Book Review: Faye S Taxman (ed.), Handbook on Risk and Need Assessment. Theory and Practice, Jay P. Singh, Daryl G. Kroner, J. Stephen Wormith, Sarah L. Desmarais and Zachary Hamilton (ed.), Handbook of Recidivism Risk/Needs Assessment Tools
| Author | Martine Herzog-Evans |
| DOI | 10.1177/2066220318817667 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
https://doi.org/10.1177/2066220318817667
European Journal of Probation
2018, Vol. 10(3) 249 –252
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/2066220318817667
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Book Review
Faye S Taxman (ed.), Handbook on Risk and Need Assessment. Theory and Practice, Routledge:
Abingdon, 2017, 475 pp.: ISBN: 978-1-138-92776-6, £150 (hbk)
Jay P. Singh, Daryl G. Kroner, J. Stephen Wormith, Sarah L. Desmarais and Zachary Hamilton
(ed.), Handbook of Recidivism Risk/Needs Assessment Tools, Wiley Blackwell: Oboken, NJ, 2018,
315 pp.: ISBN: 978-1-119-18429-4, $68.44 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Martine Herzog-Evans, University of Reims, France
In 2017 and 2018, two important edited books about Risk–Needs Assessment (RNA)
were published. They are first of all noteworthy because of the reputation of their authors
and their authors’ expertise in both the Risk–Needs–Responsivity (RNR) and the RNA
domains. The first one (2017) is edited by Faye S Taxman, who had previously published
a book with Pattavina about RNA (2016). As to the second book (2018), every reader
will be familiar with the meta-analyses and other fundamental studies published by its
authors. Both books are particularly inspiring in that they present, each in their own dif-
ferent way, the extant knowledge relating to RNA, whilst advancing it further. Both
contribute to the ambitious task that Faye Taxman seems to have embraced over the last
few years, which is to improve the RNR model and fill some of its gaps. She makes this
goal remarkably clear in the introductory chapter to her edited volume, which she writes
with Dezember. The authors recognise the importance of RNA values whilst raising
questions such as how well instruments predict or measure, how instruments have been
validated, and crucially, how instruments are actually used in the field. Rather than con-
clude, as is too often the case, that assessment tools should ‘therefore’ [sic] be rejected,
they make a particularly well-informed and convincing argument in favour of improving
how they are implemented. Implementation is undoubtedly the bane of RNA utilisation,
and in addressing this particular issue, Taxman and Dezember can draw upon the pio-
neering work Taxman herself conducted with Belenko in 2012 in which, in particular,
she drew upon theories of innovation diffusion (notably Rogers, 2003).
I would not be doing justice to the incomparable depth of the two books if I summa-
rised their entire content. I shall, therefore, have to select a few chapters that particularly
attracted my attention.
In Taxman’s volume, I was particularly interested in Burrell’s chapter, which pertains
to the implementation of RNA. Burrell points to an issue I have myself noted frequently,
if not systematically, in my own jurisdiction, which is the tendency to tick off items
without truly understanding or even knowing what they are measuring. This leads to pat-
ent mistakes and/or the ‘big return of the holistic’. Unfortunately, just because one builds
817667EJP0010.1177/2066220318817667European Journal of ProbationBook Review
2018
Book Review
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