Introduction

This chapter considers how practitioners in criminal justice agencies make complex decisions about risk within the current highly charged climate of political and media concern about public protection. The aim is not to look simply at questions of procedure, for example whether practitioners complete assessments within the required timescales, as these are investigated elsewhere (HMIP, 2006c and 2006d), but to develop a richer discussion of how practitioners make difficult judgements about risk. In this analysis, ‘risk’ refers predominantly to the risk of harm that a young person may present to others (the general public, named individuals or staff) although many of the issues would also be relevant to discussion of assessments of vulnerability or risk of self-harm and suicide.

The kind of scrutiny and public concern that has long been focused on decisions made by social workers about child protection is now being applied to criminal justice decisions about risk; but how much is known about how practitioners actually make such assessments? To what extent do current organisational goals and specified procedures for practice in criminal justice settings – in particular the use of structured assessment tools – shape the decision-making processes of practitioners? It is a key argument of this chapter that, while the core assessment tools used in youth justice and probation services (Asset and OASys) have helped to improve assessment quality, further consideration now needs to be given to ways of deepening knowledge and improving analysis rather than just collecting more information.

Assessment and prediction

The use of tools to predict offending behaviour is not a new development but although numerous studies have shown the superior predictive accuracy of actuarial methods compared to clinical approaches (Grove et al, 2000), there are several important caveats to note. Meehl argues that statistical methods outperform clinical approaches with regard to the prediction of ‘somewhat heterogeneous, crude, socially defined behaviour outcomes’ (1966: 122). The question of whether a young person is reconvicted within one or two years from the date of an assessment could be an example of this type of outcome. Meehl also points out, however, that a practitioner's creation of ‘moment to moment clinical predictions’ (1966: 126) may be more relevant than statistical calculations to the day-to-day management of cases.