Intimate Partner Violence Risk Assessment Tools: A Review

7. Conclusion

Intimate partner violence risk assessment tools serve many purposes in the criminal justice system. They are used in a number of different capacities and settings, including at sentencing, in treatment provision, and in victim safety planning. They are also used by a range of professionals, including law enforcement personnel, psychologists and victim service providers. The benefits of intimate partner violence risk assessment tools are many, but they also come with a number of limitations.

This review demonstrated that there are many options available to assessors tasked with the responsibility of estimating the risk that an offender will re-offend against an intimate partner. Due to limited research, however, it is not known which approach or tool is the most accurate in predicting intimate partner violence recidivism. As such, more research is needed in the area of intimate partner violence risk assessment to determine which tool is the most accurate in predicting intimate partner violence recidivism.

There are a number of factors that the assessor must consider when choosing a tool or an approach, including their own role, the population they are assessing, and the purpose of the assessment. It is also important for the assessor to keep in mind the various strengths and limitations of the specific risk assessment tools, and of risk assessment tools more generally. Keeping these elements in mind, it is possible for an assessor to choose the most appropriate tool to guide the assessment of the risk that an offender poses to an intimate partner.

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