Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR)
Definition
Andrews and Bonta's three-principle framework for corrections: match treatment intensity to risk level, target criminogenic needs, deliver in a responsive way. The empirical gold standard for offender rehabilitation programme design.
- Authors
- Donald Andrews and James Bonta
- Principles
- Risk, Need, Responsivity
- Risk principle
- Match treatment intensity to the offender's assessed reoffending risk
- Need principle
- Target dynamic criminogenic needs, not static traits
- Applied to
- Correctional and sex-offender treatment programme design
Common questions
Why does treating low-risk offenders as intensively as high-risk ones backfire?+
Overtreating low-risk individuals can disrupt stable pro-social routines and increase contact with higher-risk peers, which research links to a small rise in reoffending rather than a reduction.
How does RNR differ from the Good Lives Model?+
RNR is a risk-management framework focused on reducing criminogenic needs. The Good Lives Model is a strengths-based approach aimed at building an offender's capacity to meet personal goals through legitimate means; many programmes now combine both.
What counts as a criminogenic need under this framework?+
A dynamic, changeable factor statistically linked to reoffending, such as antisocial attitudes, substance misuse, or poor problem-solving skills, as opposed to fixed factors like age at first offence.
Related terms
- ATSA
- Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (US); their 2014 practice standards set the international benchmark for assessment, treatment programme design, and...
- Criminogenic Need
- A dynamic risk factor that is causally linked to reoffending and that changes in response to intervention. Distinguished from non-criminogenic needs that...
- Good Lives Model (GLM)
- Tony Ward's strengths-based treatment framework, holding that offending reflects maladaptive pursuit of universal human goods. Effective treatment builds prosocial routes to those...
- Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT)
- Greg Little and Kenneth Robinson's manualized group programme targeting moral reasoning development through structured workbook exercises. Widely used in US corrections; evidence...
- SOTP
- UK Sex Offender Treatment Programme, the largest structured sex-offender treatment system in England and Wales, withdrawn in 2017 after a Ministry of...
- Static-99R
- A 10-item actuarial sex-offender risk instrument; the -R denotes the age-at-release weighting adjustment. Scores map to relative-risk labels (Below Average through Well...
- SVP Civil Commitment
- A US legal mechanism (following Kansas v. Hendricks, 1997) that allows indefinite civil detention of convicted sex offenders assessed as likely to...