Actuarial principles and methods are centred upon an approach to crime control and prevention utilizing a risk prevention paradigm which uses evidence based intervention to control and prevent future risks of offending. Actuarialism was defined by Feeley and Simon (1994) as being a defined approach to crime control and management which dispenses with concerns about the meaning or motives behind offending and replaces these with an emphasis on ‘technologies’ of ‘risk minimization’ and the elimination of potential threats to social order. The Risk Factor Prevention Paradigm (RFPP) uses risk assessment and survey to identify factors in the key domains of a young person’s life that statistically increase the likelihood of offending or decrease its likelihood (Case, 2007. p. 92). Youth justice today is increasingly dominated by risk management however it has been heavily criticized. In this essay an explanation will be given of what the risk factors are, what the RFPP is and how actuarial practices are based on this methodological approach. It concludes that a focus on actuarial principles in the current youth justice system works against the fundamental principles of individualization in the criminal justice system .
Society has become increasingly concerned with risk and the management of it. It is defined as being an uncertain prediction of future behaviour with the possibility that the behaviour will be harmful or negative. The National Crime Council’s Document Tackling the Underlying Causes of Crime (2002) provides five categories of risk factors which are quantified as contributing to anti-social behaviour. They are as follows: Neighbourhood and Community Factors include: community disorganization and physical deterioration; high levels of mobility and lack of attachments to the community; local authority or rented housing; high proportion of single parent families; high percentage of young people; poor levels of service provision.
Socio-economic Deprivation includes: low family income/poverty; long term unemployed parents; poor housing; large family; single parent family.
Family Background/Parenting factors include: poor parenting skills – erratic or harsh discipline; lack of parental control, supervision and monitoring; poor or disruptive attachments with child; parental conflict; family breakdown/ family dysfunction; criminal, antisocial and/or alcoholic parents.
Individual Factors include: hyperactive and impulsive; lower than average IQ; mental and /or physical health problems; low self-esteem.
Academic and School Factors include: poor academic performance in primary school; disruptive and aggressive behaviour, including bullying; lack of concentration and motivation; poor attendance; lack of discipline and organization within the school; early school leaving. (cited in O’Mahony, 2009. pp. 100-101).
Assessment and management of risk has developed over the years with regards to children and young people engaging in criminal behaviour , however there are several criticisms regarding risk factors and the young people that may be ‘pulled’ into potential discrimination because of their individual, peer, biological and situational factors. Risks can be distributed unequally across social classes. Risk factors are not necessarily universal. Those produced from large cohorts of white young males, for example, may not readily transfer across ‘race’ and gender. Equally, risk factors associated with specific offences (such as serious sexual crime) might not apply to other offences (such as theft) (Goldson, 2008 ).

According to the Youth Crime Action Plan 2008 ‘effective early intervention to address these risk factors is not only a vital response to youth crime but also puts more young people on the path to success’ (HM Government, 2008. cited in Garside. 2009. p.4). Risk changes over time and place and effective management depends on the ability to demonstrate predictive accuracy of risk. Accuracy depends on the availability of information regarding the individual involved, in an actuarial approach, the prediction of reconviction is for certain groups of offenders so the accuracy of information depends on how much the individual shares the group characteristics of risk . This makes the actuarial method limited in its use with individuals and can only be used as a guide to assessing risk. ‘The use of predictive tools to justify actuarial practice has a number of crucial limitations. First, they are crude and incorporate the problem of applying generalized probabilities to individual children and young people . Individuals are ‘labelled’ without justification. Secondly, predictions are based on subjective judgements and are often inaccurate , there will be substantial numbers of ‘false positives’ – individuals wrongly identified as potential (re)offenders. Thirdly, the process of identifying and acting against individuals on the basis of their putative future behaviour is divisive and exclusive. It also threatens the rights of young people, who do not have to be proven offenders to incur intrusive interventions. Fourthly, interventions based on actuarial assessments have little impact on crime rates (France et al., 2004), suggesting that they are based on an unsound premise’ (Goldson, 2008). Actuarialism is more concerned with the prediction of future risk than it is with the well-being of an offender. The introduction of the RFPP, influenced by The Cambridge study in Delinquent Development came to force because of a desire for modern scientific, quantifiable and evidence-based practice – developmental criminology. In theory, its intention was to identify the main risk factors and put in place preventative methods to counteract them. The methodology and evidence used to explain offending has been put in place because of the commitment to actuarial and RFPP practice by the government , this has led to intervention which claims to target ‘at risk’ youth that could benefit from preventative programmes. One of the most important tools in the assessment of youth justices is ASSET, its assessment collects data on young offenders such as education/training, employment, relationships, physical and mental health, psycho-social factors, cognitive behavioural patterns, community environment as well as individual motivation. It is considered a useful tool for risk assessment, [and] enables more effective targeting of resources through increasing diagnostic accuracy: ‘offenders who are most likely to continue to offend can be identified at the earliest stage and steps can be taken to prevent it with confidence’ (Youth Justice Board, 2002a: 9 cited in Baker, 2005. p. 108). However, according to Case (2007) although ASSET has a 69% accuracy , actuarial risk assessment tools are not totally capable of the prediction of serious offences and re-offending and if the RFPP is to fully inform policy and practice in the Youth Justice System (YJS) utilizing these tools along with clinical assessment would strengthen its effectiveness.

