“Ideally, identifying and documenting risk factors for serious or lethal intimate partner violence (IPV) should be incorporated into each step of the criminal justice intervention. While communities are often excited about developing an enhanced response to high risk cases, this effort will not be effective if current basic practices fail to address risk in general within an effective coordinated interagency response. A community’s coordinating council or task force can spearhead an examination of current practices to uncover gaps that exist in identifying, documenting and transmitting risk information throughout the criminal justice intervention.
To assist such an assessment, BWJP has developed Accounting for Risk and Danger Practice Checklists for each practitioner in the intervention process. The checklists can help a jurisdiction ensure that its criminal justice response identifies and addresses potential risks to victims, based on sound research on risk factors associated with IPV. The Accounting for Risk and Danger Practice Checklists can guide communities in examining their current response to IPV and identify: “How well does the current response address risk?” and prompts the assessors to ask: “What more could be done to improve reduction of risk, especially for victims who may be at high risk of serious, repeated or lethal violence?”
