Forensic Psychology For Dummies (97 page)

Many short-term relationships

Assessing the Risk of Future Offending

A vital area of forensic psychological assessment is the determination of how likely a person is to re-offend and whether he’s likely to be violent in the near or distant future. This form of assessment is very common when deciding the court’s sentence and whether, after undergoing some sort of treatment, a person should be allowed back into the community. This process is called
risk assessment
and relates to the risk that a person may be a danger to themselves or other people.

Dangerousness covers everything from the possibility of attempting suicide to being abusive to a neighbour. A high probability exists that many offenders will continue to offend, but that isn’t a reason under most legal systems for keeping them locked up. The issue in risk assessment is whether any indications exist that the person will be seriously dangerous.

Predicting the risk of future offending is, well, risky. The process can never be foolproof for the simple reason that predicting what a person may experience and the unfolding circumstances of their future life is impossible.

Forensic psychologists usually take into account three general aspects when predicting the risk of an offender’s future dangerousness:

Dynamic factors:
Those characteristics of the individual that can, potentially, be changed through experience or direct intervention, including the person’s attitudes and compliance with treatment, his views of his crimes and indicators of mental illness.

Static factors:
These are a person’s aspects that aren’t open to change, including previous history of violence, age and ethnicity, previous relationships and education and employment experience.

Protective factors:
Some aspects of a person and his circumstances can reduce the risk of future violence, including a supportive social network, a feeling of responsibility for a family, or a satisfying job.

Appraising sexual violence risk

A number of standardised procedures have been developed for use in assessing the risk of future violence, especially of further sexual offending. A well-known instrument is the Structured Assessment of Risk and Need (SARN). In addition to evaluating static and dynamic factors (see the preceding section), it also examines issues relevant to formulating treatment programmes for individuals. The SARN covers the following issues:

Sexual interests:

• Pre-occupation with sex and related activities.

• Sexual preferences for children and pre-pubescent individuals over adults.

• Sexual violence – preference for coerced rather than consensual sex.

• Sexual deviance of relevance – other aspects of original offences that were socially deviant.

Distorted attitudes:

• Regarding male dominance as a significant part of sexual relations.

• The man’s entitlement to sexual activity as he desires it.

• Minimising the seriousness of sexual activity with children.

• Justification of rape.

• Viewing women as corrupting or exploitive.

Social and emotional aspects:

• Feeling lonely and inadequate.

• Preferring emotional intimacy with children.

• Suspicious, angry and vengeful.

• Lack of intimate relationships as an adult.

Self-management:

• Impulsive and irresponsible.

• Difficulty in dealing with challenges.

• Uncontrolled outbursts of emotion.

Women, of course, can also have distorted attitudes and beliefs about sexuality and violence, but the great majority of assessments in these are carried out with men.