1. The Benefits & Challenges of Risk Assessment: An Overview of the Lethality Assessment Program- Maryland Model
Jamerson CS Watson National LAP Project Director Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV)
This project was supported by Grant Nos WE-AX-0016 and TA-AX-K057 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.

2. Overlapping Spheres Lethality Assessment
Safety Planning/Risk Management
Risk Assessment
TRAINER NOTES
If the victim is assessed as High-Danger and agrees to speak with the hotline advocate, the officer will:
Call the domestic violence hotline, advise the advocate of the High-Danger assessment, provide the victim’s basic information when prompted, and then pass the phone to the victim;
While the victim is speaking with the hotline, the officer should allow the victim some privacy, but should remain on the scene. This is for both practical and intangible purposes. The hotline advocate may require some assistance from the officer during the call or following the call (e.g., the victim may need transportation to shelter) or may disclose further information helpful to the investigation. The officer’s continued presence also communicates to the victim that the officer/advocate are a team who want to support the victim.
At the appropriate time during the conversation between the victim and the advocate, the advocate will ask the victim if the advocate may speak with the officer. The advocate will brief the officer about the plan, within the limits of confidentiality. It is important for officers to realize that hotline advocates are not free to share certain information. Officers should not second-guess decisions that the advocate can convey to the officer, but they must still act within the scope of their own responsibilities, realizing, nonetheless, that it is the victim who will make final decisions concerning their safety.
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© Lethality Assessment Program, a project of MNADV

3. What is lethality assessment?
Lethality assessment is a way to assess the level of danger in an intimate partner relationship.
Risk factors for re-assault are different than risk factors for lethality.
Examples: pet abuse, substance use, abuse during pregnancy, etc.
Why prioritize lethality assessment?
1,500 intimate partner homicides per year in the U.S., not including collateral deaths
For every 1 homicide, there are 8-9 near-homicides.
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© Lethality Assessment Program, a project of MNADV

