Three factors are identified as interfering with the greater use of standardized actuarial risk assessment instruments by community supervision officers: (1) a lack of training about how actuarial assessment tools function; (2) shortcomings in risk communication and understanding; and (3) a failure to affirm the importance of coupling actuarial risk assessments with clinical judgment. The author reviews research on clinical judgments versus actuarial predictions of offender risk, which reveals that unstructured clinical judgments are often inferior to predictions made by actuarial assessments while structured clinical judgments can fare just as well as some actuarial tools. However, the author points out that even the most trained and experienced professionals make predictions that perform no better than chance when they fail to use empirically derived actuarial assessment tools. The author contends that the best approach to offender risk assessment is to combine clinical judgment and skill with standardized actuarial risk assessment tools Research is also presented that illustrates that how risk is reported by actuarial tools influences the user’s understanding and acceptance of the assessment results. For example, when risk scores are presented as a frequency rather than as a probability, users tended to view offender risk as higher. Future research should focus on identifying the factors that most influence an officers’ likelihood of accepting and acting on risk assessment results. References