Violence Risk Assessments response part 1 and 2

,

In response to my collegue post, do you agree with their assessment of the accuracy? Why or why not? Do you agree with the weaknesses? Explain why you agree with the weaknesses, or why you do not. What would you add to their assessment? What are the legal implications?


Colleague post #1:In this weeks discussion, we had been asked to discuss the initial factors with our peers that we had found important in a violence risk assessment.  Discuss static, dynamic, and protective factors, as well think about utilizing them and how they may or may not improve the accuracy of the risk assessment.  We had also been asked to explain the weakness of the risk assessment and how the factors may play into the weakness. 

            In a violence risk assessment, there will be numerous factors that will need to be examined.  The key factors being dynamic, static, and protective. Within the assessment, there will be fixed factors which are variables that will remain constant throughout time, and ones that will raise the likelihood of future violence (Huss, 2014). A couple examples of static characteristics are gender and ethnicity.  By saying this, I mean that they are two elements that will be unlikely to change, which making them fixed.  You could also record the violence in a persons history to get a clearer picture on their static elements.  This suggests that if a person has a violent history, that they cannot change their reality.  Static variables are the easiest for the forensic psychologist doing the evaluation to identify, and they are the most relevant in long-term evaluations (Huss, 2014).

            When it comes to the dynamic risk variables, they can be defined by their capacity to alter over time.  Things such as unemployment and peer group effects are two examples of these issues (Huss, 2014).  They are malleable and can be altered by either time or some specific source, meaning that they can change at different rates (Huss, 2014).  Taking that into consideration, dynamic factors are placed into two different categories: Stable dynamic risk factors, and Critical dynamic risk factors.  Stable dynamic risk factors will often vary over time.  They are defined as having personal skill deficits, predilections, and learned behaviors that can change through a process of effortful intervention.  Critical dynamic risk factors are behaviors that can be found to change or influence an individual daily (such as drug usage).

            Protective factors do not eliminate the risk factors; instead, they reduce risk variables; yet they do not ensure that a person would stay nonviolent (Huss, 2014). These variables are characteristics associated with a lower likelihood of negative outcomes or found to reduce the risk factors impact.  The protective factor can also be seen as a positive countering event as well with concerns towards positive self-image, self-control, and social competence. 

            When concerning risk factors and their weaknesses, risk assessments may paint a picture of violence, yet the weakness of the risk assessment includes the measurement of violence, the definition of violence and the low base rate of violence (Huss, 2014).  When concerning the risk assessment, to what criteria do we do we use to determine the amount of violence? Violence that is not found to have happened on a frequent basis is not considered to be accurately quantified.  This means that the accuracy to measure the degree of closeness could not be calculated, so not all types of violence are considered. Because violence is rare, it is difficult to investigate and maintain reliable risk estimations (Huss, 2014).  This is why it is crucial for psychologist and researchers to agree on and characterize the degree of variables correctly in order to help improve future violence risk assessments. 

  

References

Huss, M. T. (2014). Forensic psychology: research, clinical practice, and applications (2nd ed.).   Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Colleague post #2:What is violence risk? According to Huss (2014), we need to understand what violence is first. Violence is the actual, attempted, or threatened physical harm that is deliberate and nonconsenting.  There are different factors and facets to consider when assessing risk. The assessments are broke out into 3 categories static, dynamic, and protective factors. Static factors are the risk of future violence and are fixed, example gender and ethnicity because a persons gender ethnicity doesnt change overtime. Dynamic factors tend to be flexible and open to change. These factors are more difficult to identify and study. Protective factors reduce the likelihood of the individual committing the violent act. An example is a person showing significant risk for suicide because of a history depression, drug problems, being abused etc. But if this person has a supportive social network, it buffers the likelihood of attempting suicide. In the reading for this week, Huss (2014) explains there are 5 different facets to violence risk assessments:

  • Nature the focus on the different predictor variables
  • Severity the potential severity of the violence (murder or slap on the face)
  • Frequency how many times an act was committed
  • Imminence how it happened (did the individual have unmanaged symptoms of schizophrenia or were the medicated correctly)
  • Likelihood what it the likelihood of the crime happening again

Static factors are historical variables and some of the first risk factors identified by forensic psychologist (Huss 2014). These factors are deemed useful in long -term assessments. The use of the factors can be passed off as a risk by suggesting if an individual was presented as a risk, they will always be a risk. However, this is not true, but according to the definition they will never change. The static factor deems the individual to never be able to change. Interestingly, by assessing static risk factors by themselves is problematic because the fixed issues do not change over time.

Dynamic factors are more difficult to identify. These factors provide a list of variables to be considered in the risk assessment. As dynamic factors are flexible and open to change the variables are directed in interventions to manage and reduce the violence. There are 2 different ways the variables can be measured. Violence Risk Scale (VRS) accesses the level of change taken place in risk after treatment. The other measurement, Short Term Assessment of Risk Treatability (START), measures 20 dynamic variables to make decisions on the level of care for individuals at risk for violence. These minimize the risk for future violence in terms as they relate and address the facets of risk violence assessment (Huss 2014).

Protective factors are to reduce the individuals risk for future violent acts. Whereas static factors never change, and dynamic factors can change, protective factors do not guarantee no violence with individual, but it does reduce the risk factor. Huss (2014) mentions how protective factors are usually factors that interact with the other risk factors to reduce someones risk for violence, like comparing two people that have identical levels of risk but behave differently. Positivity or having something to look forward to can reduce the risk of an individual because this fact gives a little positivity and encouragement to not turn to violent acts. 

Reference:

Huss, M. T. (2014). Forensic Psychology: Research, Clinical Practice, and Applications. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley


What Students Are Saying About Us

.......... Customer ID: 12*** | Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Honestly, I was afraid to send my paper to you, but you proved you are a trustworthy service. My essay was done in less than a day, and I received a brilliant piece. I didn’t even believe it was my essay at first 🙂 Great job, thank you!"

.......... Customer ID: 11***| Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"This company is the best there is. They saved me so many times, I cannot even keep count. Now I recommend it to all my friends, and none of them have complained about it. The writers here are excellent."


"Order a custom Paper on Similar Assignment at essayfount.com! No Plagiarism! Enjoy 20% Discount!"


Related posts:

  1. Age-related sterotypes
  2. faces of Medicaid
  3. assignment 2
  4. Nursing Metaparadigms – Peer Response 1
/by