Police Tool Assesses Domestic Abuse 'Lethality'

Lethality assessments are not done every time officers respond to a domestic 911 call, but always on repeat calls and those with signs of violence.

Of those assessed during the past 18 months, 54 percent were rated as "high danger," showing factors believed to be predictive of homicide: threats to kill, use of a weapon against the victim in the past, assaults that include choking. Unemployment and having a stepchild in the home are factors, too, although they are not as heavily weighted as some others.

The basis of the assessment is a 2003 study led by Jacquelyn C. Campbell of Johns Hopkins University that examined cases of women killed or almost killed by husbands and boyfriends in 11 U.S. cities and compared them against other abused women.

With this research in mind, Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence leaders sat down with Campbell and her colleagues, as well as prosecutors, police and others. Over a year, the group came up with a police protocol and the 11-question lethality assessment. The document is revised, more concise version of one Campbell developed in 1986 for advocates and health professionals.

Pilot programs were launched in 2004.

Since the full program started in 2006, almost one in three of the 900 victims who spoke to a counselor on the scene of a domestic incident later showed up at a domestic violence services agency -- for a protective order, shelter, counseling, support group or other service.

"To get 284 of them into services, that's huge," said Dave Sargent, a retired District police lieutenant who has shepherded the new program, training police across Maryland on behalf of the Maryland network. "We believe that by getting that victim into services, we have enhanced her chances of survival."