Risk assessment refers to determining the potential threat that an individual as upon their release from custody because of mental illness and/or criminal activity. There are two methods of risk assessments they are actuarial and clinical judgment (Brown & Singh, 2014). Actuarial risk assessment refers to a method of assessment that is based on statistics that estimates the risk level of a particular event to occur for example, how likely is this offender to commit a violent crime. There are requirements of actuarial instruments they include there being scientific integrity and practical utility (Baumann, Law, Sheets, Reid, & Graham, 2005). Practical utility involves being efficient, being accessible, and producing actual results that are desired
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Clinicians can use either actuarially based schemas or structured professional judgment (SPJ) tool but there is evidence that suggests that both approaches are capable of predicting violence with a similar degree of accuracy (Yang, Wong, & Coid, 2010). Actuarial tools are based on empirically derived constructs that predict future violence or antisocial activities. Examples of these constructs include historical, clinical, and situational. Secondly, these constructs can be subdivided into different categories for example, clinical constructs seen only is children and adolescence such as bullying other children in school (Yang et al., 2010). One disadvantage of actuarial tools that that they only predict a specific risk because they are only looking for a single construct for example the PCL-R only look for psychopathic traits such as affect deficits and dysfunctional personality traits (Yang et al., …show more content…
SPJ advantages include that they are structured for transparency, they are not based on intuition, and that final judgments are based on the best available research not just statistics meaning that the assessment provides a holistic picture (Guy, 2008). Additional advantages of the SPJ model include they guide the evaluator to consider the individual and their contextual factors that would increase or decrease their risk for violence; they provide guidelines on how to carry out the assessment allowing for more consistency; and SPJ in a work in progress because of the ability of the individual to change over time (Guy, Packer, & Warnken,
Clinicians can use either actuarially based schemas or structured professional judgment (SPJ) tool but there is evidence that suggests that both approaches are capable of predicting violence with a similar degree of accuracy (Yang, Wong, & Coid, 2010). Actuarial tools are based on empirically derived constructs that predict future violence or antisocial activities. Examples of these constructs include historical, clinical, and situational. Secondly, these constructs can be subdivided into different categories for example, clinical constructs seen only is children and adolescence such as bullying other children in school (Yang et al., 2010). One disadvantage of actuarial tools that that they only predict a specific risk because they are only looking for a single construct for example the PCL-R only look for psychopathic traits such as affect deficits and dysfunctional personality traits (Yang et al., …show more content…
SPJ advantages include that they are structured for transparency, they are not based on intuition, and that final judgments are based on the best available research not just statistics meaning that the assessment provides a holistic picture (Guy, 2008). Additional advantages of the SPJ model include they guide the evaluator to consider the individual and their contextual factors that would increase or decrease their risk for violence; they provide guidelines on how to carry out the assessment allowing for more consistency; and SPJ in a work in progress because of the ability of the individual to change over time (Guy, Packer, & Warnken,