RISK ASSESSMENT AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE:

BRIDGING RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

WEBINAR FOR THE BATTERED WOMEN’S JUSTICE PROJECT

MAY 18, 2011Lauren Bennett Cattaneo, Ph.D. Associate Professor, George Mason University

My overarching perspective

As a researcher On the field of intimate partner violence

Why risk assessment?

Limitations on resources Need for appropriate response Time-limited nature of contact with

potential victims Relevance across multiple contexts

Need to connect research to practice

Overview of presentation

3 areas of research on risk assessment in IPV Key findings Key gaps

Where to go from here

Sources of information about IPV risk

What we do and don’t know about risk assessment instruments

KEY FINDINGS: INSTRUMENTS PREDICT MODERATELY WELL – BETTER THAN CHANCE.

Goodman, Dutton & Bennett (2000)Roehl and colleagues (2005)Yang, Wong & Coid (2010)

What we do and don’t know about risk assessment instruments

KEY GAPS IN OUR KNOWLEDGE:•Studies over-rely on official reports of repeat violence as opposed to victim reports (Bennett Cattaneo & Goodman, 2005 review).

•Focus on prediction is of limited relevance to practice:

•Quantifying risk does not tell you what a specific person will do.

•Focus of practice is prevention, not prediction.

•Are instruments helpful to victims? To practitioners?

•How can we integrate prediction into risk management?

What we do and don’t know about victims’ assessment of their own

risk

KEY FINDINGS

Victims assess their own risk all the time. Victim assessments add above and beyond

risk factors and risk assessment instruments in predicting future violence (Bennett Cattaneo & Goodman, 2003; Bennett, Goodman & Dutton, 2000; Weisz, Tolman & Saunders, 2000; Heckert & Gondolf, 2004).

Victims do not exhibit any consistent type of bias in their predictions, and are moderately accurate.

Method

246 women seeking help for IPV at shelter, civil or criminal court

5 follow-up interviews over 18 months At intake measured assessment of risk & all

predictors. At 18 months asked if risks were realized Two questions:

1. How accurate are participants in predicting repeat abuse?

2. What predicts level of accuracy?

Q 1: No pessimistic or optimistic bias, and more likely to be right than wrong

Re-abused

Risk Perceived NO YES

LOW Correct Reject Miss

HIGH False Alarm Hit

Bennett Cattaneo, Bell, Goodman & Dutton, 2007; Bell, Bennett Cattaneo, Goodman & Dutton, 2007

KEY GAPS

What is the nature of risk assessment among IPV survivors who do not seek help?

How can we best include victim expertise in assessments of risk of physical abuse?

How are their perceptions influenced by input from other sources? Over time?

How can we best include victim conceptions of risk that are broader than physical abuse? (Davies, Lyon & Monti-Catania, 1998)

What we do and don’t know about professional assessments of risk

KEY FINDINGS •The problem of expert judgment (Westen & Weinberger, 2004)• No evidence they add to predictive accuracy of instruments (Williams & Houghton, 2004)• Comparable to victims, but draw on different information

Bennett Cattaneo (2007) Method

169 women who presented at court following arrest of current or former partner

5 victim advocates who interviewed them to assist in criminal case, to identify needs and to conduct safety planning

Both victims and advocates rated the likelihood of continued abuse of any kind on scale of 1-10

Follow-up with participants three months later

Bennett Cattaneo (2007) findings

Assessments of both victims and advocates were moderately correlated with continued abuse, but different factors influenced their risk assessments.

Victims: more symptoms of PTSD; batterer more generally violent; not living with the batterer at the time of the offense; higher level of psychological abuse.

Advocates: greater level of drug use by the batterer; victim and the batterer had children in common; greater levels of physical violence and psychological abuse.

What we do and don’t know about professional assessments of risk

KEY FINDINGS (2) •The problem of expert judgment (Westen & Weinberger, 2004)• No evidence they add to predictive accuracy of instruments • Comparable to victims, but draw on different information• The practice landscape is not well understood

Method & ResultsBennett Cattaneo & Chapman (in

press) Interviewed 13 local practitioners about

risk assessment practices Very few participants used any

standardized approach Many expected structure would be

disempowering Almost no information about what

victims gained about risk assessment practices

KEY GAPS

Is it true that more structure is disempowering?

