013.

 

Women and minorities account for a disproportionate percentage of the total incarcerated populations. Federally sentenced female offenders are housed in five regional women’s facilities. The number of incarcerated women in these facilities is rising; figures for 2012 showed a 21 percent increase over the previous two years (Office of the Correctional Investigator, 2012). Aboriginal offender rates have also increased in the past decade, as these figures reported by the Office of the Correctional Investigator (2012, p. 35) clearly indicate:

• Over the last 10 years, while the overall non-Aboriginal inmate population has modestly increased by 2.4 percent, the Aboriginal inmate population has increased significantly by 37.3 percent.
• Approximately 4 percent of the Canadian population is Aboriginal, while

21.4 percent of the federal incarcerated population is Aboriginal.

• Aboriginal offenders are much more likely than others to have their parole revoked, less likely to be granted day or full parole, and are most often released on statutory release or held until warrant expiry date. (As noted in Chapter 3, statutory release refers to the requirement that offenders be released after serving two-thirds of their sentence, unless the Crown can establish that they should not be released.)

Figure 12.3 clearly shows the disproportionate rates of incarceration for Aboriginal offenders given the percentage of Aboriginal people in the general population. Also note the substantial variation in provincial rates, with Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, and Northwest Territories incarcerating a far higher percentage of Aboriginal offenders.

The Office of the Correctional Investigator (2012) report concludes that these rates will likely continue to rise: “Based on current trends and outcomes that show no apparent sign of changing, there is every indication that the proportion of Aboriginal inmates will reach one-in-four in the near future” (p. 36).

Mental health issues are also prevalent in incarcerated populations. In 2010–11, over 45 percent of the total prison population received mental health services (Office of the Correctional Investigator, 2012). For women offenders, the rate was 69 percent. And these rates are increasing; the proportion of offenders with mental health needs has doubled since 1997. Many have co-occurring disorders, typically a mental disorder and a substance abuse problem. In provincial jails, mental health issues are also prevalent, and rates of substance abuse disorders can be as high as 80 percent (Nicholls, Roesch, Olley, Ogloff, & Hemphill, 2005).

There were 54 attempted suicides and four completed suicides in 2010–11 in prisons, and all had mental health concerns, although none were identified as in imminent risk for suicide at the time of their death (Office of the Correctional Investigator, 2012).

Figure 12.3 Comparison of percentage of Aboriginal adults in the population and in custody, by province/territory

Note: Excludes admissions to custody in which Aboriginal identity was unknown. Excludes British Columbia and Nunavut due to the unavailability of data. Population estimates based on 2006 Census data.

Source: Dauvergne, M. (2012). Adult correctional statistics in Canada, 2010/2011. Catalogue no. 85002-X. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Chart 7, p. 12 .Accessible from www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/ 2012001/article/11715-eng.pdf.

Given the rising corrections populations, it should not be surprising that costs are also increasing. Consider the following figures (Office of the Correctional Investigator, 2012, p. 3):

• Expenditures on federal corrections totalled approximately $2.375 billion in 2010–11, which represents a 43.9 percent increase since 2005–06.
• CSC’s budgetary expenditures for 2011–12 are estimated to be $3 billion. The annual average cost of keeping a federal inmate behind bars has increased from $88,000 in 2005–06 to over $113,000 in 2009–10.
• It costs $578 per day to incarcerate a federally sentenced woman inmate and just over $300 per day to maintain a male inmate. In contrast, the annual average cost to keep an offender in the community is about $29,500.

The increasing costs are in part due to the Criminal Code changes in the past few years that have resulted in the expansion of mandatory minimum sentences for many offences, a reduction in credit for pretrial detention time, and restricted use of conditional sentences. These measures disproportionally affect certain groups, including Aboriginal people and those with mental health problems (Cook & Roesch, 2012). These changes led Folsom (2010, p. 18) to comment on the impact they will have on the need for services, including mental health interventions: The single biggest challenge facing the correctional system in the next few years is the increase in the numbers of offenders that will result from proposed legislative changes such as expanding the list of crimes that carry mandatory minimum sentences to include drug offences and to the end of Statutory Release. As the population of offenders swells in the system, more offenders with mental health problems will enter the system and have more difficulty earning early release. This will place an additional burden on the correctional system and an increasing role for psychologists.

Community Supervision

As mentioned, most offenders—perhaps 80 percent or more—are supervised in the community. There are three major forms of community supervision: bail, probation, and parole. Bail is also known as pretrial release. Bail decisions may be made by the arresting officer, by the officer in charge at the police station when an individual is brought in after being arrested, or by a justice (Criminal Code, ss. 497, 498). Section 11(e) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that “any person charged with an offence has the right not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause.” The starting point is that a person must be released without conditions on a promise to appear in court, unless just cause exists to order otherwise (Criminal Code, s. 515). Most commonly, bail is allowed with conditions—for example, the accused must not use intoxicating substances, must not use or carry firearms, and must not communicate with certain people or go to specified locations. An accused may also be required to deposit a specified sum of money with the court, with or without an undertaking to pay more if the accused does not appear at court (this is known as surety). The term of bail is often open-ended and may last for many months. Violation of the conditions of bail is a criminal offence that may result in immediate pretrial detention and new charges. Just cause to deny bail exists if, for example, the accused is a flight risk or poses a risk to harm another person if released. Accordingly, when a person is brought before them to consider bail, individuals in the criminal justice system must assess that person’s risk to offend. Often, they make these decisions quickly, without benefit of expert psychological evidence; however, a risk assessment is undertaken by the person making the decision to release.

