Here's a bit of trivia. In published court cases, the word "actuarial" appears most often in court decisions which deal with sexual predators. It's not a context in which one expects to see references to members of the actuarial profession!
Let me explain. To write this blog I use a recurring search for newly published court decisions which use the words "actuary" or "actuarial." As
Laws in various states require that the government assess whether a defendant who has been convicted of a violent sexual crime or a sexual crime against children is likely to re-offend before releasing him or her. A defendant who is shown to be likely to re-offend may be kept in custody, despite the completion of his sentence. A typical example is State v. Williams, a Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision decided last week in which a defendant's petition for discharge was denied after reviewing testimony which included "actuarial models used to predict Williams' recidivism risk."
Examples of such actuarial models include the "Static-99" assessment. A website for the tool states:
The Static-99 is a ten item actuarial assessment instrument created by R. Karl Hanson, Ph.D. and David Thornton, Ph.D. for use with adult male sexual offenders who are at least 18 year of age at time of release to the community. It is the most widely used sex offender risk assessment instrument in the world, and is extensively used in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and many European nations.
The Static-99 website has a long list of court decisions discussing the use of such "actuarial risk assessments" for determining recidivism risk.
I have no basis on which to discuss whether such models are useful tools for addressing how states should handle sexually violent persons. What I find curious is the use of the word "actuarial" to discuss these risk models. So far in reviewing information about these models, I have not seen any credentialed actuaries involved in the development of the models. When is it appropriate to call a model "actuarial" as opposed to "statistical" or "probabilistic."?
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