Apriel D. Jolliffe Simpson, Chaitanya Joshi, Devon L. L. Polaschek
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
The presumption that family violence will repeat and escalate is embedded in practices including risk assessment and case management. However, there is limited evidence that further episodes are inevitable, or that subsequent episodes will increase in severity. Therefore, we need to better understand temporal patterns in aggressor behavior to inform how risk is conceptualized in practice. For a sample of 2115 family violence aggressors who came to police attention in Integrated Safety Response catchment areas in Aotearoa New Zealand, we collected information New Zealand Police routinely recorded about reported harm between 2018 and 2020. We used a hidden Markov model to estimate the latent (i.e., unmeasurable) states behind the information reported to police, and modeled aggressors’ movement between those states over time. We identified three latent states. The first contained low or no reported harm, the second contained low probabilities of reported harm, and the third involved a high probability of reported verbal abuse and a moderate probability of reported physical violence. We identified four pathways through the latent states over the two-year follow-up period, which we called No reported harm, High reported harm, Low reported harm, and De-escalation. The findings add to the body of research indicating that family violence aggressors do not inevitably repeat or escalate their harmful behavior, and that a small subset of cases account for a large proportion of reported harm. This study demonstrates how information that police routinely collect can be used to estimate aggressors’ latent behavioral states and model pathways communicating the probability that they will continue to come to police attention for family violence, contributing to improved risk assessment and practice.
期刊介绍:
Crime Science is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal with an applied focus. The journal''s main focus is on research articles and systematic reviews that reflect the growing cooperation among a variety of fields, including environmental criminology, economics, engineering, geography, public health, psychology, statistics and urban planning, on improving the detection, prevention and understanding of crime and disorder. Crime Science will publish theoretical articles that are relevant to the field, for example, approaches that integrate theories from different disciplines. The goal of the journal is to broaden the scientific base for the understanding, analysis and control of crime and disorder. It is aimed at researchers, practitioners and policy-makers with an interest in crime reduction. It will also publish short contributions on timely topics including crime patterns, technological advances for detection and prevention, and analytical techniques, and on the crime reduction applications of research from a wide range of fields. Crime Science publishes research articles, systematic reviews, short contributions and theoretical articles. While Crime Science uses the APA reference style, the journal welcomes submissions using alternative reference styles on a case-by-case basis.