Probation (and the related concept of “conditional sentence”) is a punishment following a provincial sentence. It is typically considered more serious than community service or fines but less serious than imprisonment. Offenders are generally sentenced to a defined period of probation, either instead of a term of imprisonment or following (consecutive to) a term of imprisonment. The term of probation is usually fixed, lasting from a few months to several years. Probation may include conditions similar to those used for people on bail, but often the conditions are more strict and may include such things as not using alcohol or other intoxicating substances, or not associating with people who are known criminal offenders. Violation of the conditions of probation is a criminal offence that may result in imprisonment (i.e., serving the rest of the term of probation in custody) or new charges.

Parole is a conditional release from prison intended to facilitate an offender’s return and readjustment to the community. Unless there is a minimum sentence (e.g., as there is for first-degree murder), most offenders are eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence. The onus is on offenders to establish that they should be released at that time. Most offenders who do not receive parole may be eligible for another form of conditional release, mandatory release, after serving two-thirds of their sentence. The term of conditional release varies greatly, from weeks to many years, depending on the length of the original sentence given to the offender. Conditional release is very similar to probation in terms of the restrictions that may be imposed on people. Suspected violations of those restrictions may result in a temporary return to custody, and if violations are proved, they may result in the offender serving the rest of the original sentence in custody.

Psychologists play a key role in the Canadian corrections system. Indeed, Correctional Services of Canada (CSC) is the largest single federal employer of psychologists, as it currently employs more than 300 psychologists (www.cscscc.gc.ca/text/carinf/psych-eng.shtml). CSC psychologists provide assessment and treatment services in both prisons and community settings. A recent survey of graduate programs in Canada indicates a growing interest in careers in forensic psychology (Olver, Preston, Camilleri, Helmus, & Starzomksi, 2011). The Criminal Justice Psychology Section of the Canadian Psychological Association represents members who work in a variety of criminal justice and forensic settings, including corrections. The remainder of this chapter will review psychology’s role in the assessment and treatment of offenders.

Offender Risk Assessment

The process of identifying risk and protective factors (see chapters 3 and 7 for review) for crime is referred to as offender risk assessment. Similarly, the process of preventing crime by influencing risk and protective factors is sometimes referred to as offender risk management (discussed later in this chapter). Offender risk assessment and management are integral to contemporary criminal justice responses to crime.

Risk Factors

A risk is a hazard that is incompletely understood; its occurrence can be forecast only with uncertainty. The hazard we are concerned with in this chapter is crime, and crime clearly is a complex phenomenon. The risk that someone will perform a criminal act can vary greatly, depending on such factors as nature, motivation, and severity of consequences. Accordingly, risk is multi-faceted and cannot be conceptualized or quantified simply—for example, in terms of the probability that someone will engage in crime. Instead, one must also consider the nature, seriousness, frequency or duration, and imminence of any future criminal conduct. Also, risk is inherently dynamic and contextual. For example, the risk posed by offenders depends on their place of residence, the kinds of services they receive, their motivation to establish a prosocial adjustment, the adverse life events they experience, if any, and so forth.

In essence, then, risk is not a characteristic of the physical world that can be evaluated objectively, but a subjective perception—something that exists not in fact, but in the eye of the beholder. These perceptions regarding the nature and degree or quantum of risk in a given case, as well as the selection of risk management strategies and tactics, are based in turn on judgments regarding the collective influence of myriad individual things or elements, referred to as risk factors. But what exactly is a risk factor? It is relatively easy to demonstrate, using a wide range of research designs, that a thing is, on average, correlated with crime. But things that are correlated with crime may be causes, features, concomitants, or even consequences of crime. A risk factor is a correlate that also precedes the occurrence of the hazard and, therefore, may play a causal role. Demonstrating that something is a risk factor requires longitudinal research or well-substantiated theory. Risk factors may be further subdivided into three types.

• Fixed risk markers do not change status over time (e.g., age at first violence; violence; childhood history of maltreatment).
• Variable risk markers change status over time, but these changes do not influence the outcome (e.g., personality disorder; substance misuse).
• Causal risk factors change status over time, and these changes influence the outcome (e.g., lack of insight; attitudes that support or condone violence).

Differentiating among these three types of risk factors also requires longitudinal designs and, ideally, experimental or quasi-experimental longitudinal designs. Considerable attention has been devoted to the identification of important risk factors for crime. One family of theories that has proven quite useful for  this purpose may be referred to as decision theories.

They posit that crime is a voluntary, purposeful human behaviour, or, put differently, that people engage in crime because they made a decision to do so. The decision is, in essence, a costbenefit analysis in which the offender perceives a situation in which engaging in crime is one potential course of action, evaluates the potential benefits of crime and views it as a means of successfully achieving one or more desired goals, evaluates the potential costs of crime and finds them acceptable, and then implements plans to engage in crime. According to these theories, risk factors are things that influence offenders’ decisions about crime—how and why they make decisions to engage in crime. One decision theory that is popular in correctional psychology is sometimes referred to as the Psychology of Criminal Conduct (PCC), or the General Personality and Cognitive Social Learning (GPCSL) perspective (Andrews & Bonta, 2006). It focuses most heavily on an offender’s personality, attitudes, and experiences.

Risk Assessment

Assessment is the process of gathering information for use in decision making. The specific assessment procedures used are determined by what is being assessed and the nature of the decisions to be made. In the case of offender risk assessment, we must assess what offenders have done in the past, how they are functioning currently, and what they might do in the future. The decisions to be made are strategic in nature, including what should be done to cope with or manage the risks posed by an offender.