The RFPP has become a powerful and dominant tool in juvenile justice. Research conducted by the RFPP is straightforward and practical and is supported by the government. Farrington (2000) states that it (RFPP) is easy to understand and communicate, and … is readily accepted by policy makers, practitioners, and the general public (cited in Garside, 2009. p. 7). The paradigm has been adopted by many countries because of its reliable means of predicting future offending and its usefulness of reducing risk. ‘Among the attractions of the RFPP are that it is readily intelligible, seemingly based on scientific methods and evidence, and unquestionably comprehensive and inclusive’ (O’Mahony, 2009, p. 100).

Considering Garside’s report on Risky people or risky societies , Garside highlights the idea that risk is unequally distributed amongst social classes in relation to the way that public health academics address risk. If we look at risk as a tool to predict that children that grow up in poverty are highly likely to commit an offence, then we are labeling all the children in those areas that are classed as poor, as criminals. There is a high likelihood that the majority of these children will, at some point in their lives commit an offence because of their background or upbringing, but is it right to label them all as such? Take into consideration particular individuals that choose not to live such a life, if we targeted all poor children, then the chances are that ‘false positive errors’ will identify non-criminal types as criminal types. In relation to public health ‘it is possible to identify certain individual risk factors associated with particular disease…smokers are at greater risk of developing various diseases than non-smokers, cardiovascular disease is associated with raised blood pressure or raised plasma cholesterol, and so on’ (Marmot, 2006. Cited in Garside, 2009, p. 12). Risk as a factor is much easier to explore through looking at a persons behavioral factors and the reasons why they do something rather than trying to predict something that they are likely to do in the future. ‘More broadly, the contemporary prevalence of risk management in social policy and criminology through the expert identification of risk categories has been criticized for putting ‘the lessening of risk, not the meeting of need’ in fundamental position of primacy’ (Culpitt, 1999. p. 35).

The focus on actuarial principles in the current YJS are deemed incompatible according to Baker et al . ‘A number of commentators have observed the way in which analyses of actuarial justice and the risk society thesis have converged resulting in an approach to youth offending which is statistically based and therefore limited in scope and subject to political manipulation. In particular, critics have argued that the existing focus of the actuarial approach to youth offending has been reductive in its understandings of broader socio-economic/ structural factors that impact upon risk assessment’ (Goldson, 2005 ). In relation to its incompatibility with the YJS, actuarialism relies on group gathered data to tell us who is likely to offend, this allows us to apply early intervention to those likely to commit a crime. Its accuracy is questionable, and produces high rates of ‘false positives’ and ‘false negatives’. Actuarialism targets children and young people of particular ethnic backgrounds and class and highlights the criminal and anti-social behaviour that they are predicted to commit. Tools of risk assessment have been introduced to communities where ‘problem groups’ offend, these tools, in the form of ASSET are set up to predict future behaviour and plan the appropriate intervention with such programmes and initiatives as the Youth Inclusion Programmes. Inclusion in these programmes can have the effect on a child or young person as being labelled, this can be percepted by them and their communities that they are offenders – even though they may not have committed an offence – just predicted to have committed one. Fear of children and young offenders caused by this labelling in local communities can be explained by examples such as hoodies. These hoodies are not necessarily causing any trouble, but the fear brought into communities by those that have caused trouble will be reciprocated. ‘Why, indeed should young people ‘hanging around’ be considered any more anti-social than owners who allow their dogs to foul the pavement?’ (crimereduction.gov.uk, 2004. cited in Smith, 2010. p. 103).

To conclude, actuarial principles go against the principles of the Youth Justice System because actuarial justice is much broader and pervasive than the principles of the YJS which seeks to individualise children and young people. ‘Adolescence itself increases the risk of delinquency far more than having early childhood indicators of risk (France, 2007. cited in O’Mahony, 2009, p. 103).

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Reference:

Baker, K. (2005) 'Assessment in Youth Justice: Professional Discretion and the Use of Asset', Youth Justice, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 106-122.
Case, S. (2007) Questioning the ‘Evidence’ of Risk that Underpins Evidence-led Youth Justice Interventions. Youth Justice. London. Sage
Culpitt, I. (1999) Social Policy and Risk. London. Sage
Feeley, M. and Simon, J. (1994) ‘Actuarial Justice: the Emerging New Criminal Law’, in Nelken, D. (ed.) The Futures of Criminology. London. Sage
Garside, R. (2009) Risky people or risky societies? Rethinking interventions for young adults in transition. Transition to adulthood. London. Centre for Crime and Justice Studies
Goldson, B. (2005) ‘Taking liberties: Policy and Punitive Turn’, in H.Hendrick (ed) Child Welfare and Social Policy. Bristol: Policy Press
Goldson, B. (2008) Dictionary of Youth Justice, Cullompton, Willan.
’Mahony, P. (2009) The Risk Factors Prevention Paradigm and the Causes of Youth Crime: A Deceptively Useful Analysis? Youth Justice. London. Sage
Smith, R. (2010) Acuarialism and Early Intervention in Contemporary Youth Justice: in Goldson, B and Muncie, J. (ed) Youth Crime and Justice. London. Sage