Stable-2007 and indeterminate detention

Public safety is the primary reason to assess future risk in men with a history of sexual offending. Over the last twenty-five years our knowledge of, and ability to assess, dynamic risk factors in men with a history of sexual offending has meaningfully improved, but understanding, adoption, utilization, and reasonable implementation of the fruits of this new knowledge is not universal. This article presents a brief overview of the development of dynamic risk assessment for men with a history of sexual offending, primarily following the work of R. Karl Hanson and his associates. This is followed by a review of a meta-analysis on the reliability and validity of STABLE-2007 and two other independent studies that provide useful ancillary information. Utilizing STABLE-2007 with men faced with, or under sanction of indeterminate detention is the focus of this paper and we will review how mental health diagnoses affect recidivism assessment, some concerns about implicit assessment biases, how to employ stable dynamic assessment in secure facilities, address treatment implications resulting from dynamic assessment, and present ideas for future research. I will close by presenting nine (9) arguments why using STABLE-2007 is recommended practice with indeterminate detention populations.

Dynamic sexual offense risk assessment using the VRS-SO with indeterminate sentenced men

Indeterminate detention (ID) is a high stakes sanction reserved for exceptionally high risk-high need (HRHN) persons who are deemed to pose an undue risk to public safety. It is one of the most extreme measures that is routinely taken by justice systems to manage sexual violence risk and prevent sexual and violent recidivism. Naturally, risk assessment is most frequently employed as a mechanism to keep dangerous people in custody; but seldom is risk assessment viewed as a possible ticket out for men with an ID designation who have made substantive risk changes and whose risk can be safely managed in the community. This article features applications of a dynamic sexual violence risk assessment and treatment planning tool, the Violence Risk Scale-Sexual Offense version (VRS-SO), with ID individuals and other HRHN men, to assess risk in a dynamic manner to inform risk management efforts and release decisions. VRS-SO data on an ID sample are presented along with clinical illustrations of dynamic risk assessment. Several propositions are made with supporting data from VRS-SO normative research with treated sexual offending samples regarding the use of dynamic tools with ID men and the perils and pitfalls of relying solely on static measures. Ultimately, dynamic risk instruments can be used to track progress and monitor risk change over multiple assessments to inform release and reintegration decisions with ID persons. In this regard, dynamic assessment has the potential to help, rather than hinder, reintegration of ID sentenced persons and can inform safe, fair, and humane decisions.

Dynamic Risk Assessment of Ultra-Shallow-Buried and Large-Span Double-Arch Tunnel Construction

Ultra-shallow-buried and large-span double-arch tunnels face complex risks during construction. The risk sources are hidden, complicated, and diverse. The dynamic risk assessment problem cannot be solved satisfactorily by using the static method as an insufficient amount of research has been conducted. The land part of the Xiamen Haicang double-arch tunnel was selected as the background for the dynamic risk assessment of ultra-shallow-buried and large-span double-arch tunnel construction. The construction process was divided into five stages: pre-construction preparation; ground and surrounding rock reinforcement; pilot tunnel excavation; and the single-and the double-tunnel excavations of the main tunnel. Through consultation with tunnel experts, six first-level and thirty second-level risk evaluation indexes were proposed. The benchmark weight of the dynamic risk assessment index was determined by using the analytic hierarchy process. The weight of the risk evaluation index was revised according to the monitoring data and the construction stage. The fuzzy evaluation matrix of the construction risk membership degree was obtained by using the fuzzy comprehensive assessment method, and the calculation results were analyzed using the subsection assignment method. Control measures were suggested according to the risk assessment results. The risk assessment result of the double tunnel excavation stage of the main tunnel was level II, and the risk level was the highest among the five construction stages. The risk assessment result of the ground and surrounding rock reinforcement stage was level IV, and the risk level was the lowest. The dynamic construction safety risk assessment based on the fuzzy comprehensive assessment method is more timely, accurate, and reasonable than the traditional assessment method. The method can be adopted in similar engineering projects.

