Intimate partner violence risk assessment in forensic psychology office

Abstract

Introduction: The main goal of risk assessment is to prevent and develop management strategies to minimize risk, mainly to understand how and why individuals choose to act violently and to determine what factors may contribute to the individual’s future choice of violence [1–3] and supporting the criminal justice system in judicial decision-making process (e.g. sentence, intervention) [4].

Materials and methods: The sample is comprised by 25 cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) risk assessment was collected between 2017 and 2018 in Forensic Psychology Office of Egas Moniz Forensic and Psychological Sciences Laboratory (GPF-LCFPEM). We assessed 13 victims: 12 women and 1 man, aged between 18 and 56 years old (M = 34.08, sd = 11.13); and 12 defendants: 10 men and 2 women, aged between 23 and 59 years old (M = 38.25, sd = 13.27). The relationship between victims and defendants are: 14 ex-partners; 7 ex-boyfriend/girlfriend; 2 married; 2 ex-spouses. Data was collected from lawsuits, semi-structured interviews of the victims and defendants, collateral information and clinical and forensic assessment tools [e.g. BSI; SARA; PCL: SV]. Victims and defendants signed an informed consent term, which contained the goal of the evaluation, the limits of the confidentiality, and also information about the ethics and impartiality of the technicians.

Results: Defendants had more symptoms of somatization (75%), hostility (75%), and phobic anxiety (75%), and victims had more symptoms of interpersonal sensitivity (69.2%) and hostility (69.2%). The defendant’s personality assessments unveiled that 33.3% had antisocial personality disorder, especially traits dealing with the interpersonal and affective deficits (e.g., shallow affect, superficial charm, manipulation, lack of empathy) (M = 8.71; sd = 2.29), than whereas symptoms relating to antisocial behavior (e.g. criminal versatility, impulsiveness, irresponsibility, poor behavior controls, juvenile delinquency) (M = 5.86; sd = 2.19). In the risk assessments, the majority of the cases presented a high risk (52%), followed by moderate risk (40%) and low risk (4%), especially factors associated with extreme minimization or denial of spousal assault history (52%), attitudes that support or condone spousal assault (54%), recent relationship problems (48%), former physical assault (44%), severe and/or sexual assault (44%), victim of and/or witness to family violence as a child or adolescent (40%), violence against strangers and acquaintances (36%), recent employment problems (32%), past sexual assault/sexual jealousy (32%) and past use of weapons and/or credible threats of death (32%).

Discussion and conclusions: The results have demonstrated that defendants presented more clinical symptomatology indicators than victims. Higher risk is the most common level in the cases assessed by GPF-LCFPEM. We found several risk factors for IPV. These results suggest that we need of risk assessment in criminal justice system and the guidelines of a better articulation among Forensic Psychology and Law.