Citation

Hannah-Moffat K. Psychol. Crime Law 2016; 22(1-2): 33-46.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/1068316X.2015.1114115

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recent calls for 'evidence-based' approaches have firmly positioned risk assessment as a promising path towards more efficient, unbiased, and empirically based offender management, in custody and in the community. Simultaneously, sociological and critical legal scholars have questioned the focus on individual needs at the expense of wider structural factors'. I will demonstrate the need to reconceptualise risk/need logics and the use of 'evidence'. I will argue that various criminal justice processes are themselves dynamic criminogenic risks that produce systemic conditions for recidivism and which, if modified, could make a measurable difference in recidivism and other correctional efficiencies. Finally, I will argue that the logic of dynamic risk is transferable to an analysis of socio-structural factors, and that this characterisation can alter the framing of penal subjects, governmental responsibilities, and potentially interrupt the systemically produced criminogenic pathways that perpetuate criminal involvement and marginalisation.

Language: en

Keywords

gender; race; dynamic risk; correctional intervention; Criminogenic need; punishment