The Risk–Need–Responsivity Model of Assessment and Human Service in Prevention and Corrections: Crime-Prevention Jurisprudence

Abstract

The general personality and social psychology underlying the Risk–Need–Responsivity (RNR) model of rehabilitation recognizes the importance of the personal, interpersonal, and relatively automatic sources of control over human behaviour as well as the power of cognitive-social-learning approaches to interpersonal influence in many social settings. In terms of both prediction and intervention, the RNR model has impressive but limited research support and is widely implemented, albeit with mixed support in routine correctional practice. This article suggests that RNR and the psychology that underlies it may also assist justice agencies and the courts through crime-prevention jurisprudence (CPJ). Always in the context of ethical, legal, just, and otherwise normative interventions, the first task is to help keep low-risk cases low risk and not interfere with existing strengths. The second task is to identify moderate and higher-risk cases and arrange crime-prevention activities consistent with ethical, legal, and just applications of the principles of RNR. Not the least of the benefits is the provision of an evidence-based set of crime-prevention practices as well as a language system that will facilitate inter-agency and intra-agency communication both within and outside of the justice, court, and correctional systems.