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JAMES AUSTIN,Ph.D.President, JFAAssociates, Washington,DCThe Proper and Improper Use of Risk Assessmentin CorrectionsI. The Need to Manage RiskNearly 7 million adults are under some form of correc-tional supervision in the United States today as comparedto 1.8 million in 1980. As depicted in Table 1 below, thisrepresentsa270%increaseinthenumberofadultsundercorrectional supervision during this period. The largestnumber of offenders are on probation (nearly 4 million)followed by those in state and federal prison (1.4 million).Both the prison and jail populations have increased thefastest but there have also been significant increases inthe probation and parole populations. Part of the rea-son for these increases have been increases in the sizeof the U.S. population — 29% — and in the numberof persons arrested each year — an even higher 125%increase. However, specific policies have also tremen-dously impacted the size of the nation’s correctionalpopulations.rIncreases in the so-called length of stay (LOS),which represents how long people areincarcerated: The LOS has grown as courts handout longer prison terms or require prisoners toserve high proportions of their sentences via truthin sentencing laws.rIncreases in the number of probationers andparolees who have been sent to prison for technicalviolations: Such violations typically reflect a failureof the probationer or parolee to conform to theconditions of supervision, such as abstaining fromalcohol or drugs, maintaining a job and residency,and paying supervision fees.As the size and cost of this system have increased sohave the costs and concerns about the effectiveness ofplacing so many individuals on some form of correctionalsupervision in order to control crime. Justice Kennedy, inhis recent speech before the American Bar Association,directed attention to the “remarkable scale” of incarcera-tion in the United States compared to other industrializedcountries, the high proportion of African-American malesincarcerated, and the high expenditures for prisons. Henoted, “Our resources are misspent, our punishments toosevere, our sentences too long.” 1Justice Kennedy’s lament about the rate of imprison-ment has been well documented by the US Departmentof Justice. The federal government estimates that basedTable 1Adult Correctional Populations 1980–2002Population 1980 2002 % ChangeProbation 1,118,097 3,995,165 257%Jail 163,994 665,475 306%Prison 329,821 1,367,856 315%Parole 220,438 753,141 242%Total Adults Under 1,832,350 6,781,637 270%CorrectionsAdult Population 162.8 Million 209.4 million 29%% of Adults Under 1.1% 3.2% 188%CorrectionsAdult Arrests 5.8 million 13.7 million 125%on the current use of state and federal prisons, 5.6 millionliving adults have experienced prison. This represents 1in every 37 U.S. adults. 2 Based on current criminal jus-tice practices, 1 in every 15 Americans born today will beimprisoned during his or her life.The likelihood of incarceration for Black and Hispanicmales is even greater. Table 2 shows the life chances ofbeing imprisoned in 1974, 1991 and 2001 as calculatedby the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. One of everythree Black males will be sentenced to prison during hislife. For Hispanic males the probability is 1 in 6 and forwhite males it is 1 in 17. While women have substantiallylower rates of imprisonment, it is estimated that 1 in 55(1.8%) will be imprisoned, with Black females having aprobability of 1 in 19 (5.6%).Another grave concern is the extent to which releasedprisoners and probationers are failing to successfullycomplete their terms of supervision and will beTable 2Life Chances of Being Imprisoned In the UnitedStates (1974–2001)1974 1991 2001Total 1.9% 5.2% 6.6%MalesWhite 3.6% 9.1% 11.3%Black 13.4% 29.4% 32.2%Hispanic 4.0% 16.3% 17.2%Females 0.3% 1.1% 1.8%White 0.2% 0.5% 0.9%Black 1.1% 3.6% 5.6%Hispanic 0.4% 1.5% 2.2%Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 1–6, ISSN 1053-9867, electronic ISSN 1533-8363. © 2004 Vera Institute of Justice.All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, JournalsDivision, 2000 Center Street, Suite 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223.F E D E R A L S E N T E N C I N G R E P O R T E RrV O L . 16, N O . 3rF E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 4 1