Introduction

Making a risk assessment about an offender requires the assessor to gather information about potential risk factors and to think about how those factors interact with each other, and with the behaviour of concern (Baker, 2006). As considered in Chapter Two, risk factors are based on findings about groups of offenders; being those variables that have been found to be associated with the likelihood of offending behaviour (McGuire, 2002b). The precise causal connections for any individual offender have to be considered for that individual in context (Kemshall et al, 2006). This process is not unproblematic because of the danger that, when considering offending behaviour, variables are wrongly ascribed causal status (Murji, 1999; Shaw and Hannah-Moffat, 2004), the substantive causes being ignored or underestimated.

Misattribution or oversimplification of the causes of offending behaviour are themes that influence the experiences of Black or Minority Ethnic offenders within the criminal justice system (Bowling and Phillips, 2002). This is not unique to these offenders, a misunderstanding of cause and effect is possible for any individual. Difficulties can be identified, for example, in work with women offenders and this was discussed in Chapter Three. Challenges to practitioners in making accurate and holistic assessments across ‘race’ and culture are, however, compounded by a number of influences, including lack of knowledge. “If little is known about women offenders, even less is understood about the qualitative differences between white and non-white offenders” (Shaw and Hannah-Moffat, 2004: 101).

Differences of ‘race’ and culture may also cause more anxiety and self-doubt in the practitioner than other areas of practice, to some extent because of those gaps in knowledge. Judgements are also being made in a politicised context. Again this is not unique to this aspect of practice; however, the social and political context around ‘race’ and culture is often heightened (Davis and Vennard, 2006).

Despite this, practice across difference in ‘race’ and culture has to retain clarity of purpose. The role of the practitioner fundamentally remains that of assessing risk and seeking to intervene in ways that minimise risk of reoffending and harm to others. A lack of knowledge does not just distort and limit understandings of risk factors, it also potentially affects responsivity (see Calverley et al, 2004).