Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

only the officer but his or her fellow officers and

members of the public in danger. This makes essential

the performance of these evaluations within the high-

est professional standards.

William E. Foote

See alsoAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Further Readings

Borum, R., Super, J., & Rand, M. (2003). Forensic

assessment for high-risk occupations. In A. M. Goldstein

(Ed.),Handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic

psychology(pp. 133–147). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Foote, W. E. (2003). Forensic evaluation in Americans with

Disabilities Act cases. In A. D. Goldstein & I. B. Weiner

(Eds.),Comprehensive handbook of forensic psychology:

Vol. 11. Forensic psychology.New York: Wiley.

IACP Police Psychological Services Section. (2004).

Psychological fitness-for-duty evaluation guidelines.Los

Angeles: Author. Retrieved April 15, 2007, from

http://www.theiacp.org/div_sec_com/sections/

PsychologicalFitnessforDutyEvaluation.pdf

RISKASSESSMENTAPPROACHES

Violence risk assessment is relevant to the field of law

and psychology because it occurs at numerous junc-

tures in the legal system, and it is one of the key areas

of research and clinical practice in forensic psychol-

ogy. This entry reviews two primary approaches to risk

assessment: unstructured and structured. The former

approach, sometimes also called clinical prediction or

judgment, imposes no rules on the decision-making

process, whereas the latter approach does. Two pri-

mary approaches to structured risk assessment include

(1) actuarial and (2) structured professional judgment

(SPJ). Although both structured approaches impose

rules in terms of which risk factors are considered and

defined, actuarial risk assessment uses an algorithm to

combine risk factors into a final decision, whereas SPJ

does not. This entry will describe these approaches,

along with their attendant strengths and weaknesses.

The Relevance and

Context of Risk Assessment

Risk assessment informs decisions about future vio-

lence. In numerous legal and clinical practice areas,

such decisions are required by statute, professional

ethics, or common law. For instance, in most jurisdic-

tions, a person must pose, inter alia, a risk of harm to

others (or to self) to be involuntarily civilly committed.

The release of prisoners from institutional to community

placement is typically contingent on whether they con-

stitute an undue risk to public safety. Risk assessment is

the basis for decision making in these situations.

Depending on jurisdiction in the United States, psychol-

ogists and other mental health professionals have com-

mon law and ethical duties to protect third parties from

the violence posed by their patients. Correspondingly,

risk assessment is used to determine whether a sexual

offender will be subjected to postsentence involuntary

commitment under sexual predator laws. Analogous

“indeterminate sentencing” provisions exist in non-U.S.

jurisdictions as well, for example, Canada and the

United Kingdom. As such, risk assessment plays a piv-

otal role in balancing public safety with constitutionally

protected rights and freedoms such as liberty.

Approaches to Risk Assessment

Contemporary approaches to risk assessment have

been heavily influenced by Paul Meehl’s distinction

between actuarial and clinical prediction. The former

refers to decision-making procedures that involve the

formal combination of variables or pieces of infor-

mation, by way of equations or other algorithmic

processes, to reach a decision. The latter is defined by

a lack of such rules. In contemporary risk assessment,

approaches may be generally classified as structured

and unstructured. As described below, unstructured

risk assessment is, in essence, the clinical prediction to

which Paul Meehl referred. Structured risk assessment

includes actuarial prediction as well as a more recent

approach termed structured professional judgment.

UUnnssttrruuccttuurreedd RRiisskk AAsssseessssmmeenntt

Conventionally,unstructured clinical judgment is the

most common approach to appraising an individual’s

risk for violence. By definition, it is based primarily on

professional opinion, intuition, and clinical experience.

Assessors have absolute discretion in terms of selecting

risk factors to consider, how to conceptualize them, how

to synthesize case material, and how to interpret this

information to render decisions. As such, this method is

inherently informal and subjective. Although clinical

judgment is a routine and necessary component within

many clinical decision-making contexts, the defining

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