The Recent Past and Near Future of Risk and/or Need Assessment

The history of risk assessment in criminal justice has been written on several occasions (Andrews & Bonta, 2003; Clements, 1996; Hollin, 2002). Here we assess progress since Andrews, Bonta, and Hoge’s (1990; Andrews, Zinger, et al., 1990) statement of the human service principles of risk-needresponsivity (RNR) and professional discretion. In those articles, the corrections-based terms of risk and need were transformed into principles addressing the major clinical issues of who receives treatment (higher risk cases), what intermediate targets are set (reduce criminogenic needs), and what treatment strategies are employed (match strategies to the learning styles and motivation of cases: the principles of general and specific responsivity). General responsivity asserts the general power of behavioral, social learning, and cognitive-behavioral strategies. Specific responsivity suggests matching of service with personality, motivation, and ability and with demographics such as age, gender, and ethnicity. Nonadherence is possible for stated reasons under the principle of professional discretion. Expanded sets of principles now include consideration of case strengths, setting of multiple criminogenic needs as targets, community-based, staff relationship and structuring skills, and a management focus on integrity through the selection, training, and clinical supervision of staff and organizational supports (Andrews, 2001). The review is conducted in the context of the advent of the fourth generation of offender assessment. Bonta (1996) earlier described three generations of risk assessment. The first generation (1G) consisted mainly of unstructured professional judgments of the probability of offending behavior. A