Introduction.

• Author: Bloomenfeld, Miriam

The three articles in this special edition of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice on "Sentencing and Risk Assessment" examine the potential benefits and dangers of the growing use of risk-assessment instruments in criminal sentence hearings from three complementary perspectives. In "The Risk-Need-Responsivity Model of Assessment and Human Service in Prevention and Corrections: Crime-Prevention Jurisprudence," Professors D.A. Andrews and Craig Dowden focus on how the proper and informed application of these instruments can contribute to the reduction of recidivism and promote the goals of the criminal-sentencing process. In their article, "Understanding Risk in the Context of the Youth Criminal Justice Act," Professors Paula Maurutto and Kelly Hannah-Moffat sound a note of caution about the subjective assumptions that might invalidate the accuracy of risk assessments and about the potential for risk information to undermine the fundamental principle of proportionality in the youth context. Finally, in "The Umpires Strike Back: Canadian Judicial Experience with Risk-Assessment Instruments," Justice David P. Cole also questions the compatibility of risk and proportionality in the context of the criminal sentencing hearing and urges enhanced transparency so that the limitations, benefits, and legal relevance of risk-assessment tools can be fully aired.

While risk assessment has long been accepted as a post-sentence tool for guiding correctional decision making, its use has quietly crept into pre-sentence reports. As a result, risk/need-assessment information is increasingly embedded in pre-sentence reports and implicitly or overtly presented as factual data to be measured by legal-sentencing criteria in judicial decision making. The unheralded importation of the risk-assessment tool into pre-sentence reports has meant that, for the most part, these instruments have not been exposed to adversarial or legal scrutiny. As a result, there has been minimal critical evaluation of the affinity of the risk-assessment process and lexicon with the legal principles that govern criminal sentencing.

The shape, structure, content, and length of sentencing hearings vary dramatically according to the geographical jurisdiction, the level of court, the type of offence, and the circumstances of the individual being sentenced. In some cases, such as a dangerous-offender hearing, the use of a risk-assessment tool in the preparation of the pre-sentence report is extensively aired and debated. The vast majority of sentencing hearings, however, concern individuals who are facing far less serious consequences than in a dangerous-offender hearing, having committed more minor offences and usually coming before the courts without the baggage of an extensive criminal history. In these more typical cases, there may be a reference in a pre-sentence report to the offender's level of risk (e.g., low, medium, moderate, high), but little or no additional evidence disclosing that a risk-assessment instrument was used or fleshing out what type of information was gathered and relied upon and how the tool was...