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Negotiated Risk: Actuarial Illusions and Discretion in Probation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Kelly Hannah-Moffat ,
Paula Maurutto  and
Sarah Turnbull
Kelly Hannah-Moffat
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto—[email protected]
Paula Maurutto
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Toronto—[email protected]
Sarah Turnbull
Affiliation:
Centre of Criminology, University of [email protected]
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Abstract

A “just punishment” is increasingly structured by actuarial probability frameworks. Actuarial risk technologies are often characterized as having supplanted much of practitioners' discretionary decision making with structured, quantitatively derived decision-making templates. Some scholars maintain that the transition to risk-based penality has led to “deskilling,” “scientification,” and “erosion of professional discretion,” or even to the elimination of criminal justice practitioners' use of professional discretion. This paper uses data from 71 semi-structured, open-ended interviews with criminal justice professionals to analyse how the introduction of risk tools shapes but does not eliminate discretion. We argue that risk tools are not simply imposed on criminal justice practitioners; instead, practitioners actively resist and embrace risk technologies and temper the impact risk tools have on their discretionary decision making. We maintain that the adoption of risk technologies reflects a negotiated process whereby practitioners welcome the professional advantages that these technologies afford while affirming the centrality of experience and clinical knowledge in decision making. We show how practitioners differentiate between the standardization intended by risk assessments and their own experiences and clinical knowledges, and how they exercise their discretion in an effort to mitigate the perceived discriminatory effects of the risk assessment. Thus, although risk tools are appealing to practitioners because their supposed “objectivity” makes them more defensible to the public, the adoption and use of these tools in the context of professional decision making is more complex and contradictory than much of the theoretical literature has assumed.

Résumé

Une « peine juste » est de plus en plus structurée selon le cadre de la probabilité actuarielle. Les technologies du risque actuariel sont souvent considérées comme des procédés ayant, en grande partie, supplanté la prise de décision discrétionnaire de la part des intervenants par des modèles décisionnaires structurés et quantitatifs. Certains savants soutiennent que la transition vers des pénalités basées sur le risque a mené à la «déqualification», à la «scientificité» et à «l'érosion de la discrétion professionnelle», voire même à l'élimination du pouvoir discrétionnaire professionnel de la part des praticiens du droit criminel. Basé sur 71 entrevues semi-structurées et non directives avec des professionnels de la justice criminelle, cet article analyse comment l'introduction des outils du risque façonne la discrétion sans toutefois l'éliminer. Nous soutenons que les outils du risque ne sont pas simplement imposés sur les praticiens de la justice criminelle. Au contraire, les praticiens résistent et utilisent activement les technologies du risque tout en atténuant l'impaete de ces outils sur leur capacité de prendre des décisions discrétionnaires. Nous soutenons que l'adoption des technologies du risque représente une négociation procédurale : les praticiens accueillent les avantages professionnels que ces technologies apportent tout en affirmant l'importance de l'expérience et de la connaissance clinique dans la prise de décision. Nous démontrons comment, premièrement, les praticiens font la distinction entre la standardisation de l'évaluation du risque et leurs propres expériences et connaissances cliniques et comment, deuxièmement, ils exercent de la discrétion dans le but de mitiger les effets discriminatoires associés à l'évaluation du risque. Ainsi, bien que les praticiens sont attirés vers les outils du risque par le fait que leur soi-disant «objectivité» les aident à défendre leurs décisions auprès du public, l'adoption et l'utilisation de ces outils dans le contexte de la prise de décisions professionnelles est plus complexe et contradictoire que laisserait croire la littérature théorique.

Keywords

risque actuarielpeineprobationdiscrétionactuarial riskpunishmentprobationdiscretion
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 24 , Issue 3: The Dilemmas of Discretion/Dilemmes Discrétionnaires , December 2009 , pp. 391 - 409
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 2009

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References

1 Harcourt, Bernard E., Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Maurutto, Paula and Hannah-Moffat, Kelly, “Understanding Risk in the Context of the Youth Criminal Justice Act,” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 49 (2007), 465CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 The use of actuarial risk assessments varies across the country; see, e.g., Hannah-Moffat, Kelly and Maurutto, Paula, Youth Risk/Need Assessment: An Overview of Issues and Practices (Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada, 2003)Google Scholar.

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10 Various versions of the LSI are used to assess men, women, and young offenders at most stages of the criminal justice process, guiding pre-sentencing, sentencing, institutional placement and programming, and release decisions. The LSI has undergone several modifications and enhancements, including a name change (the S previously meant supervision) and the proliferation of more than 10 versions of the tool in circulation.

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19 Researchers developing actuarial tools also make choices about the studies included in meta-analyses, the variables included in risk tables, the weighting of different variables, the wording of questions, and the type and interpretation of statistical analyses. For further discussion of the production of risk tools see Maurutto, and Hannah-Moffat, , “Assembling Risk”; Kelly Taylor and Kelley Blanchette, “The Women Are Not Wrong: It Is the Approach That Is Debatable,” Criminology and Public Policy 8 (2009), 209Google Scholar.

20 Third-generation risk assessments contain static risk factors that do not change (e.g., criminal history) and dynamic risk factors that do change (e.g., employment). Second-generation risk assessments rely primarily on static factors. First-generation risk assessment is non-actuarial, typically reliant on clinical judgment. See Hannah-Moffat, Kelly, “Criminogenic Needs and the Transformative Risk Subject,” Punishment and Society 7 (2005), 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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35 Wormith, “Adhering to Principles,” 4.

36 Likewise, VanBenschoten, “Risk/Needs Assessment,” acknowledges that if practitioners view current risk/need tools as “fraught with limitations,” they are less likely to accept the tools and use them to manage cases.