Assessing violence risk with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders: considerations for forensic practice

Abstract

Forensic professionals and courts have frequently expressed concern about the susceptibility of contemporary risk assessment tools to cultural bias. Furthermore, progress in the development of valid methods of assessment for offenders who identify from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural backgrounds has been slow. This paper considers how cultural perspectives on risk are essential to the development of assessment methods that have greater validity and acceptance by both courts and the community. This will involve considering the social, cultural and political determinants of risk in each cultural group and the identification of those risk factors that are most relevant to forensic decision-making.

Key words:

• Aboriginal
• Torres Strait Islander
• culture
• forensic psychology
• Indigenous
• risk assessment
• structured professional judgement
• violence

Study with no human participants

 

Ethical standards

 

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Andrew Day has declared no conflicts of interest. Armon Tamatea has declared no conflicts of interest. Sharon Casey has declared no conflicts of interest. Lynore Geia has declared no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. It has, for example, been argued that ‘courts should insist that [ARA] be employed as a major instrument of risk assessment’ (Janus & Prentky, 2003, p. 1).

2. Figures reported from the meta-analysis conducted by Hanson and Bussière (1998), for example, indicated an average sexual recidivism rate of 18.9% for rapists and 12.7% for child molesters. Bartosh et al. (2003) have reported sexual reoffence rates of 5% for rapists, 14% for extra-familial child molesters, 11% for incest offenders, and 35% for ‘hands-off’ offenders, using rearrest as evidence of recidivism over a follow-up period ranging from 60 to 66 months. In a meta-analysis with a total combined sample of 4724 sexual offenders producing sexual recidivism estimates for periods of up to 15 years, Harris and Hanson (2004) did find that the combined overall recidivism rates for all offenders (14% after 5 years, 20% after 10 years and 24% after 15 years) were similar to those for rapists (14%, 21% and 24%) and the combined group of child molesters (13%, 18% and 23%). Significant differences were reported, however, between subgroups of child sexual offenders. Incest offenders (6%, 9% and 13%) had similar rates to extra-familial girl-victim child offenders (9%, 13% and 16%); both were significantly lower than the rates for extra-familial boy-victim child offenders (23%, 28% and 35%).

3. This term is used here as Olver and Wong are writing from a Canadian perspective.

4. In Australia alone, for example, there are thought to be over 600 distinctive cultural and language groups, and it is likely that significant differences exist between each of them.