EXAM 3; 3-10-12-13-14
Chapter 3: The Psychology of Police Investigations
Police interrogation: A process whereby the police interview a suspect for the purpose of
gathering evidence and obtaining a confession
Chapter 10: Risk assessments
Risk Factor: Definition
● Risk Factor – measurable feature of an individual that predicts the behavior of interest
(e.g., criminal behaviour or violence)
● Risk is viewed as a range (Steadman, 2000)
● Probabilities change across times
● Interaction among offender characteristics and situation
● Risk assessment has 2 components:
● Predication = probability that individual can become criminal or commit violent
acts focus on identifying risk factor to future violence
● Management = development of interventions to manage/reduce likelihood of
future violence focus on identifying treatments/conditions need to reduce level
Risk Assessments: Civil Settings
● Civil commitment hospitalized involuntarily because mental illness + danger to
self/others psychiatric/psychological interventions/identify circumstances
● Child protection protect child from abuse (sexual, physical, neglection); gov. protection
agency decides of child removed temporarily/permanent from parents; know to predict
childhood maltreatment
● Immigration laws chances that person will not commit crime or have profil for being a
criminal prohibit the admission of individuals into Canada if there are reasonable
grounds for believing they will engage in acts of violence or if they pose a risk to the
social, cultural, or economic functioning of Canadian society.
● School and labor regulations provisions to prevent any kind of act that would endanger
others.
● Duty to warn preventing; or seeing someone being hurt and not doing anything = can be
arrested; mental health professionals expected to see if patient’s likelihood to be
, violent and have to intervene to prevent behavior; duty to protect children; knowing
minor is neglected or abused = sentence
Limits of confidentiality professionals can break confidentiality rules if real risk of
assessments
Risk Assessments: Criminal Settings
● Risk assessments conducted at major decision points:
● Pretrial what's the risk?
● Sentencing Prison = risk assessment during sentencing = solitary confinement;
high = maximum security
● Release risk to commit other crimes after; if high = no parole; risk high even
after sentence ended = conditions can be applied (ex: pedophilia = X km from
kids/schools); even own lawyer NEEDS to say what risk
● Public safety outweighs attorney-client privilege
Predictions: decisions vs outcomes
True positive A correct prediction that occurs when a person who is predicted to engage in
some type of behaviour (e.g., a violent act) does so
True negative A correct prediction that occurs when a person who is predicted not to engage in
some type of behaviour (e.g., a violent act) does not
False positive incorrect prediction that occurs when a person is predicted to engage in some
type of behaviour (e.g., a violent act) but does not
False negative An incorrect prediction that occurs when a person is predicted not to engage in
some type of behaviour (e.g., a violent act) but does
Two false = dependant on each other
,Base Rates:
• Represents the % of people within a given population who commit a criminal or violent
act
– Prediction difficult when base rates are too high= everybody does it or low =
nobody does it
– False positives tend to occur with low base rates
• Easier to predict frequent vs. infrequent events
– Prediction on women = very poor because less women criminals
History of risk assessment
• 1960’s = civil rights concerns provided opportunity to study accuracy of mental health
professionals in predicting violence
Methodological issues
• Risk assessment assumes that risk can be measured
o Ideal: we would let every criminal out and see who reoffends
o Reality: some people are just too dangerous to let out into the society, so we
follow people that are moderately at risk
• 3 weaknesses in research (Monahan and Steadman, 1994)
o Limited numbers of risk factors
o How criterion variable is measured
o How criterion variable defined
• Asses large number of offenders + regardless risk level = release in the community but
would be tracked in case other crime risk assessment can be evaluated to determine if it
could accurately predict future crimes
• Finally, how the criterion variable is defined is a concern. In some studies, researchers
will classify their participants as having either engaged in violence or not.
•
Judgment Error and Biases
● Heuristics can lead to inaccurate decisions; Clinicians may make several types of
decision errors by including traits they intuitively believe to be important or assume to be
associated with the risk but that actually are not
● Illusory correlation believe that is correlated but its not ; Belief that a correlation
exists between two events that in reality are either not correlated or correlated to a much
, lesser degree; ex: a clinician might assume a strong correlation between a diagnosis of
mental disorder and high risk for violent behaviour. Although some forms of mental
disorder are related to an increased risk
● Ignore base rates where clinicians working in prisons or forensic psychiatric facilities
may not be aware of how often individuals with specific characteristics act violently
● Reliance on salient or unique cues we think that are important; not tested but if you look
away when talking or saying something = not credible; lying; avoiding to look in the eyes
● Overconfidence in judgements Clinicians who are very confident in their risk
assessments will be more likely to recommend and implement intervention strategies
Unstructured Clinical Judgment
● Decisions characterized by professional discretion and lack of guidelines no predefined
rules = what factors considered;
● Subjective biased about certain ethnic groups =
● No specific risk factors
● No rules about how risk decisions should be made
Actuarial Prediction
• Decisions based on risk factors that are selected and combined based on empirical or
statistical evidence static information = doesn’t change ; ex: how many courses have you
passed = doesn’t change/real VS dynamic information = always change = ex: how many
times do you shop/what type of friends? (depends on time period/age/many factors)
● Most actuarial risk instruments include only static risk factors --> if friends addict = after
rehab, most probably fall again because of entourage
● Evidence favours actuarial assessments over unstructured clinical judgment
Structured Professional Judgment
● Decisions guided by predetermined list of risk factors derived from research literature
● Judgment of risk level is based on professional judgement
● Diverse group of professionals not only clinician = law enforcement officers,
probation officers, and social workers
Chapter 3: The Psychology of Police Investigations
Police interrogation: A process whereby the police interview a suspect for the purpose of
gathering evidence and obtaining a confession
Chapter 10: Risk assessments
Risk Factor: Definition
● Risk Factor – measurable feature of an individual that predicts the behavior of interest
(e.g., criminal behaviour or violence)
● Risk is viewed as a range (Steadman, 2000)
● Probabilities change across times
● Interaction among offender characteristics and situation
● Risk assessment has 2 components:
● Predication = probability that individual can become criminal or commit violent
acts focus on identifying risk factor to future violence
● Management = development of interventions to manage/reduce likelihood of
future violence focus on identifying treatments/conditions need to reduce level
Risk Assessments: Civil Settings
● Civil commitment hospitalized involuntarily because mental illness + danger to
self/others psychiatric/psychological interventions/identify circumstances
● Child protection protect child from abuse (sexual, physical, neglection); gov. protection
agency decides of child removed temporarily/permanent from parents; know to predict
childhood maltreatment
● Immigration laws chances that person will not commit crime or have profil for being a
criminal prohibit the admission of individuals into Canada if there are reasonable
grounds for believing they will engage in acts of violence or if they pose a risk to the
social, cultural, or economic functioning of Canadian society.