4. Predictable and Preventable
For 28-33% of victims, the homicide or attempted homicide was the first act of violence.
More than 44% of perpetrators were arrested in the year prior to the homicide.
Only 4% of abused victims had used a DV hotline or shelter within the year prior to being killed by an intimate partner.
Women who went to shelter were significantly less likely to experience re-assault than those who did not go to shelter.
TRAINER NOTES:
Intimate partner homicides occur primarily in situations with specific, predictable factors. This knowledge makes homicides predictable, because research demonstrates that certain factors are present in intimate partner relationships that lead to homicide or attempted homicide.
One of the basic premises of the LAP is that intimate partner homicide is predictable, and therefore, preventable if evidence- based, proactive protocols are applied to identify and respond to High-Danger situations.
The LAP is considered by the U.S. Department of Justice to be one of two leading, evidence-based “promising practices” in the field of domestic violence homicide prevention.
It is important to understand from where the effectiveness of an evidence-based instrument like the Lethality Screen comes. No single instrument can empirically and infallibly predict whether an individual who manifests certain “lethality predictors” will be killed. But as research has shown that certain factors are predictive of lethal outcomes across the population, evidence-based instruments can help first responders more accurately assess the danger present in a situation of intimate partner violence.
We come to this conclusion by examining the research of Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell. Dr. Campbell investigated cases of intimate partner femicide and near-femicides in 11 locations throughout the US. She examined the police reports, medical records, and witness and victim reports of these cases. Her analysis has show us that:
For between 28-33% of victims, the homicide or attempted homicide was the first act of violence.
These statistics come from two pieces of Dr. Campbell’s research—one that studied women who had been killed by their intimate partners, and one that involved interviews with women who had been nearly killed by their intimate partners, but survived.
In both studies, for about a third of victims, the homicide or attempted homicide was the first act of violence.
A complementary statistic which does not appear here is that 83% of victims of near-homicide, regardless of whether they had been assaulted by their abuser before the homicide attempt, reported that their abusers had exhibited jealous, controlling, or stalking behavior.
This communicates that physical violence is not the most accurate predictor of homicide.
The Lethality Screen reflects this. There is only one question on the Screen—the one about choking—that gets at physical violence.
Thus, the Screen is especially insightful at revealing homicide risk for those victims where assault hasn’t occurred, but perhaps a constellation of other lethality predictors are endangering the victim’s life.
[Nicolaidis, C., Curry, M.A., Ulrich, Y., Sharps, P., McFarlane, J., Campbell, D., Gary, F., Laughon, K., Glass, N., & Campbell, J.C. (2003). Could we have known? A qualitative analysis of data from women who survived an attempted homicide by an intimate partner. Journal of General Internal Medicine 18,
[Sharps, P. W., Koziol-McLain, J., Campbell, J. C., McFarlane, J., Sachs, C., & Xu, X. (2001). Missed opportunities for prevention of femicide by health care providers. Preventive Medicine 33, ”]
PREVENTABLE
In the year prior to the homicide, more than 44% of abusers were arrested, and almost one-third of victims contacted the police.
This statistic communicates that intimate partner homicide is preventable. These contacts with the criminal justice system demonstrate missed opportunities to identify victims of highest risk of being killed by their intimate partners.
Alternatively, only 4% of abused victims had used a DV hotline or shelter within the year prior to being killed by an intimate partner.
This statistic complements the “missed opportunities” statistic above because it shows that High-Danger victims aren’t self-initiating contact with DV-specific resources.
They do, however, come in contact much more often with law enforcement.
The LAP capitalizes on the contact that law enforcement has with High-Danger victims in the field, and connects High-Danger victims who might not have otherwise reached out for with local resources.
© Lethality Assessment Program, a project of MNADV
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5. Is Your Community Ready?
The LAP requires a strong collaboration and trust between law enforcement and the local domestic violence service program.
The increased expectations of LAP implementation
The local domestic violence service program will see an increase in clients as a result of implementation.
The law enforcement agency will experience any increase in length of approximately 15 minutes per call resulting from conducting the screen and connecting with the hotline for High-Danger victims.
A High-Danger victim must be given the option to talk to an advocate immediately.
The 24-hour hotline must not be an answering service and it must be managed directly by a domestic violence service program.
TRAINER NOTES
If the victim is assessed as High-Danger and agrees to speak with the hotline advocate, the officer will:
Call the domestic violence hotline, advise the advocate of the High-Danger assessment, provide the victim’s basic information when prompted, and then pass the phone to the victim;
While the victim is speaking with the hotline, the officer should allow the victim some privacy, but should remain on the scene. This is for both practical and intangible purposes. The hotline advocate may require some assistance from the officer during the call or following the call (e.g., the victim may need transportation to shelter) or may disclose further information helpful to the investigation. The officer’s continued presence also communicates to the victim that the officer/advocate are a team who want to support the victim.
At the appropriate time during the conversation between the victim and the advocate, the advocate will ask the victim if the advocate may speak with the officer. The advocate will brief the officer about the plan, within the limits of confidentiality. It is important for officers to realize that hotline advocates are not free to share certain information. Officers should not second-guess decisions that the advocate can convey to the officer, but they must still act within the scope of their own responsibilities, realizing, nonetheless, that it is the victim who will make final decisions concerning their safety.
© Lethality Assessment Program, a project of MNADV
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6. Contact Information
Jamerson CS Watson
National LAP Project Director
Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV)
TRAINER NOTES
If the victim is assessed as High-Danger and agrees to speak with the hotline advocate, the officer will:
Call the domestic violence hotline, advise the advocate of the High-Danger assessment, provide the victim’s basic information when prompted, and then pass the phone to the victim;
While the victim is speaking with the hotline, the officer should allow the victim some privacy, but should remain on the scene. This is for both practical and intangible purposes. The hotline advocate may require some assistance from the officer during the call or following the call (e.g., the victim may need transportation to shelter) or may disclose further information helpful to the investigation. The officer’s continued presence also communicates to the victim that the officer/advocate are a team who want to support the victim.
At the appropriate time during the conversation between the victim and the advocate, the advocate will ask the victim if the advocate may speak with the officer. The advocate will brief the officer about the plan, within the limits of confidentiality. It is important for officers to realize that hotline advocates are not free to share certain information. Officers should not second-guess decisions that the advocate can convey to the officer, but they must still act within the scope of their own responsibilities, realizing, nonetheless, that it is the victim who will make final decisions concerning their safety.
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