How do professional assessments of risk affect victim thinking? Behavior?

How can professional expertise best be integrated into the risk management process?

Where we go from here 1Risk prediction versus

management Much research that is not practice-applicable

(Bennett Cattaneo & Goodman, 2007) Need to shift focus from prediction to

management:What are the chances violence will occur?

versusUnder what circumstances might violence

occur, and how might we change them? Need to identify dynamic causal factors of

violence

Where we go from here 2How should we use

instruments? We have learned that HOW matters as

much (or more) than WHAT How do our assessments, and the way we

conduct those assessments, influence ONGOING victim decision making?

Viewing our contributions as one stop on a long journey

Need to develop best practices that pulls prediction into management, and gives victim voice

Where we go from here 3How can we be survivor-centered & use our

expertise?

Moving back toward survivor-centered practice Risk assessment has little connection to what is

offered the victim, or to what we know is helpful Don’t want to throw out baby with bathwater Need to develop best practices that pulls

prediction into management, gives victim voice, and integrates advocate expertise.

Need to innovate and evaluate with these outcomes in mind.

Empowerment process model

Bennett Cattaneo & Chapman (2010)

Self-efficacy

knowledge competence

Define or redefine meaningful, power-oriented GOALS and objectives

Carry out ACTIONS

toward goal achievement

Observe and reflect on

IMPACT of actions in

relation to goal achievement

ReferencesBennett, L., Goodman, L., & Dutton, M.A. (2000). Risk assessment among batterers arrested for

domestic assault: The salience of psychological abuse. Violence against Women, 16(11), 1190-1203.

Bennett Cattaneo, L. (2007). Contributors to assessments of risk in intimate partner violence: How victims and professionals differ. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(1), 57-75.

Bennett Cattaneo, L., Bell, M.E., Goodman, L.A. & Dutton, M.A. (2007). Intimate partner violence victims’ accuracy in assessing their risk of re-abuse. Journal of Family Violence, 22(6), 429-440.

Bennett Cattaneo, L. & *Chapman, A.R. (in press). Risk assessment with victims of intimate partner violence: Investigating the gap between research and practice. Violence Against Women.

  Bennett Cattaneo & *Chapman, A.R. (2010). The process of empowerment: A model for use in research and practice. American Psychologist, 65(7), 646-659.

Bennett Cattaneo, L. & Goodman, L.A. (2009). New directions in IPV risk assessment: An empowerment approach to risk management. (Reprinted book chapter). Family and Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly, 18, 55-72.

Bennett Cattaneo, L. and Goodman, L.A. (2005). Risk factors for reabuse in intimate partner violence: A cross-disciplinary critical review. Trauma, Violence and Abuse: A Review Journal, 6, 141-175. 

Bennett Cattaneo, L. and Goodman, L.A. (2003). Victim-reported risk factors for continued abusive behavior: Assessing the dangerousness of arrested batterers. Journal of Community Psychology, 31(4), 1-21.

References (2)Davies, Lyon and Monti-Catania (1998) Safety planning with battered women: Complex lives,

difficult choices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Goodman, L.A., Dutton, M.A., & Bennett, L. (2000). Predicting repeat abuse among arrested batterers: Use of the Danger Assessment Scale in the Criminal Justice System. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15, 1, 63-72.

Heckert, D.A. & Gondolf, E.D. (2004). Battered women’s perception of risk versus risk factors and instruments in predicting repeat reassault. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 19, 778-800.

Roehl, J., O’Sullivan, C., Webster, D., & Campbell, J. (2005). Intimate partner violence risk assessment validation study, final report (Document No. 209731). Washington DC: National Institute of Justice.

Weisz, A. N., Tolman, R. M. & Saunders, D. G. (2000). Assessing the risk of severe violence: The importance of survivors’ predictions. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15, 75-90.

Westen, D. & Weinberger, J. (2004). When clinical description becomes statistical prediction. American Psychologist, 59(7) 595-613.

Williams, K.R. & Houghton, A.B. (2004). Assessing the risk of domestic violence reoffending: A validation study. Law and Human Behavior, 28(4), 437-455.

Yang, M., Wong, S.C. & Coid, J. (2010). The efficacy of violence prediction: A meta-analytic comparison of nie risk assessment tools. Psychological Bulletin, 136(5), 740-767.