Risk assessment tools lead to fewer incarcerations without jeopardizing public safety: SFU study

We put a lot of faith into our face to face interactions, don’t we? You want to be able to judge for yourself whether someone is lying or telling the truth, because we think we can do that, if we can just “see for ourselves.”

But what if we can’t? One area where this is a critical topic is the criminal justice system. Think about all the judges and people in the system who make decisions about incarcerating people based on their own, personal assessment of whether or not someone seems like a risk to reoffend, or jump bail, or whatever the case may be. 

But a new study shows that maybe we should leave those decisions to other kinds of tools, like risk assessment tools. Perhaps the outcome will be better - for people, for crime stats, and for the overall justice system.

How could that be? Let’s find out about a study that looked into all of this. Professor Jodi Viljoen is with Simon Fraser University’s Department of Psychology and joins us now. 

Guest: Professor Jodi Viljoen

SFU Department of Psychology

We put a lot of faith into our face to face interactions, don’t we? You want to be able to judge for yourself whether someone is lying or telling the truth, because we think we can do that, if we can just “see for ourselves.”

But what if we can’t? One area where this is a critical topic is the criminal justice system. Think about all the judges and people in the system who make decisions about incarcerating people based on their own, personal assessment of whether or not someone seems like a risk to reoffend, or jump bail, or whatever the case may be. 

But a new study shows that maybe we should leave those decisions to other kinds of tools, like risk assessment tools. Perhaps the outcome will be better - for people, for crime stats, and for the overall justice system.

How could that be? Let’s find out about a study that looked into all of this. Professor Jodi Viljoen is with Simon Fraser University’s Department of Psychology and joins us now. 

Guest: Professor Jodi Viljoen

SFU Department of Psychology