Offender risk assessment can be defined as the process of evaluating offenders in order to (1) characterize the risk that they will commit crime in the future, and (2) develop interventions to manage or reduce that risk (Andrews, Bonta, & Wormith, 2006; Hart, 2001). The task is to understand how and why an offender chose to commit crime in the past, and then to determine what could be done to discourage the person from choosing to commit crime again in the future. The specific procedures used to gather relevant information typically include interviews with and observations of the person being evaluated; direct psychological or medical testing of the person; careful review of available documentary records; and interviews with collateral informants such as family members, friends, employers, and service providers.

The ultimate goal of offender risk assessment is crime prevention, or the minimization of the likelihood of and negative consequences stemming from any future violence. But offender assessment should achieve a number of goals in addition to the protection of public safety (Hart, 2001). A “good” offender risk assessment procedure should also yield reliable (i.e., consistent or replicable) results. That is, correctional psychologists should reach similar findings when evaluating the same offender at about the same time. It is highly unlikely that unreliable decisions can be of any practical use. Furthermore, a good offender risk assessment procedure should be prescriptive; it should identify, evaluate, and prioritize the mental health, social service, and criminal justice interventions that could be used to manage an offender’s risk. Finally, a good offender risk assessment procedure should be open or transparent. Put another way, correctional professionals are accountable for the decisions they make, and it is therefore important for them to make explicit, as much as is possible, the basis for their opinions. A transparent offender assessment procedure gives offenders and the public a chance to scrutinize professional opinions. The transparency should protect correctional professionals when an offender commits a crime despite the fact that a good risk assessment was conducted, as it can be demonstrated that standard or proper procedures were followed. Transparency should also protect offenders and the public by making it obvious when an improper offender risk assessment is conducted.

It is impossible for any single offender risk assessment procedure to achieve all these goals with maximum efficiency. Similarly, it is impossible for the various parties interested in offender risk assessment (correctional psychologists, prison administrators, offenders, lawyers, judges, victims, parole board members, etc.) to reach a consensus regarding which procedure is best for all purposes and in all contexts. Instead, correctional professionals should choose the best procedure or set of procedures for a particular assessment of a particular offender.

Approaches to Offender Risk Assessment

Correctional psychologists use two basic approaches to reach opinions about offender risk: professional judgment and actuarial decision making. These terms refer to how information is weighted and combined to reach a final decision, regardless of the information that is considered and how it was collected. The hallmark of professional judgment procedures is that the evaluator exercises some degree of discretion in the decision-making process, although it is also generally the case that evaluators have wide discretion concerning how assessment information is gathered and which information is considered. It comes as no surprise that unstructured clinical judgment is also described as “informal, subjective, [and] impressionistic” (Grove & Meehl, 1996; p. 293). In contrast, the hallmark of the actuarial approach is that, based on the information available to them, evaluators make an ultimate decision according to fixed and explicit rules. It is also generally the case that actuarial decisions are based on specific assessment data, selected because they have been demonstrated empirically to be associated with violence, and coded in a predetermined manner. The actuarial approach also has been described as “mechanical” and “algorithmic.”

Professional Judgment Procedures

The professional judgment approach comprises at least three different procedures. The first is “unstructured professional judgment,” or “unstructured clinical judgment.” This is decision making in the complete absence of structure, a process that could be characterized as “intuitive” or “experiential.” Historically, it is the most commonly used procedure for assessing offender risk and, therefore, is very familiar to correctional psychologists as well as to courts and tribunals. It has the advantage of being highly adaptable and efficient; it is possible to use intuition in any context, with minimal cost in terms of time and other resources. It is also person centred, focusing on the unique aspects of the case at hand, and thus, can be of great assistance in planning interventions to manage offender risk. The major problem is that there is little empirical evidence that intuitive decisions are consistent across professionals or, indeed, that they are helpful in preventing crime. As well, intuitive decisions are unimpeachable; it is difficult even for the people who make them to explain how they were made. This means that the credibility of the decision often rests on charismatic authority—that is, the credibility of the person who made the decision. Finally, intuitive decisions tend to be broad or general in scope, so that they become dispositional statements about the offender (“Offender X is a very dangerous person”) rather than a series of speculative statements about what the offender might do in the future, assuming various release conditions.

The second professional judgment procedure is sometimes referred to as “anamnestic risk assessment.” (“Anamnesis” is a medical term that refers to the construction of a patient’s history through his or her accounts or recollections.) This procedure imposes a limited degree of structure on the assessment, as the evaluator must, at a minimum, identify the personal and situational factors that resulted in crime in the past. The assumption here is that a series of events and circumstances, a kind of behavioural chain, led up to the offender’s antisocial behaviour. The professional’s task, therefore, is to understand the links in this chain and suggest ways in which the chain could be broken. However, there is no empirical evidence supporting the consistency or usefulness of anamnestic risk assessments. Anamnestic risk assessment also seems to assume that history will repeat itself—that offenders are static over time, so the only thing they are at risk to do in the future is what they have done in the past. Nothing could be farther from the truth, of course; there are many different “criminal careers.” Some offenders will escalate in terms of the frequency or severity of crime over time, some change the types of crime they commit, and some will de-escalate or even desist altogether.

The third procedure is known as “structured professional judgment.” Here, decision making is assisted by guidelines that have been developed to reflect the state of the discipline with respect to scientific knowledge and professional practice. Such guidelines—sometimes referred to as clinical guidelines, consensus guidelines, or clinical practice parameters—are quite common in medicine, although used less frequently in psychiatric and psychological assessment. The guidelines attempt to define the risk being considered; discuss necessary qualifications for conducting an assessment; recommend what information should be considered as part of the evaluation and how it should be gathered; and identify a set of core risk factors that, according to the scientific and professional literature, should be considered as part of any reasonably comprehensive assessment. Structured professional guidelines help to improve the consistency and usefulness of decisions, and certainly improve the transparency of decision making. They may, however, require considerable time or resources to develop and implement. Also, some evaluators dislike this middle-ground or compromise approach, either because it lacks the freedom of intuitive decision making or because it lacks the objectivity of actuarial procedures.

