Risk And Needs Assessment

This essay will evaluate the efficiency of the risks and needs assessment (RNA) tool that is used within the criminal justice system. The risks and needs assessment tool is widely known for predicting violent behavior along with psychotic tendencies among inmates and criminal offenders. The nature of how well the tool predicts which inmates are at a low risk or high risk of displaying violence among corrections staff members and inmates will determine if the tool works. The rate inmates’ recidivate after taking the assessment for a period of time will be a factor in understanding the behavior among criminals. However, there are some problems that the risk and needs assessment tool does not address. The tool implements an offender’s race

In fact, a good portion of citizens are arrested for either a misdemeanor crime or felonious crime. The crimes may range from robbery, larceny, burglary, murder, grand theft auto, domestic abuse and more. All of these crimes share a similar element, which is violence. Those who enter the criminal justice system as juveniles or adults tend to have built up trauma that leads to them being a violent offender. The nature of the risks and needs tool takes into consideration all possible trauma related incidents that may or may not have occurred in an individual’s life. It is then packed into an assessment test that determines if the person will recidivate or relapse into a tendency that got them into jail or prison in the first place. The ‘risk’ principle of the test is to make sure the offender does not commit the same offence in the future. The “Needs are the deficits (such as substance abuse, family problems, educational problems, and pro-criminal attitudes) that, if unchanged, increase the risk of reoffending” (Heibrun, K., Dematteo, D., Brooks, S., Yasuhara, K., Shah, S., Anumba, N., & … Pich, M. (2011). Thus, depending on the type of trauma he or she experienced at some point before entering the system, the damage left contributes to the violence he or she

One reason why the RNA tool is still used today even though it is lacking is because the “risk factors can provide deeper understanding of the mechanisms behind recidivism and misconduct, but this hinges on construct validity of the assessments” Salo, B., Laaksonen, T., & Santtila, P. (2016). This means that although there is evidence of reducing recidivism among offenders, it depends on how well the instrument is utilized. If the predictive ability of the RNA tool is poor, it can be argued that the results are not something to rely on. Having the wrong information after being assessed can damage a person’s reputation and