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Addressing the Equity and Fairness of Assessments: How the National Guidelines can Transform Agencies’ Communication and Use of Post-Conviction Risk and Needs Assessments
SESSION INFO
Saturday, June 29, 2024
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Session Type: Workshop
In partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center worked with a group of 26 national experts to develop a set of 13 practical guidelines and a suite of practical resources that advise criminal justice agencies on prioritizing accuracy, fairness, transparency, and effective communication and use of post-conviction risk and needs assessments. The guidelines permit agencies to follow a coherent set of guidelines on the development and use of risk and needs assessment and encourage testing of their instruments for accuracy and fairness across race, ethnicity, and gender. This session will describe the benefits of adhering to the national guidelines, discuss summary of information received through the supplementary self-assessment tool, identify the first group of states receiving technical assistance and their areas of priority, share trends and lessons learned, and hear from a group of panelists who are prominent leaders in the field on related research, specific challenges agencies have encountered, and efforts to adopt the national guidelines.
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SESSION PRESENTERS
David D'Amora
Senior Policy Advisor, Council of State Governments
David A. D’Amora, MS, LPC, CCFC, is a senior policy advisor at the CSG Justice Center, is a licensed clinician with 45 years’ experience working in the areas of risk and needs assessment, violent offenders, and offenders with mental illness and has provided technical assistance and consultation to 49 states. At the CSG Justice Center he has co-authored Adults with Behavioral Health Needs under Correctional Supervision: A Shared Framework for Reducing Recidivism and Promoting Recovery (New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2012) and most recently A Five-Level Risk and Needs System: Maximizing Assessment Results in Corrections through the Development of a Common Language (New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2016). Prior to joining the CSG Justice Center, Mr. D’Amora served as the vice president of agency programs for a community-based agency providing multiple types of correctional and behavioral health treatment to formerly incarcerated people under community supervision. He was also a clinician at Somers State Prison and Meriden-Wallingford Hospital in Connecticut as well as a consultant with another national criminal justice technical assistance provider.
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