Actuarial Procedures

There are at least two types of actuarial decision making. The first is the actuarial use of psychological tests. Classically, psychological tests are structured samples of behaviour designed to measure a personal disposition—that is, an attempt to quantify an individual’s standing on some trait dimension. Research indicates that some dispositions, such as psychopathy, major mental illness, and impulsivity, are associated with offender risk in a meaningful way. On the basis of research results, one can identify cut-off scores on a test that maximize some aspect of predictive accuracy. This procedure has several strengths, most importantly its transparency and the demonstrated consistency and utility of decisions made using tests. One major problem is that the use of psychological tests requires considerable discretion. Correctional psychologists must decide which tests are appropriate in a given case, and judgment also may be required in test scoring and interpretation. Another problem is that reliance on a single test does not constitute a comprehensive evaluation and will provide only limited information for use in developing management strategies and tactics. More generally, the actuarial use of psychological tests focuses professional efforts on passive crime prediction rather than crime prevention.

The second type of procedure is the use of actuarial risk assessment instruments. In contrast to psychological tests, actuarial instruments are not designed to measure anything but solely to predict the future. Typically, they are constructed with great precision, optimized to predict a specific outcome in a specific population over a specific period of time. The items in the scale are selected either rationally (on the basis of theory or experience) or empirically (on the basis of their association with the outcome in test construction research). The items are weighted and combined according to an algorithm to yield a decision. In offender risk assessment, the “decision” generally is the estimated likelihood of future crime (e.g., arrest, charge, or conviction for a new offence) over some period of time. Like psychological tests, actuarial instruments have the advantage of transparency and direct empirical support; they also suffer many of the same weaknesses, including the need for discretion in selecting a test and interpreting findings, and the limitations of the test findings for use in planning interventions. There are additional problems with actuarial instruments that estimate the absolute likelihood or probability of recidivism. One is that they require tremendous time and effort to construct and validate. In cases where the time frame of the prediction is long, true cross-validation may require decades. Also, when psychologists construct actuarial tests, there is an unavoidable tradeoff between the precision of estimated recidivism rates and their generalizability: the more precisely one estimates the recidivism rate of a particular group or sample, the less likely it is that the estimate will accurately describe the recidivism rate of other groups or samples (and vice versa). The same statistical procedures that optimize predictive accuracy in one setting will decrease that test’s accuracy in others. Finally, it is easy to give too much weight to information concerning the estimated likelihood of recidivism provided by actuarial tests. Most actuarial tests of offender risk yield very precise likelihood estimates, proportions with two or three decimal places, but they do not provide the information necessary to understand the error inherent in these estimates. When one considers the fact that many of these estimates were derived from relatively small construction samples and have not been validated in independent samples, it is clear that the actuarial test results are only pseudo-precise. It is important for any professional who uses actuarial tests to understand and explain to others the limitations of absolute likelihood estimates of recidivism.

Example: The Level of Service–Case Management Inventory

The Level of Service–Case Management Inventory (LS-CMI) was developed by a group of correctional psychologists working in Canada that included Don Andrews, James Bonta, and Steve Wormith (Andrews, Bonta, & Wormith, 2004). It is a set of structured professional judgment (SPJ) guidelines that assist the assessment and management of risk for general criminality. It is intended for use by a variety of correctional professionals, including correctional psychologists. The LS-CMI is to be used with male and female offenders, aged 16 and older, in institutions or the community. It comprises 11 sections that require evaluators to make a series of ratings, based on a semi-structured interview with the offender and a review of relevant records, and then document various opinions, recommendations, and decisions (see Table 12.2 for an overview). Section 1 contains 43 items that are summed to yield an actuarial (i.e., formulaic or algorithmic) risk/need score. The items in Section 1 tap eight domains of psychosocial functioning: criminal history, education/employment, leisure/recreation, family/marital, companions, alcohol/drug problems, pro-criminal attitude/ orientation, and antisocial pattern. The items were selected rationally, according to PCC and GPSCL theoretical frameworks. Sections 2 through 5 contain items that reflect other specific risk, need, and responsivity factors. These items are considered less important than those in Section 1, according to theory and research, but are still potentially relevant to risk. In Sections 6 and 7, evaluators reach final opinions concerning the risks posed by the offender.

Table 12.2 Overview of the Level of Service–Case Management Inventory (LS-CMI): See canvas.

 First, they use cut-off scores to interpret actuarial risk/need scores. Next, they use their professional judgment to adjust or override the actuarial risk/need scores when they think it necessary or appropriate (e.g., when a case presents with unusual circumstances). Finally, in sections 8 through 11, evaluators recommend, implement, evaluate, and document case management strategies based on the findings of Sections 1 through 7. This is done rationally or logically, rather than using an algorithm or formula.

Even from this brief description, it is clear that the LS-CMI is not a simple, quantitative test. It specifies the type of information evaluators should gather and contains tools that evaluators can use for this purpose (e.g., a semi-structured interview guide). It forces evaluators to consider a standard list of risk, need, and responsivity factors identified from theory and research, but it also encourages them to consider factors not included in the list. Evaluators calculate actuarial risk scores, which can be interpreted with respect to various norms and cut-offs, but they are encouraged to override the mechanical interpretations when appropriate. Evaluators are encouraged to think systematically about case management, based on the test findings. It is the reliance on discretion or judgment that makes the LS-CMI a form of SPJ—also known as empirically guided judgment or anchored clinical judgment—rather than a form of actuarial decision making.

