Although it can be measured or presented in different ways, generally it is an estimate of the likelihood that an individual will engage in a specific set of behaviors in the future. Often, for clinical and scientific purposes, recidivism is considered to be any future criminal offense that a person with a criminal history engages in. In some cases, however, recidivism is more narrowly defined as a person committing an additional sex offense or an additional violent offense. Their risk (or likelihood) of engaging in such behaviors in the future is called recidivism risk.
Recidivism risk is usually completed by a forensic psychologist using one of many recidivism tools, a knowledge of research on the subject, and a comprehensive review of all available information on the individual in question (e.g., clinical interview, behavioral observations, record review, collateral contacts, possibly psychological testing, etc.). Recidivism tools consider a number of factors, almost all of which (depending on the test) are historical in nature. Many of the factors relate to offense characteristics. Sex offense recidivism measures particularly focus on offense characteristics, general offending history, and response to supervision.
You make a great point about bias, @Julianna Kirschner. The research on that subject is quite interesting. One could perhaps counter that, if the individual was returning to an overpoliced area following release from incarceration, the risk of arrest for recidivism would remain accurately high, justifying the use of the measure. Someone might argue then that the measure could simply be accurately reflecting bias which is already inherent to society rather than being biased itself. The research the measure was based on was, in large part, on those individuals in over-policed areas and therefore accurately reflects their risk. That being said, research also shows evaluators can be biased in their ratings on recidivism measures even outside of that, so you are quite right about the risks of bias.
Basically, we understand that there is an experiential effect that aids in shaping someones perceptions on crime and sanctions. So a person who commits crime and gets away with it will have a lower perception of risk of arrest whereas someone who commits a crime and is subsequently punished (hopefully swiftly, which is the basis of deterrence theory) will have a higher perception of risk of arrest.
That being said, we are interested in seeing if perception varied by the level of involvement with the CJ system as well as if those perceptions are accurate based on actual risk of arrest. We hypothesize that prolific offenders will have a lower perception of risk than our college student and community sample and even our sample of volunteer inmates and that the community/college sample would overestimate risk. We established prolific offenders using a scale based on previous violence and gun use and then coded their criminal histories. I guess we are essentially assuming that although the prolific offenders have extensive criminal histories, there still must be some dark figure of crime that they still commit (or people they know commit) and don't get caught for.
In our preliminary results- since we are still collecting data- we found that the community and student samples actually perceived the lowest risk of arrest overall (47% and 56% compared to 59% for prolific offenders), whereas actual risk of arrest (in general) is only about 21%.
I'll stop here before I end up sharing the whole paper!
I actually was just able to present this at the American Society of Criminology conference in Chicago a few weeks ago which was super exciting.
Hi Jonathan! I am not sure if forensic psychologists have their own system of determining a person's risk for recidivism, however many jurisdictions use Risk-Assessment Tools to help figure out the likelihood of recidivism. These tools are great to have on hand when making sentencing decisions and setting bond amounts. Unfortunately, there is some research that says these tools can still introduce bias just like people can! It uses different factors like age, criminal history, and socio-economic status among others to make these predictions and from what we know about policing practices, there are some areas that experience overpolicing. If this is the case, it could increase people's criminal histories which increases the "risk" of recidivism determined by the tool, ultimately leading to discriminatory sentencing. This is one reason that anyone who uses these scores should be educated on the tool itself beforehand.
What is the definition of recidivism risk?
Recidivism risk is usually completed by a forensic psychologist using one of many recidivism tools, a knowledge of research on the subject, and a comprehensive review of all available information on the individual in question (e.g., clinical interview, behavioral observations, record review, collateral contacts, possibly psychological testing, etc.). Recidivism tools consider a number of factors, almost all of which (depending on the test) are historical in nature. Many of the factors relate to offense characteristics. Sex offense recidivism measures particularly focus on offense characteristics, general offending history, and response to supervision.
You make a great point about bias, @Julianna Kirschner. The research on that subject is quite interesting. One could perhaps counter that, if the individual was returning to an overpoliced area following release from incarceration, the risk of arrest for recidivism would remain accurately high, justifying the use of the measure. Someone might argue then that the measure could simply be accurately reflecting bias which is already inherent to society rather than being biased itself. The research the measure was based on was, in large part, on those individuals in over-policed areas and therefore accurately reflects their risk. That being said, research also shows evaluators can be biased in their ratings on recidivism measures even outside of that, so you are quite right about the risks of bias.
Thanks for the enlightenment .
Hi Jonathan! I am not sure if forensic psychologists have their own system of determining a person's risk for recidivism, however many jurisdictions use Risk-Assessment Tools to help figure out the likelihood of recidivism. These tools are great to have on hand when making sentencing decisions and setting bond amounts. Unfortunately, there is some research that says these tools can still introduce bias just like people can! It uses different factors like age, criminal history, and socio-economic status among others to make these predictions and from what we know about policing practices, there are some areas that experience overpolicing. If this is the case, it could increase people's criminal histories which increases the "risk" of recidivism determined by the tool, ultimately leading to discriminatory sentencing. This is one reason that anyone who uses these scores should be educated on the tool itself beforehand.