An Investigation of How Change in Dynamic Risk and Protective Factors Affects the Prediction of Imminent Criminal Recidivism

<p>Dynamic risk and protective factors are changeable, psychosocial variables associated with an increased or decreased likelihood of future criminal behaviour. These variables have an important role in correctional psychology. In particular, they are increasingly central to the management and supervision of individuals released from prison. The changeable nature of these variables means that, with frequent reassessment, the likelihood of recidivism can be monitored during the release period, and intervention can be more carefully targeted to an individual’s needs. However, research has yet to clearly demonstrate that reassessment of dynamic risk and protective factors can accurately track the likelihood of recidivism over time. Further, relatively little is known about how these variables change over time, and how change is associated with recidivism. This thesis set out to investigate whether reassessment of a dynamic risk assessment tool—the Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Re-entry (DRAOR; Serin, 2007; Serin, Mailloux, & Wilson, 2012)—would enhance the prediction of imminent recidivism among a large sample of high-risk men (n = 966) released from prison on parole in New Zealand. The analyses addressing this question were divided into three primary sections: 1) an investigation of whether a single proximal assessment was a more accurate predictor of imminent recidivism than a single baseline assessment completed shortly after release; 2) an investigation of whether a single proximal assessment was a more accurate predictor of recidivism than a series of aggregated measures across multiple time points, and; 3) an investigation of whether several different measures of intra-individual change demonstrated incremental predictive validity over the most proximal assessment. This approach represented a replication and extension of the framework set out by Lloyd (2015) in a recent thesis for testing whether reassessment of dynamic risk and protective factors enhances the prediction of imminent recidivism. Across all three sections, results provided consistent evidence that the most proximal assessment was the most accurate predictor of imminent recidivism. The most proximal assessment was a significantly more accurate predictor than a baseline assessment, and neither aggregation nor measures of intra-individual change clearly improved predictive accuracy. These results highlight the importance of reassessment for monitoring changes in the likelihood of recidivism over time and have important implications for community correctional agencies who are tasked with managing individuals released from prison, particularly those deemed to be the highest risk of recidivism. The results also have theoretical implications for the concepts of dynamic risk and protective factors and their role in the process leading to recidivism. A better understanding of the recidivism process should lead to intervention strategies that are more effective at reducing recidivism.</p>

An Investigation of How Change in Dynamic Risk and Protective Factors Affects the Prediction of Imminent Criminal Recidivism

<p>Dynamic risk and protective factors are changeable, psychosocial variables associated with an increased or decreased likelihood of future criminal behaviour. These variables have an important role in correctional psychology. In particular, they are increasingly central to the management and supervision of individuals released from prison. The changeable nature of these variables means that, with frequent reassessment, the likelihood of recidivism can be monitored during the release period, and intervention can be more carefully targeted to an individual’s needs. However, research has yet to clearly demonstrate that reassessment of dynamic risk and protective factors can accurately track the likelihood of recidivism over time. Further, relatively little is known about how these variables change over time, and how change is associated with recidivism. This thesis set out to investigate whether reassessment of a dynamic risk assessment tool—the Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Re-entry (DRAOR; Serin, 2007; Serin, Mailloux, & Wilson, 2012)—would enhance the prediction of imminent recidivism among a large sample of high-risk men (n = 966) released from prison on parole in New Zealand. The analyses addressing this question were divided into three primary sections: 1) an investigation of whether a single proximal assessment was a more accurate predictor of imminent recidivism than a single baseline assessment completed shortly after release; 2) an investigation of whether a single proximal assessment was a more accurate predictor of recidivism than a series of aggregated measures across multiple time points, and; 3) an investigation of whether several different measures of intra-individual change demonstrated incremental predictive validity over the most proximal assessment. This approach represented a replication and extension of the framework set out by Lloyd (2015) in a recent thesis for testing whether reassessment of dynamic risk and protective factors enhances the prediction of imminent recidivism. Across all three sections, results provided consistent evidence that the most proximal assessment was the most accurate predictor of imminent recidivism. The most proximal assessment was a significantly more accurate predictor than a baseline assessment, and neither aggregation nor measures of intra-individual change clearly improved predictive accuracy. These results highlight the importance of reassessment for monitoring changes in the likelihood of recidivism over time and have important implications for community correctional agencies who are tasked with managing individuals released from prison, particularly those deemed to be the highest risk of recidivism. The results also have theoretical implications for the concepts of dynamic risk and protective factors and their role in the process leading to recidivism. A better understanding of the recidivism process should lead to intervention strategies that are more effective at reducing recidivism.</p>