● School and labor regulations provisions to prevent any kind of act that would endanger
others.
● Duty to warn preventing; or seeing someone being hurt and not doing anything = can be
arrested; mental health professionals expected to see if patient’s likelihood to be
, violent and have to intervene to prevent behavior; duty to protect children; knowing
minor is neglected or abused = sentence
Limits of confidentiality professionals can break confidentiality rules if real risk of
assessments
Risk Assessments: Criminal Settings
● Risk assessments conducted at major decision points:
● Pretrial what's the risk?
● Sentencing Prison = risk assessment during sentencing = solitary confinement;
high = maximum security
● Release risk to commit other crimes after; if high = no parole; risk high even
after sentence ended = conditions can be applied (ex: pedophilia = X km from
kids/schools); even own lawyer NEEDS to say what risk
● Public safety outweighs attorney-client privilege
Predictions: decisions vs outcomes
True positive A correct prediction that occurs when a person who is predicted to engage in
some type of behaviour (e.g., a violent act) does so
True negative A correct prediction that occurs when a person who is predicted not to engage in
some type of behaviour (e.g., a violent act) does not
False positive incorrect prediction that occurs when a person is predicted to engage in some
type of behaviour (e.g., a violent act) but does not
False negative An incorrect prediction that occurs when a person is predicted not to engage in
some type of behaviour (e.g., a violent act) but does
Two false = dependant on each other
,Base Rates:
• Represents the % of people within a given population who commit a criminal or violent
act
– Prediction difficult when base rates are too high= everybody does it or low =
nobody does it
– False positives tend to occur with low base rates
• Easier to predict frequent vs. infrequent events
– Prediction on women = very poor because less women criminals
History of risk assessment
• 1960’s = civil rights concerns provided opportunity to study accuracy of mental health
professionals in predicting violence
Methodological issues
• Risk assessment assumes that risk can be measured
o Ideal: we would let every criminal out and see who reoffends
o Reality: some people are just too dangerous to let out into the society, so we
follow people that are moderately at risk
• 3 weaknesses in research (Monahan and Steadman, 1994)
o Limited numbers of risk factors
o How criterion variable is measured
o How criterion variable defined
• Asses large number of offenders + regardless risk level = release in the community but
would be tracked in case other crime risk assessment can be evaluated to determine if it
could accurately predict future crimes
• Finally, how the criterion variable is defined is a concern. In some studies, researchers
will classify their participants as having either engaged in violence or not.
•
Judgment Error and Biases
● Heuristics can lead to inaccurate decisions; Clinicians may make several types of
decision errors by including traits they intuitively believe to be important or assume to be
associated with the risk but that actually are not
● Illusory correlation believe that is correlated but its not ; Belief that a correlation
exists between two events that in reality are either not correlated or correlated to a much
, lesser degree; ex: a clinician might assume a strong correlation between a diagnosis of
mental disorder and high risk for violent behaviour. Although some forms of mental
disorder are related to an increased risk
● Ignore base rates where clinicians working in prisons or forensic psychiatric facilities
may not be aware of how often individuals with specific characteristics act violently
● Reliance on salient or unique cues we think that are important; not tested but if you look
away when talking or saying something = not credible; lying; avoiding to look in the eyes
● Overconfidence in judgements Clinicians who are very confident in their risk
assessments will be more likely to recommend and implement intervention strategies
Unstructured Clinical Judgment
● Decisions characterized by professional discretion and lack of guidelines no predefined
rules = what factors considered;
● Subjective biased about certain ethnic groups =
● No specific risk factors
● No rules about how risk decisions should be made
Actuarial Prediction
• Decisions based on risk factors that are selected and combined based on empirical or
statistical evidence static information = doesn’t change ; ex: how many courses have you
passed = doesn’t change/real VS dynamic information = always change = ex: how many
times do you shop/what type of friends? (depends on time period/age/many factors)
● Most actuarial risk instruments include only static risk factors --> if friends addict = after
rehab, most probably fall again because of entourage
● Evidence favours actuarial assessments over unstructured clinical judgment
Structured Professional Judgment
● Decisions guided by predetermined list of risk factors derived from research literature
● Judgment of risk level is based on professional judgement
● Diverse group of professionals not only clinician = law enforcement officers,
probation officers, and social workers
