7:22 K Correctionaladministration V 10 Managing Risk through Offender Classification LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Define classification and risk assessment and how they are used to improve the effectiveness of correctional agencies. 2. List and describe the eight major current uses of classification and risk assessment in corrections. 3. Explain how objective classification systems have improved the classification process and saved money for correctional agencies. 4. Summarize the evolution of offender classification over the past century. 5. Compare and contrast the use of the initial classification of prison inmates with the reclassification process for inmates. 6. Distinguish between the past approaches to parole decision making and the approaches using risk assessment instruments. 7. Give examples of how risk assessment and classification are used for community offenders. 8. Describe sentencing guidelines and how they are used by courts to sentence offenders. 9. Identify the ways that jails use classification systems, and the issues they confront in their effective use. 10. Summarize the reasons that prison overcrowding can reduce the effective use of objective classification systems for inmates. INTRODUCTION What is offender classification, and how does risk assessment contribute to it? What does it have to do with correctional administration? And, how do each of these assist in the man- agement of offenders and of correctional agencies? These questions are answered in this chapter. Both of these concepts are defined and presented in detail in this chapter. In general terms, classification is a process that is used throughout the criminal justice decision-mak- ing process to identify and match offender needs with correctional resources, resulting in the assignment of offenders into groups of individuals with similar traits or characteristics. Risk assessment, to some extent. is a subcomponent of offender classification. Risk assessment is an attempt to predict an offender's future behavior, especially the potential for or likeli- hood of future criminal violations. Therefore, risk assessment provides information useful 235 236 Chapter 10 . Managing Risk through Offender Classification to offender classification decisions and helps guide the placement of offenders into homogeneous management categories. echnique that has been used by correctional administrators