Family courts, risk assessment, and the moral compass.

The Anglo-American legal system regularly looks to forensic practitioners to provide expert testimony on the likelihood that an individual will pose a risk to others. Experts may be asked to provide risk assessments in the criminal court (with reference to a reoffending risk against either the general public or an identifiable victim) or in the civil courts (usually with reference to named individuals). In the family court, where the welfare of the child is paramount, mothers, fathers, and any other people with access to children may be the subject of risk assessment. Such assessments are one element of the evidence that the courts must consider in deciding the welfare of the child. There is now a considerable body of empirical evidence about risk and factors that increase it, including individual mental states and a variety of disorders. The business of predicting risk (or risk assessment) has grown exponentially in the past two decades, but there is considerable debate about the accuracy of prediction. Experts are required to perform specialist assessments to a high professional standard, with respect for the principles of ethics, especially the prevention of harm. Such advances in empirical understanding of risk have led to considerable professional concern about risk assessments that are ethically unacceptable, because they are carried out inappropriately or negligently. Negligence in this context may include ignoring relevant actuarial or clinical information or including irrelevant facts, both of which might substantially alter the outcome, with harmful effects on the evaluee. Experts are required to show that they have proficiency in performing risk assessments, for example, being trained in the use of specific tools such as the Psychopathy Checklist, Revised (PCL-R), or the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management Scale (HCR-20). The use of risk assessments in the family courts reflects the societal desire to be risk free (or at least risk aware). The stakes are particularly high in relation to children, where a vulnerable child may face immediate risk at the hands of a parent or face the risk of being separated from a nondangerous parent, if the assessment is wrong. Merely knowing about the risk is not enough; there must also be a strategy to prevent that risk.