The LS-CMI and its progeny, although originally developed in Canada for use with male offenders in community settings, are now used routinely by various correctional systems around the world. It is no exaggeration to say that the LS-CMI is the “gold standard” for offender assessment. It is used with the entire range of offenders, including those in custody, adult females, juvenile delinquents, mentally disordered offenders (MDOs), violent offenders, and so on. Its ability to predict future criminal behaviour has been confirmed by a number of empirical evaluations. For example, according to recent meta-analyses, the average correlation between total scores on Section 1 of the LS-CMI (or previous versions of the test) and general recidivism among offenders on community supervision is about r = .25; the average correlation with institutional infractions is about r = .15. There is also some research indicating that the LS-CMI is sensitive to changes in risk over time—that is, it can be used to measure whether an offender’s risk is increasing or decreasing over time.

Other Risk Assessment Instruments and Related Tests

Despite its successes, there are at least three important limitations of the LS-CMI as a risk assessment measure. First, it uses a simplistic definition of risk: the probability that an offender will be officially sanctioned for antisocial or criminal behaviour over a given period of time. The LS-CMI can’t be used to forecast an offender’s risk to commit specific types of crime (e.g., sexual violence, intimate partner violence), the severity of any future crime (e.g., no physical harm versus serious or life-threatening violence), or the risk during other time periods (e.g., the next two to four weeks, the next 15 years).

Second, because of its definition of risk, the LS-CMI ignores important risk factors for specific forms of antisocial behaviour, such as drug crimes, child abuse and exploitation, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, stalking, gang violence, or political terrorism. In particular, it pays relatively little attention to mental disorder as a risk factor for violence. For example, paraphilic disorders, such as pedophilia or sexual sadism, are an important risk factor for sexual violence in some cases; delusional disorders, such as erotomania, may be important risk factors for stalking; and personality disorders, such as psychopathy, may be associated with a wide range of violence. Serious mental disorder is certainly not rare in offender populations, but mental disorder does not play a role in PCC/ GPSCL and is therefore accorded little weight in the LS-CMI.

Third, the structure of the LS-CMI still reflects its origins. It seems best suited for assessing adult males under community supervision in urban centres. It is perhaps less appropriate for use with the most serious offenders (e.g., those incarcerated in maximum-security institutions), female offenders, or offenders from ethnocultural minority backgrounds, who are often overrepresented in correctional systems (especially indigenous peoples, such as Aborigines in Australia; First Nations, Inuit, and Métis in Canada; Maori in New Zealand; and American Indians in the United States).

In light of these limitations, it should come as no surprise that several other risk assessment instruments are often used in addition to or instead of the LS-CMI (see Table 12.3). Some of these tests are intended to assess specific risks. For example, correctional psychologists who work with sexual offenders may use a test like the STATIC-99 (Hanson & Thornton, 1999), an actuarial test developed to estimate an offender’s risk for specific forms of sexual violence, or special-to-purpose SPJ guidelines such as the Sexual Violence Risk-20 (SVR-20; Boer, Hart, Kropp, & Webster, 1997) or the Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol (RSVP; Hart et al., 2003). Others are intended for specific settings. For example, correctional psychologists who work with offenders newly admitted to jail may use management-focused SPJ guidelines such as the Jail Screening Assessment Tool ( JSAT; Nicholls et al., 2005).

Specialized actuarial risk assessment instruments tend to be relatively brief tests that closely resemble Section 1 of the LS-CMI, except that the content reflects more specific risk factors. A good example is the STATIC-99. It comprises 10 items, several of which reflect prior sexual offences (see Table 12.4 for a summary). Evaluators rate each item based on a review of official records. Item ratings are summed to yield a total score. Cut-offs are used to categorize offenders into several groups.

In contrast, specialized SPJ guidelines tend to be longer, more comprehensive, and management focused. In this respect, they resemble the full LS-CMI. A good example here is the RSVP. Its administration process comprises six steps. In Step 1, evaluators gather relevant information. In Step 2, they consider the presence of 22 standard risk factors (see Table 12.5), as well as any other case-specific risk factors.

Table 12.5 Risk Factors in the Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol (RSVP): See Canvas

 In Step 3, they consider the relevance of each factor with respect to risk for sexual violence. In Step 4, they consider risk scenarios— that is, they speculate about the possible nature, severity, imminence, frequency, and likelihood of any future sexual violence. In Step 5, they develop risk management strategies based on relevant risk factors and risk scenarios. Finally, in Step 6, they make a number of conclusory opinions.

Specialized risk assessment instruments, such as those listed in Table 12.3, are used frequently in correctional systems. Research indicates they are about as successful for their specialized purpose (e.g., assessing risk for intimate partner violence) as the LS-CMI is for assessing and managing risk for general criminality (Campbell, French, & Gendreau, 2009). They also provide more detailed information that may be useful for making risk management decisions.

Correctional psychologists also have developed tests that are used to assess specific risk factors or aspects of risk. One example is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003). The PCL-R was developed to assess symptoms of psychopathic personality disorder, which subsequent research indicated is a robust risk factor for several forms of serious and violent crime. The PCL-R is used in many correctional systems around the world as part of comprehensive offender risk assessments, and it is also used as part of other actuarial and SPJ risk assessment instruments such as the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG; Quinsey, Harris, Rice, & Cormier, 1998, 2006), the HCR-20 (Webster et al., 1997), and the SVR-20 (Boer, Hart, Kropp, & Webster, 1997). Other tests have been designed to tap an offender’s self-reports related to several aspects of risk. Although research indicates that these tests are predictive of future criminality, their primary utility is as one part of a more comprehensive risk assessment.

