The
fundamental premise of the "What Works" literature is that
service tools must be matched to individual offender's:
risk,
need
and responsivity.
In providing
services to offenders or referring them to services from other providers,
there is nothing more important to staff than matching an offender
to the specific services he/she needs. The use of standardized,
objective and empirically validated assessments is critical to this
matching process. These instruments almost always outperform staff's
subjective evaluations. Nonetheless, professional discretion and
judgment must always inform final decisions.