Training to See Risk: Measuring the Accuracy of Clinical and Actuarial Risk Assessments among Federal Probation Officers

Yet despite the lengthy history of statistical risk assessment and despite a substantial body of research demonstrating that actuarial predictions outperform unstructured clinical judgment, probation officers- bodi in the United States and abroad - have exhibited skepticism, ambivalence, and outright hostility toward actuarial assessment devices. In England, Horsefield suggested that, using their clinical judgment, "it is not difficult for probation service staff to identify who is likely to commit further offences" (2003: 377), and argued that the real value of using actuarial risk instruments lies in justifying the operations within the probation service, competing for resources, and regulating staff behavior.