Violence Risk Appraisal Guide

Violence Risk Appraisal Guide

Introduction

Violence is an interpersonal and social phenomenon that affects the health and welfare of individuals and has become a collective problem of the first order (Reiss, 1994). This applies to any of the many forms it takes, but very especially when violence is inflicted on women within the couple and the family and in any of the formats that constitute what is called the Criminology's “violent crime”. The consequences of violence are the cause that many professionals (lawyers, social workers, prison, health) work in a convergent to solve the difficulties victims of violence and prevent the continuation of the same. These professionals work from scientifically supported procedures that, in the case of violence are still scarce.

The violence has had a very limited scientific treatment and it was not until very recently that it has become the object of analysis and scientific study itself same. Social and natural scientists are becoming interested in this phenomenon and the violence is receiving increasing attention in the last decade. One of the first challenges for the scientific study of the Violence has been its conceptual definition. Very commonly found under the violence label similar phenomena, but they are different, such as crime, aggression or antisocial behaviour. This confusion has to do with the lack of conceptual integration to help clarify the meaning of these terms.

Violence has a double connotation which is defined as an action or behaviour as well as a provision, capacity or psychological attribute. We need to distinguish between the “quality” of being violent, which a priori could considered a synonym for “danger” and the act or action of behaving violently, corresponding fitness not subject but strictly to its behaviour. The determinants of action and disposition are different because when we refer to violent action, as all behaviour is the result specific interaction of individual and situational factors. On the contrary when we talk about violence as a quality or attribute of the individuals, then the personal and historical determinants acquire a more relevant to their own situation

Discussion

Although there are various methods for the prediction of dangerousness, these may be grouped into two broad categories: clinical and statistical. Instruments clinical trials that are available today include interviews, observation of behaviour, using inventories and scales (such as the HCR-20) designed for this purpose (Structured clinical assessment), which are used in a controlled environment during the assessment of the subject in question, although some like the PCL-R (Hare, 1991) also can be performed without having any contact between the subject and the evaluator, the expert can review all available information on the subject's personality, his behaviour and details of your criminal history.

Practitioners should be familiar with the extensive empirical research carried out so far when assessing those risk factors that have most relevant result in the prediction of violence. These include mental disorders, attitudes and specific behaviours, personal history, social skills, etc.. Such individual features, in its entirety, present a global picture of the subject ...