What we know and don’t know about risk assessment with offenders of Indigenous heritage / by Leticia Gutierrez, L. Maaike Helmus, R. Karl Hanson.: PS113-1/2017-9E-PDF

“The over-representation of Indigenous offenders in the Canadian criminal justice system highlights the need for research on the applicability of risk assessment for this group. Given that most decisions throughout an offender’s progression through the criminal justice system are guided by the outcomes of risk assessment, it is essential that risk assessments be structured, objective, reliable and transparent. Furthermore, it is imperative that these risk assessments be empirically validated in order to defend their use with a diverse offender population. Meta-analyses and large-sample studies have demonstrated that the major risk factors and commonly used risk assessment scales predict recidivism for Indigenous offenders, but the predictive accuracy is weaker for Indigenous compared to non-Indigenous offenders. Given the consequences of risk assessment for offenders and matters of public safety, the reasons for these differences remain an important topic of research. Despite the evidence gaps, the available research supports the use of empirically validated structured risk assessments with offenders of Indigenous heritage, until there is more research done to better understand differences in predictive accuracy"--Abstract, p. 1.

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