SEDRA: Selective Entry Dynamic Risk Assessment A mathematical model to safely keep the borders open during Covid-19

1.AbstractThe Covid-19 pandemic has brought the World to a near standstill for most of 2020 and 2021, causing chaos in international travel, driving many economies into the ground, particularly those largely based on tourism. The lack of standard tools to assist decision makers in structuring a coherent policy to allow foreign passengers into their county and the resulting panic-mode opening/closing the borders on every “new case” outburst or new variant “of concern”, have led several countries to costly and often meaningless decisions based on fear rather than science or logic. This study aims at providing a universal method to safely keep the borders open and allow conditional immigration to foreign passengers according to a “Risk Group” table that includes all the countries reporting data on their Covid-19 situation to the WHO and other organisms. The RG table is recalculated on a weekly basis according to a mathematical model described in this paper, dynamically assessing the status of the pandemic worldwide through the calculation of a “Safety Index” for each country. A prototype algorithm has been implemented in VBA/EXCEL and its results are published bi-weekly on a Github repository.

Regions of the zone of influence of the Great Silk Road and the Tea Road: strategic directions for the development of economic potential

In the current conditions of economic crises, emerging threats, and risks, there is a need to consider the risks of changes in the economic potential of regions when determining priorities for the development of economic potential. The author hasdeveloped an algorithm for substantiating the strategic directions of the development of the economic potential of the regions based on dynamic risk assessment and monitoring of the state of the potential. The proposed methodology was tested in 28 regions ofRussia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan of the zone of influence of the Great Silk Road and the Tea Road. The developed methodological approaches to determining the priorities for the development of the economic potential of the regions allow us to justify the strategic directions of growth, considering the risks

Understanding the Relevance of Triarchic Psychopathy for the Reintegration of New Zealand High-Risk Violent Offenders

<p>A significant number of male New Zealand high-risk violent offenders are released from prison onto parole each year. Many of these will also present with elevated psychopathic traits which have been hypothesised to cause significant difficulty in desisting from offending, often leading parolees to quickly recidivate or breach parole, and return to prison. Despite personality disorders having pervasive effects on functioning, other reintegration outcomes such as parolee experiences and reconviction risk on parole have previously been unlinked with personality disorders and even less so the specific components of psychopathy. Using an exploratory design, this study firstly investigated the relationships between the triarchic conceptualisation of psychopathy constructs of Disinhibition, Boldness, and Meanness individually with pre-release (Violence Risk Scale, Release Plan Quality, and RoC*RoI), and post-release (Dynamic Risk Assessment for Offender Re-entry, Probation Relationship Quality, Parole Experiences Measure, and recidivism) measures of reintegration outcomes. These measures were completed by a sample of high-risk violent offenders imminently before their release onto parole after serving custodial sentences of two years or more for a violent offence (pre-release), and at two months in the community (post-release). Secondly, the controversial question of whether boldness exacerbates or attenuates negative outcomes on parole over and above disinhibition or meanness was tested. Thirdly, relationships between psychopathy and recidivism mediated by reintegration outcome measures were examined. The triarchic scales were hypothesised to be relevant for reintegration outcomes, with poorer outcomes expected for disinhibition and meanness, and better outcomes expected for boldness. Further, boldness was expected to ameliorate negative outcomes when strongly present. Results indicated that the triarchic scales evinced differential relationships with reintegration outcomes, although boldness revealed non-significant outcomes in opposing directions from those hypothesised. Disinhibition and meanness evinced expected outcomes with reintegration outcome measures. An interaction effect was found between meanness and reconviction risk on parole at moderate and high levels of boldness; boldness potentiated the effect of meanness on reconviction risk on parole when meanness was already present. Finally, a significant partial mediation was revealed, where disinhibition and recidivism were mediated by parole experiences in three out of four recidivism outcomes. Implications for the theoretical and practical relevance of triarchic psychopathy for the reintegration of high-risk violent offenders, are discussed.</p>