Community-Informed Risk Assessment in Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Cases: Origins, Development, and Deployment

Community-informed risk assessment (CIRA) emerged in Arizona and a number of communities in the United States, in part as a way of addressing some of the problems with extant risk models in intimate partner violence and abuse (IPV/A) cases. The chapter identifies the origins, development, and deployment of CIRA approaches. It commences by noting the social harms associated with IPV/A and intimate partner homicide (IPH) and their complex case dynamics. These harms and dynamics call for nuanced risk triaging and management, humane interactions with victims and offenders, and the prudent and efficient deployment of often scarce resources. The chapter explains notions of “risk, " “risk assessment, " and “CIRA, " tracing the origins of the CIRA concept to the state of Arizona and its extant and evolving coordinated community responses to IPV/A. It then examines the pivotal relationship between CIRA and the rule of law. The relationship helped facilitate the spread of CIRA from pilot sites to the state as a whole and subsequently to other states. Finally, the contribution concludes with a summary of the early outcomes of CIRA and the challenges associated with assessing risk in IPV/A cases.