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" My reasons for arguing that resources should be disproportionately devoted to those at greater risk are rooted in criminal justice literature. Though counterintuitive, the evidence is clear: when low-risk inmates receive treatment in prisons, or in the community, their recidivism actually goes up. Lower-risk inmates are not “broken” to begin with, but putting them in treatment they do not need tells them they are broken, makes them angry, and mixes them with higher-risk inmates who are broken and who negatively influence other people.
In one study, high-risk offenders averaged a 92 percent recidivism rate under minimal treatment conditions, but their rate dropped to 25 percent under intensive treatment conditions. The lower-risk offenders, on the other hand, averaged 12 percent recidivism under minimal treatment conditions, but their rate increased to 29 percent under intensive treatment conditions (Andrews & Friesen, 1987). Many meta-analyses have confirmed this counterintuitive pattern of higher-level offenders getting better with the right kind of treatment and lower-level offenders actually getting worse (Andrews, et al., 1990).
By putting lower-risk people in prison we also take them away from all the things that make them low risk—supportive wives and children, meaningful jobs, pro-social friends, etc. Higher-risk inmates are broken and when they receive the right treatment their recidivism goes down. This is called the “risk principle.” It tells prison administrators who they should focus their scarce treatment resources on—the higher-risk inmates. The “need principle” tells administrators what they need to focus on once they know who requires the most help.
Many need areas such as mental health, poverty, and self-esteem are not predictive of crime. Most people who are poor and have low self-esteem, and most people who are suffering from clinical depression, do not commit crimes. Other need areas, known as “criminogenic need,” are highly predictive of crime. For example, individuals who have antisocial attitudes, values, and beliefs, antisocial friends, antisocial personalities (traits of impulsivity, low self-control, and narcissism), or substance abuse problems, are highly likely to commit crime and need help with these areas of their life. The risk and the need principles are just two of several, counterintuitive principles of effective correctional programming (Andrews, et al., 1990; Bogue, Diebel, & O’Connor, 2008; Bonta & Andrews, 2010; McNeil, Raynor, & Trotter, 2010). "
― Peter Boghossian , A Manual for Creating Atheists