Offender Risk Management

There has always been a tension in the philosophy underlying the correctional system between the ethics of control versus care. The ethic of control serves the goals of protection of public safety, retribution, and individual and general deterrence. It emphasizes the need to ensure that offenders are detained or supervised in a safe and just manner. In contrast, the ethic of care serves rehabilitative goals. It emphasizes the need to provide offenders with the services required to help them become law-abiding and productive members of society. Correctional psychology has tried to balance these ethics by developing effective offender assessment and treatment services. The services offered usually address the most common and important risk factors for crime, such as impulsivity, antisocial attitudes, educational and vocational problems, substance abuse, anger, disturbed family relationships, and mental disorders. The primary goal of these programs, and the primary outcome used to evaluate their effectiveness, is reduction in recidivism rates. If a program results in fewer offenders committing new crimes, this benefits everyone; it is thus consistent with both control and care. Implementing good correctional treatment programs is costly, but even a small reduction in recidivism rates may result in huge economic (not to mention societal) benefits. This section will review strategies for integrating risk assessment with interventions programs.

Strategies for Offender Risk Management

Offender risk management activities can be divided into four basic categories: monitoring, treatment, supervision, and victim safety planning.

Monitoring, or repeated assessment, is always a part of good risk management. The goal of monitoring is to evaluate changes in risk over time so that risk management strategies and tactics can be revised as appropriate. Monitoring, unlike supervision, focuses on surveillance rather than control or restriction of liberties; it is therefore minimally intrusive. Monitoring tactics may include contacts with the offender, as well as with potential victims and other relevant people (e.g., therapists, correctional officers, family members, co-workers) in the form of face-to-face or telephonic meetings. Where appropriate, they may also include field visits (e.g., at home or work), electronic surveillance, polygraphic interviews, drug testing (urine, blood, or hair analysis), and inspection of mail or telecommunications (telephone records, fax logs, e-mail, etc.).

Treatment involves the provision of (re)habilitative services. The goal of treatment is to improve an offender’s psychosocial adjustment. Treatments may include training programs designed to improve interpersonal, anger management, and vocational skills; psycho-educational programs designed to change attitudes toward crime; individual or group psychotherapy; chemical dependency programs; and psychoactive medications, such as antipsychotics or mood stabilizers.

Supervision involves the restriction of the offender’s rights or freedoms. The goal of supervision is to make it (more) difficult for the offender to engage in further violence. An extreme form of supervision is incapacitation—that is, involuntary institutionalization of the offender in a correctional or health care facility. Incapacitation is clearly an effective means of reducing the offender’s access to potential victims. It is, however, by no means perfectly effective. The offender may escape from the institution or even commit crimes while institutionalized. Incapacitation also has other disadvantages: it is expensive, it restricts accessibility to treatment services, and it may promote the development of antisocial attitudes by increasing the offender’s contact with antisocial peers and by creating a sense of powerlessness or frustration. Community supervision is much more common than institutionalization. Typically, it involves allowing the offender to reside in the community with restrictions on activity, movement, association, and communication. Restrictions on activity may include requirements to attend vocational or educational programs, not to use alcohol or drugs, and so on. Restrictions on movement may include house arrest, travel bans, “no go” orders (i.e., orders not to visit specific geographic areas), and orders to travel only with identified chaperones.

Restrictions on association may include orders not to socialize or communicate with past or potential victims or with specific people or groups of people who may encourage antisocial acts.

Victim safety planning involves improving the security resources of potential victims, a process sometimes referred to as “target hardening.” The goal is to ensure that, if crime recurs despite all monitoring, treatment, and supervision efforts, any negative impact on the victims’ psychological and physical wellbeing is minimized. Victim safety planning is most relevant in situations that involve “targeted violence.”

An Integrated Approach to Offender Risk Management: The Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) Model

Over the past 20 years, what has come to be known as the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model has emerged as the dominant approach to offender treatment in correctional psychology. It was developed by the same people responsible for the LS-CMI, together with colleagues such as Paul Gendreau, Robert Hoge, and Robert Ross (e.g., Andrews, Bonta, & Hoge, 1990; Gendreau & Ross, 1979).

The RNR model comprises three core principles, derived from research on correctional treatment and interpreted within the broader framework of PCC/ GPCSL theory. According to the risk principle, the level of services delivered to offenders should be commensurate with the risks they pose to reoffend. This means offenders at high risk for recidivism should receive more intensive assessment and management, relative to offenders at moderate or low risk. According to the need principle, offender assessment and management should focus on criminogenic (crime-causing) needs. This means services for offenders should target causal risk factors for antisocial behaviour that have been validated by empirical research. According to the responsivity principle, services should be delivered that maximize their effectiveness. This means two things. First, in general terms, the focus of management programs should be on skills acquisition and enhancement through prosocial modelling, the appropriate use of reinforcement and disapproval, and problem solving, because research suggests this is the most efficient and effective way to change people’s behaviour. Second, more specifically, it means that the management programs delivered to offenders should match their individual learning styles, motivations, abilities, and strengths.

Table 12.6 shows how seven major risk/need factors can be assessed and then related to intervention goals. Development of the RNR model was motivated by the rather unhappy state of the research literature on the effectiveness of correctional treatment that existed in the 1970s. At that time, there was no good evidence that correctional treatment reduced recidivism rates in offenders, or even that it made offenders feel much better.

Table 12.6 The Seven Major Risk/Need Factors, Indicators, and Intervention Goals: See Canvas

Systematic reviews of the research literature concluded that correctional treatment was largely ineffective—or, in the words of Robert Martinson, that “nothing works” with respect to offender treatment (Martinson, 1974). Andrews, Bonta, and colleagues rejected the Martinson verdict. They argued that the correctional treatments reviewed by Martinson should not be lumped together, due to their heterogeneity. They conducted their own reviews and found treatment programs that reported positive findings tended to have some important similarities (Bonta & Andrews, 2007; Wormith et al., 2007). For example, effective programs

• targeted high-risk rather than low-risk offenders;
• focused on concrete goals, such as changing criminal behaviour, rather than improving self-esteem;
• relied on structured or skills-focused interventions rather than unstructured or psychotherapeutic interventions;
• were often delivered to groups rather than individuals.

