Assessing Risks and Needs

The highlight of my day yesterday was a meeting with some of our friends at the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and the National Drug Court Institute. One of the things we talked about was the research that Doug Marlowe has been doing about risk and needs assessment and the importance of placing offenders in appropriate interventions. (There are dangers in putting low-risk/low-need individuals in intensive treatment modalities just as there are dangers in putting high-risk/high-need individuals in low-intensity interventions.) For those who are interested, I encourage you to check out Marlowe's work, which is consistent with a lot of what our research team at the Center for Court Innovation has been producing of late.