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Abstract:
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Increasing integration and availability of data on large groups of persons has been accompanied by proliferation of statistical and other algorithmic prediction tools. Controversy may ensue when statistical risk assessments are introduced to fields traditionally reliant on individual clinical evaluations. Such controversy has arisen about "actuarial" assessments of violence recidivism risk, i.e., the probability that someone found to have committed a violent act will commit another during a specified period. In several papers since 2007 in The British Journal of Psychiatry and other reputable journals, SD Hart and collaborators have claimed that statistical assessments of such risks are inherently too imprecise to be useful, using arguments that would, if valid, apply to statistical risk prediction generally. These require rebuttal on multiple grounds. We review the context and basic technical flaws in these arguments, and then two matters highlighted by this specific controversy: the conceptual elusiveness of terms such as "individual risk" and, more commonly, "his risk," and the potential damage when misapprehensions of evocative professional terms of art misinform policymakers.
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