Search results

Purpose – This chapter provides a roadmap for future research and evaluation on violent extremist risk analysis.

Methodology/Approach – The authors synthesize the lessons learned from process evaluations of general violence risk assessment, bias research, survey designs, linguistic analyses, and spatial analyses, and apply them to the problem of violent extremist risk assessment and management.

Findings – The next generation of violent extremist risk assessment research will necessitate a focus upon process, barriers to effective implementation and taking the human element of decision-making into account. Furthermore, the development of putative risk factors for violent extremist attitudes and behaviors necessitates a movement toward more survey-based research designs. Future risk assessment processes may additionally take language and spatial components into account for a more holistic understanding.

Originality/Value – Based on existing literature, there is a paucity of research conducting process evaluations, survey designs, linguistic analyses, and spatial analyses in this area. The authors provide several roadmaps, assessments of respective strengths and weaknesses, and highlight some initial promising results.

Behavioral threat assessment and intervention is a violence prevention strategy that has become widely used in US schools. Instead of relying on a zero tolerance disciplinary approach that often leads to school exclusion of students with disabilities, schools can use a multidisciplinary threat assessment team to assess the seriousness and context of a student's behavior and identify appropriate interventions and supports. This process is especially valuable for students with disabilities who are identified as threatening violence. This chapter describes an evidence-based model of threat assessment, the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG), ¹ reviews some common misunderstandings of threat assessment, and presents a case example illustrating the value of threat assessment in preventing school exclusion, and provides services for a student with a disability.

There are substantive gaps in the literature in relation to older women in prison This chapter will utilise the risk, need and responsivity framework to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the characteristics attributable to this small but significant group. To date most research into the experiences of older women in prison consist of relatively small-scale qualitative research. Wahidin (2004) argues that this group may have been overlooked and broadly neglected because of a latent form of ageism which has served to permit organisational oversight (p. 10). While others reflect on the difficulties posed by such small numbers and subsequent lack of statistical power resulting in a dearth of research (Omolade, 2014).

Britton and Jensen (2003, p. 2) emphasised a well-documented dichotomy when they stated that a ‘women’s violence stands in stark contradiction to prevailing norms around (white) femininity’. For older women, a crude lack of intersectionality and denial of reality is combined with the systemic male bias of the criminal justice system (Kerr & Shackel, 2018), limited acknowledgement of variability (Chrisler & Palatino, 2016) and how these factors are considered in terms of risk, need and responsivity (Wilson-Smith & Carr, 2017).

This chapter will utilise these considerations as a foundation together with theoretical underpinnings of development, socialisation and incarceration, in order to further develop knowledge while emphasising the hidden challenges of older women in prison and identifying areas requiring urgent development.

In the year 2001, the Risk Assessment Pilot Program was implemented in Argentina with the aims of establishing a systematic manner of assessing risk for violent recidivism in conditional release candidates and contributing to the design of intervention programs that help to reduce the criminal recidivism rate. The baseline assessment showed that conditional release candidates had a high-risk profile: 72.5% had severe or moderate substance abuse problems; 62% had failed in previous probation, conditional release or discharge from a mental institution; 85% had serious or moderate employment problems before incarceration. Individuals who were substance abusers were incorporated to the Drug Abuse Biochemical Control Program. Variations in dynamic factors were assessed with conditionally released subjects. Some encouraging results were obtained through December 2003 and their initial impact on judicial and penitentiary institutions is already seen.

Acts of mass violence are not a new phenomenon in the United States. Law enforcement and homeland security officials prepare, prevent, respond, investigate, and assist in prosecuting offenders in these events. How then can the greater homeland security community effectively avert future acts of mass violence with its even broader mission set? Physical and technological security countermeasures are not enough to prevent these types of incidents from occurring. The purpose of this chapter is to briefly give an overview of some of the research into the indicators and traits exhibited by perpetrators of mass violence and the best practices that have evolved to intervene as a result. Recognizing the common traits and behaviors displayed by past attackers, their surrounding influences and the common traumas most of them have experienced, is an essential first step in developing effective strategies to prevent acts of mass violence.

Definitions of domestic homicide shape data collection and prevention efforts and, consequentially, our understanding of these crimes. This chapter explores issues related to defining domestic homicide in the context of our work with the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative with Vulnerable Populations (CDHPIVP). We discuss selected case studies to demonstrate what cases are included and excluded in this work and to highlight the importance of understanding our narrower, project-based definition in relation to the larger context of domestic violence-related homicides and deaths. By considering how victims and perpetrators are identified when defining domestic violence, we illustrate how undercounting of domestic homicide may occur, contributing to the “dark figure” of domestic homicide. Furthermore, we argue that cases from certain groups, such as Indigenous women in Canada, may be systematically excluded from definitions of domestic homicide. In reflecting on these issues and cases, our aim is to advance calls for consistency and transparency in definitions to allow for stronger research across jurisdictions (Fairbairn, Jaffe, & Dawson, 2017; Jaffe et al., 2017), as well as to support efforts of initiatives such as domestic violence death review committees (DVDRCs) in their work to prevent domestic homicides.