Based on these findings, they formalized the RNR principles. Their conclusion was that the effectiveness of a correctional treatment depends directly on its consistency with RNR principles. For example, Bonta and Andrews (2007) reviewed residential and community-based offender treatment programs, rating each according to the number of RNR core principles to which they adhered (0 = no adherence, 3 = complete adherence). The effectiveness of each treatment program was indexed using r as an effect size measure. The mean effectiveness was calculated for each adherence score. Institutional and community programs with adherence scores of 3 (i.e., adherence to all RNR core principles) had effect sizes of .17 and .35; this corresponds to reduction in recidivism rates of roughly 17 and 35 percentage points, respectively, for treated versus untreated offenders. In contrast, the effect size for adherence scores of 0 (adherence to no RNR core principles) were actually negative: −.10 for institutional programs and −.02 for community programs. Treatment programs that ignored RNR principles were either ineffective or may have actually increased recidivism rates by up to 10 percentage points (see Figure 12.4).

The RNR approach has had some positive impacts on correctional psychology. First, and perhaps most important, it replaced the nihilistic dogma that “Nothing works!” with a more constructive question, “What works?” This promoted the development of systematic, evidence-based offender treatment programs.

Figure 12.4 Reduction in recidivism rates as a function of adherence to risk-need-responsivity (RNR) principles in residential and community correctional treatment programs Source: Bonta, J., & Andrews, D. A. (2007). Risk-need-responsivity model for offender assessment and rehabilitation. Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, Figure 2, p. 11. Accessible at www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/rsk-nd-rspnsvty/index-eng.aspx. Reprinted with permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2013.

Second, it highlighted the need for routine evaluation of treatment programs, which led to a great increase in high-quality empirical research (see Smith, Gendreau, & Swartz, 2009, for a meta-analysis of treatment studies). Third, in combination with the underlying PCC or GPSCL theoretical framework, it helped correctional psychologists practise in a rational and reasonable manner and, especially, balance the conflicting ethics of control and care. It is an excellent conceptual tool for guiding the development and delivery of psychological services in corrections.

But the approach also has its limitations (Craig, Dixon, & Gannon, 2013; Polaschek, 2012). Tony Ward and colleagues (Ward, 2002; Ward & Brown, 2004;Whitehead, Ward, & Collie, 2007) have pointed out that although the RNR approach has good research support, most of it has come from research focusing on male offenders with a history of general criminality and without serious mental health problems. There is relatively little research examining the utility of RNR with respect to more specific offender populations, including females, offenders suffering from major mental illnesses, and serious violent offenders. With respect to theory, Ward and colleagues argue that the RNR approach focuses too much on reducing recidivism—encouraging offenders not to commit crime, but without giving them enough help to develop prosocial alternatives to crime. This limits the potential impact of correctional programs by failing to maximize treatment engagement or motivation. In essence, this latter argument is that RNR values the ethic of control more than the ethic of care. As an alternative, Ward and colleagues developed the Good Lives (GL) model. GL focuses on promoting the important personal goals of offenders, while at the same time reducing and managing their risk for future crime. The basic idea is that by helping people fulfill their basic human needs and desires— what the GL model calls “primary goods”—treatment naturally discourages or minimizes involvement in crime. According to GL, primary goods are “activities, experiences, or situations that are sought for their own sake and that benefit individuals and increase their sense of fulfillment and happiness” (Whitehead et al., 2007, p. 580), including such things as relatedness, autonomy, knowledge, mastery, play, and physical health. Problems arise when the people use strategies that don’t help them to obtain primary goods. Such problems typically take four forms: people neglect important primary goods, they use ineffective strategies to secure goods, the strategies they use conflict with each other, or they are unable to implement sound strategies for securing goods.

RNR and GL are similar in many respects, as proponents of both approaches acknowledge. In theory, GL may be seen as an expansion of RNR to include some factors deemed “noncriminogenic needs” by RNR but “primary human goods” by GL. In practice, the major differences between them are that, compared to RNR, GL treatment (1) deals more explicitly with the goals and values of offenders, and (2) includes a focus on the process by which offenders attempt to construct meaning in their lives.

Example: Reasoning and Rehabilitation-Revised Program

The Reasoning and Rehabilitation-Revised Program, formerly known as the Cognitive Skills Training Program, was developed at the same time as RNR principles (see Andrews & Bonta, 2006). Its goal is to prevent general criminality. It was the first offender treatment program to be implemented nationally in Canada, and has subsequently been implemented in correctional systems in the United States and in other countries, such as Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

The program is a cognitive-behavioural treatment designed to train offenders in skills that address a wide range of problems commonly associated with criminal behaviour, such as poor planning and decision-making skills, deficits in empathy and perspective taking, attitudes and beliefs that condone criminal behaviour, association with peers who lead a criminal lifestyle, and so on. It was developed for use with adult male offenders who are at moderate to high risk for general criminality. It is delivered in small-group format (usually eight to ten participants) in classroom settings, either in institutions or in the community. The assessment and treatment procedures are highly structured, set out in detailed manuals. The standard curriculum comprises about four individual sessions in which the evaluator assesses the offender using motivational interviewing techniques, followed by 35 to 40 treatment sessions of two to three hours duration delivered over 8 to 12 weeks. The overall goal of treatment is to teach offenders to think before they act by providing them with more effective skills to anticipate problems and plan their reactions, solve problems, and consider other people’s points of view. Specific topics covered in treatment include interpersonal problem solving, self-control and self-management, assertiveness and social interaction, social perspective taking, critical reasoning, and values reasoning. Treatment delivery is designed to maximize the motivation and participation of offenders.

