Risk Assessment in Parole Decisions: a Study of Life Sentence Prisoners In

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Risk Assessment in Parole Decisions: a Study of Life Sentence Prisoners In RISK ASSESSMENT IN PAROLE DECISIONS: A STUDY OF LIFE SENTENCE PRISONERS IN ENGLAND AND WALES Robert Anthony Forde A thesis submitted to the College of Life and Environmental Sciences of the University of Birmingham for the Doctorate in Forensic Psychology Practice Centre for Forensic and Criminological Psychology School of Psychology University of Birmingham United Kingdom University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof Anthony Beech, for his help in preparing this thesis. This has extended beyond advice about the conduct of research. I have considerable experience of writing psychological reports, journalistic articles, and fiction, but almost none of academic writing, and his help in deciding how to present this work has therefore been invaluable. I would also like to thank my wife, Pamela, who agreed to marry me without any idea that she would spend the first three years of married life as a doctoral thesis widow. Her support, in this as in so many other things, has been second to none. Most importantly, I would like to thank the 100 prisoners who gave me unrestricted access to often highly personal details of their lives, offending histories, and parole applications. I hope they feel that the result makes a fair and objective contribution to the debate over parole which periodically arises. Abstract This thesis examines the relationships between risk assessment and parole decisions. Chapter 1 introduces the problem. Chapter 2 systematically reviews 29 papers involving 20,568 participants, concluding that practices vary widely, but subjective rather than evidence-based risk assessment predominates. Chapter 3 reports a study of how parole decisions related to three widely-used risk assessment instruments (the PCL-R, the HCR-20, and the SVR-20), and recommendations of professionals (psychologists and probation officers) on 100 life sentence prisoners in England and Wales, 84 of whom were eligible for parole. The study found that parole decisions were related to the recommendations of professionals, especially that of the offender manager (external probation officer). Professional recommendations themselves were related to the more subjective subscales of the risk assessment instruments. Chapter 4 considers an instrument used in the research, the PCL-R psychopathy assessment, concluding that the PCL-R, although it may have been successful in academic research, lacks reliability when used as a risk assessment instrument “in the field”. Chapter 5 discusses the findings, concluding that the present system of risk assessment for parole in England and Wales is not evidence-based and that as a result many low-risk prisoners are likely to undergo prolonged detention unnecessarily. CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM .................................................. 1 CHAPTER 2: WHAT DETERMINES PAROLE DECISIONS? A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF 29 PAPERS INVOLVING 20,568 CASES. .............................................. 7 Abstract .............................................................................................................7 Introduction .......................................................................................................8 Method ............................................................................................................10 Quality assessment ..........................................................................................12 Analysis strategy .............................................................................................16 1. Parole applicants’ criminal histories .......................................................... 17 1.1 Previous criminal history ......................................................................... 17 1.2 Nature of the index offence ...................................................................... 19 1.3 Discussion: Parole applicants’ criminal histories .................................... 21 2. Current sentence variables ......................................................................... 22 2.1 Current sentence length ............................................................................ 23 2.2 Time already served ................................................................................. 23 2.3 Institutional misconduct reports ............................................................... 24 2.4 Completion of institutional programmes ................................................. 25 2.5 Denial of the index offence ...................................................................... 25 2.6 Discussion: Current sentence variables.................................................... 26 3. Applicants’ personal characteristics .......................................................... 27 3.1 Intellectual and social factors, and gender ............................................... 28 3.2 Ethnicity ................................................................................................... 28 3.3 Mental health issues ................................................................................. 29 3.4 Psychopathy ............................................................................................. 30 3.5 Age ........................................................................................................... 31 3.6 Offender statement/presence at hearing ................................................... 31 3.7 Discussion: Applicants’ personal characteristics ..................................... 32 4. Community-related factors ........................................................................ 33 4.1 Employment prospects ............................................................................. 33 4.2 Perceived community attitudes ................................................................ 34 4.3 Victim participation in parole hearing ..................................................... 34 4.4 Discussion: Community-related factors ................................................... 35 5. Professional and correctional staff reports ................................................. 36 5.1 Probation reports ...................................................................................... 37 5.2 Reports from senior prison staff .............................................................. 38 5.3 Parole readiness assessment ..................................................................... 39 5.4 Lead parole board member’s opinion ...................................................... 39 5.5 Discussion: Professional and correctional staff reports ........................... 40 6. Risk rating scales ....................................................................................... 40 6.1 Risk of parole failure scales ..................................................................... 41 6.2 Reconviction risk scales ........................................................................... 42 6.3 Discussion: Risk rating scales .................................................................. 44 7. Individual parole board member characteristics ........................................ 45 7.1 Gender ...................................................................................................... 45 7.2 Individual variability ................................................................................ 46 7.3 Discussion: Individual parole board member characteristics .................. 46 8. Cognitive processes in parole decisions..................................................... 47 8.1 Mental depletion ...................................................................................... 48 8.2 Discussion: Cognitive processes in parole decisions ............................... 49 Discussion .......................................................................................................49 Implications.....................................................................................................53 FOREWORD TO CHAPTER 3 ..................................................................................... 56 CHAPTER 3: A STUDY OF RISK FACTORS AND PAROLE DECISIONS FOR 84 LIFE SENTENCE PRISONERS .................................................................................... 59 Abstract ...........................................................................................................59 Introduction .....................................................................................................60 The parole system in England and Wales ...................................................... 60 Previous research on parole criteria ............................................................... 62 Clinical risk assessment ................................................................................. 68 The present study ............................................................................................69 Hypotheses
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