State to begin trial of risk assessment program for felons

8-28-2012 Oregon:

Insurers use an actuarial tool to set premium rates for drivers based on their age, gender and driving record.

Starting next month, Oregon probation and parole officials will use a similar tool to predict the chances that convicted felons released from prison will commit a new crime or be rearrested, based on their age, gender and criminal history.

The new actuarial tool, called Oregon Public Safety Checklist, will replace an outdated, less reliable assessment that the state has relied on for more than 30 years, state officials say.

These risk assessments are considered an initial screen that drives what the state pays each county to supervise offenders, depending on their level of risk.

“It’s a sorting tool," said Scott Taylor, director of Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice. “It means that we will have a better understanding of who really are our high-risk people. It tells us which people have greater odds of re-offending and who we should be watching closer."

A pilot study is under way to determine how the new risk model can be used by judges at sentencing, or by prosecutors and defense lawyers negotiating a plea deal. The Marion County jail is using the new tool to help decide whom to release when there’s overcrowding. Multnomah County is considering using it to decide whom to recommend for release from custody pending trial.

“Everyone in the business of supervising offenders has said an actuarial tool is really the cornerstone in the modern world," said Craig Prins, executive director of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. “We’re trying to get a tool as accurate and as accessible as possible."

Prosecutors concerned

Yet prosecutors are concerned that the tool is faulty and misidentifies dangerous offenders as low risk. They point to the low-risk scores the tool gives convicted Woodburn bank bomber Bruce Turnidge or predatory sex offender Jeffrey Cutlip, who is now accused of two homicides in Portland in the 1970s.

Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote, who represents the state district attorneys’ association on the Governor’s Commission of Public Safety, is skeptical of the risk tool. He says it is imprecise and is inappropriate to use at sentencing.

For example, while the actuarial tool considers young offenders at greater risk of committing new crimes than older offenders, Foote argues that younger offenders shouldn’t be “targeted for harsher sentences" simply because of their age.

“The most important purpose of criminal sentencing is to achieve ‘justice’ through a proportional punishment that reflects the seriousness of the crime, the facts of the case and the defendant’s criminal history, if any," Foote wrote in a letter to the public safety commission Wednesday. “‘Risk’ of committing a new crime can be a factor in any sentence, but in the most serious crimes (including most felonies and some misdemeanors) ‘risk’ takes a back seat to the first priority of ‘justice.’"

The old way

Since 1979, the state has relied on something called the Oregon Case Management System to measure the risk that offenders may commit new felonies within three years of their release from prison or their ....continued... by Maxine Bernstein / The Oregonian