Research has shown that offenders who participate in the Reasoning and Rehabilitation-Revised Program improve on measures of skill development. For example, a recent evaluation in Sweden examined the effectiveness of treated offenders compared to matched controls over a period of five years. Of offenders who started treatment, 77 percent completed successfully. According to various questionnaires completed at the end of treatment, treated offenders exhibited significant improvements with respect to such things as impulsivity and prosocial attitudes. A follow-up of offenders subsequently released indicated that offenders who completed treatment had a 48 percent reconviction rate, compared to 60 percent for untreated offenders and 73 percent for dropouts.

Findings such as these give reason for optimism, but it is important to note some important limitations of the Reasoning and Rehabilitation-Revised Program. First, the dropout rate is too high: about 1 of 4 offenders do not complete treatment. More must be done to build and maintain offender motivation. Second, the reconviction rate is too high, even among offenders who complete treatment: about 1 in 2 reoffend within two to five years. Third, evaluations rely too heavily on quasi-experimental designs, rather than randomized trials. Fourth, the program is targeted at general criminality, rather than specific forms of offending. Its effectiveness with, say, intimate partner violence or sexual offenders is unknown. Finally, the active process (i.e., mechanism of change) underlying treatment is not clear. According to theory, it works by changing the thinking styles of offenders—increasing prosocial attitudes, decreasing impulsivity, and so forth. But there is not good research support for this assumption; indeed, some evaluations have found that offenders who report greater attitude change have higher reconviction rates than those who report less attitude change.

Other Offender Treatment Programs

To address risk for general criminality, some correctional systems also offer programs to enhance life skills in such areas as employment, education, anger management, parenting, and leisure activities. To address more specific forms of criminality, some offer programs for sexual violence, family violence, or other violence. To address mental health problems related to risk for general or violent criminality, some offer programs for offenders with substance use problems, acute mental illness, intellectual deficits, or personality disorder. Many of these programs are modelled closely on the Reasoning and Rehabilitation-Revised Program in terms of format and structure.

Evaluations of these treatment programs have yielded generally positive findings, insofar as they are often associated with short-term improvements in attitudes, adjustment, and skills, and sometimes with long-term reductions in recidivism rates. But these evaluations also have found evidence of the same problems that have plagued the Reasoning and Rehabilitation-Revised Program: high attrition (dropout) rates, typically in the range of 30 to 60 percent; high recidivism rates, even among offenders who successfully complete treatment; lack of high-quality evaluations in the form of randomized controlled trials; and lack of research on mechanisms of change. For example, systematic reviews of the effectiveness of sex offender treatment programs include scores of studies, but only a few of these are randomized controlled trials. Although there is evidence that successful treatment on average reduces the rate of sex offence recidivism by about one-quarter to one-third, the results of randomized controlled trials indicated the reduction in recidivism associated with treatment was very small or even nonexistent. The same pattern of findings is evident in evaluations of intimate partner violence treatment programs.

Summary

The corrections system in Canada is highly complex, responsible for managing offenders in both institutions and the community. The corrections system has grown dramatically over the past 50 years and increasingly has taken responsibility for not just supervising but also rehabilitating offenders. Correctional psychology has grown and evolved along with the system it services. Correctional psychologists have made important contributions to the development, implementation, and evaluation of a wide range of theory-grounded and evidence-based offender risk assessment procedures and offender risk management programs. Their work is critical to improving the lives of offenders while protecting and enhancing public safety.

 

Key Terms

bail

correctional psychology

decision theories

ethic of care

ethic of control

monitoring

need principle

offender risk assessment

offender risk management
parole

probation

responsivity principle

risk factors

risk principle

supervision

treatment

victim safety planning

References

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Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J., & Wormith, S. J. (2004). Level of Service–Case Management Inventory (LS-CMI). Toronto: Multi-Health Systems Inc.

Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J., & Wormith, S. J. (2006). The recent past and near future of risk and/or need assessment. Crime & Delinquency, 52, 7–27.

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Boer, D. P., Hart, S. D., Kropp, P. R., & Webster, C. D. (1997). Manual for the Sexual Violence Risk-20: Professional guidelines for assessing risk of sexual violence. Vancouver: British Columbia Institute against Family Violence, and co-published with the Mental Health, Law, & Policy Institute, Simon Fraser University.

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Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act, 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c. 11.

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Otto, R. K., & Douglas, K. S. (2009). The handbook of violence risk assessment. New York: Routledge.

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Quinsey, V. L., Harris, G. T., Rice, M. E., & Cormier, C. A. (2006). Violent offenders: Appraising and managing risk (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

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Ward, T. (2002). Good lives and the rehabilitation of offenders: Promises and problems. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 7, 513–528.

Ward, T., & Brown, M. (2004). The Good Lives model and conceptual issues in offender rehabilitation. Psychology, Crime & Law, 10, 243–257.

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Whitehead, P. R., Ward, T., & Collie, R, M. (2007). Applying the Good Lives model of rehabilitation to a high-risk violent offender. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 51, 578–598.

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Suggested Readings and Websites

Correctional Service of Canada: www.csc-scc.gc.ca/index-eng.shtml.

Dvoskin, J., Skeem, J., Novaco, R., & Douglas, K. S. (2011). Applying social science to reduce violent offending. New York: Oxford University Press.

Haney, C. (2006). Reforming punishment: Psychological limits to the pains of imprisonment. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Office of the Correctional Investigator: www.oci-bec.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx.