Indigenous perspectives on violence risk assessment: A thematic analysis
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Author | Cynthia Willis-Esqueda,Stephane M Shepherd |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474517721485 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Indigenous perspectives
on violence risk
assessment: A
thematic analysis
Stephane M Shepherd
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Cynthia Willis-Esqueda
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Abstract
Violence risk instruments are widely employed with at-risk minority clients in correc-
tional and forensic mental health settings. However, the construction and subsequent
validation of such instruments rarely, if at all, incorporate the perceptions, worldviews,
life experiences, and belief systems of non-white communities. This study utilized a
culturally informed qualitative approach to address the cross-cultural disparities in the
forensic risk literature. Cultural perspectives on violence risk assessment were elicited
from a sample of 30 American Indian and First Nations professionals from health, legal,
and pedagogical sectors following an inspection of the Structured Assessment of
Violence Risk in Youth instrument. Generally, participants believed that the
Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth instrument was not culturally appro-
priate for use with American Indian and First Nations youth in its current form.
Recurrent themes of concern included the instrument’s negative labeling capacity,
lack of cultural contextualization, individualized focus, and absence of cultural norms
and practices. Recommendations to improve the cross-cultural applicability of the
Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth are discussed within.
Corresponding author:
Stephane M Shepherd, Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science, Swinburne University of Technology, John
Street, Hawthorn 3122, Australia.
Email: sshepherd@swin.edu.au
Punishment & Society
2018, Vol. 20(5) 599–627
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474517721485
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Keywords
cross-cultural assessment, forensic psychology, Indigenous youth, risk assessment,
Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth, youth violence
Mental health practitioners and correctional professionals are often tasked with
assessing a client’s level of risk for future violence and other problem behaviors.
This process prompts a variety of medico-legal repercussions ranging from at-
tending to client areas of psycho-social need, institutional placement, and court
sanctioned restrictions on patient/offender liberties. In decades past, risk adju-
dication was unevenly performed by medical professionals before the introduc-
tion of scientifically grounded risk instruments which engendered a greater level
of assessor consistency and transparency (Dolan and Doyle, 2000; Grove et al.,
2000). The application of risk instruments in correctional and forensic hospital
settings is now commonplace (Singh et al., 2014; Viljoen et al., 2010; Wachter,
2014).
Risk instruments comprise a suite of factors associated with violence and
criminal behaviors. The items, which may include environmental (i.e. criminal
peers), clinical (i.e. major mental disorder symptoms), and historical (i.e. early
violence initiation) phenomena, are customarily derived from samples of
offenders and forensic patients (Helmus et al., 2012) or sourced from the behav-
ioral science and criminological literature (Douglas et al., 2013). Instrument
items may include static factors, which represent past unchangeable episodes (i.
e. age at first offence), and dynamic factors, also known as criminogenic needs,
which feature current changeable circumstances (i.e. peer group delinquency).
The way in which an assessor gathers and considers an individual’s risk factors
when evaluating their level of risk is shaped by the type of risk approach
employed. The “actuarial” approach to risk assessment is mechanical and com-
prises a fixed suite of weighted risk items that distinguish reoffenders from non-
reoffenders (Harris et al., 1993). A predictive orientation is favored while the
explanatory process of each risk item in relation to recidivism is less articulated
(Ward, 2016). Under the actuarial approach, clinical discretion is minimized and
risk factors with statistical associations with recidivism are prioritized. The
second approach, structured professional judgment (SPJ), allows for an assessor
to contextualize a list of static and dynamic risk items drawn from the empirical
literature base and then formulate an overall rating of risk (Douglas et al., 2013).
The assessor uses their discretion to identify the relevance of specific factors to
speculative acts of future violence in various scenarios and then formulate an
overall rating of risk (Guy et al., 2012). The aims of SPJ extend beyond predic-
tion, instead viewing assessment as a nuanced information gathering exercise to
prevent violence and guide intervention (Douglas et al., 2013). Despite their
procedural differences, actuarial and SPJ systems of risk assessment are widely
600 Punishment & Society 20(5)
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