Lethality Assessments and the Law Enforcement Response to Domestic Violence

Abstract

More and more police departments are adopting lethality assessment programs (LAPs), requiring police officers responding to an incident of intimate partner violence to assess with victims their risk for death at the hands of their abusers. In this study, the author explores the initial enthusiasm for these programs and claims of dramatic drops in homicides. He questions whether, like previously hailed criminal justice responses to intimate partner violence, LAPs will be found to offer only incremental improvement at best. Further, he suggests that lethality is a poor measure by which to judge criminal justice intimate partner violence interventions. In fact, he argues, current research suggests that the vast majority of victims may be more likely to die as a result of suicide than homicide. And lethality scales may sadly encourage responding officers to ignore these potential victims, resulting in their further entrapment and despair, heightening their risk for suicides.

KEYWORDS:

• Domestic violence
• homicide
• lethality
• law enforcement
• suicide