Jones-Wood Psychological Associates, Inc.’s forensic experts specialize in violence risk assessments as well as threat assessments. It is important to note that there is no way to predict whether or not a particular individual will become violent in the future. Violence risk assessments are evidence-based procedures that help determine an individual’s historical and current risk factors for violence, as well as their protective factors that might mitigate against future violence. These evaluations are most often requested from us in criminal cases, significantly for mitigation and sentencing purposes.
Common risk factors may include:
- Substance use problems
- Antisocial attitudes and/or peers
- History of violence
- Impulsivity
- Psychopathic personality features
- Anger
- Mental illness
- Lack of social support
At Jones-Wood Psychological Associates, Inc., we specifically utilize the most current assessment tools for these determinations. Depending on the situation, we may use actuarial assessments, such as the VRAG-R, or structured professional judgment instruments, such as the HCR-20-V3, PCL-R, or SAVRY.
On the other hand, threat assessment refers to the process of determining the credibility and seriousness of a potential threat. Instead of predicting an individual’s tendency to respond to situations violently (as with violence risk assessment), threat assessment focuses on interrupting those individuals on a pathway to commit violent acts. We aim to not only prevent violence, but to assist in resolving the conflicts or problems that are contributing to the threatening behavior.
Individuals referred to us for these types of evaluations may have yet to commit any violent act, such as the case of those who have made only threats to do so or have engaged in some sort of behavior that appears to warn of an impending violent act. Often, we perform these evaluations for students who have specifically threatened violence at school.
Some of the warning behaviors that may be indicative of increasing risk of violence include[1]:
- Pathway
- Planning, research, preparation, or implementation of an attack
- Fixation
- Increasingly pathological preoccupation with a person or a cause
- Identification
- Not only closely associating with weapons but also identifying with previous attackers or assassins, desiring to be an agent to advance a particular cause, etc.
- Novel aggression
- Acts of violence that appear unrelated to any targeted violence as well as performed to test the ability to actually do the violent act
- Energy burst
- Increase in the frequency or variety of activities related to the target
- Leakage
- Communicating to others the intent to do harm to the target
- Last resort
- Increasing desperation or distress, forcing the individual into a position in which they feel there is no alternative other than violence
- Directly communicated threat
- Specifically communicating a direct threat to the target or law enforcement beforehand
Our clinicians that specialize particularly in threat and violence risk assessments for juveniles:
Our clinicians that specialize particularly in threat and violence risk assessments for adults:
[1] Meloy, John & Hoffmann, Jens & Guldimann, Angela & James, David. (2012). The Role of Warning Behaviors in Threat Assessment: An Exploration and Suggested Typology. Behavioral sciences & the law. 30. 256-79. 10.1002/bsl.999.
Comments are closed