Study suggests tool to predict, prevent attacks against criminal justice officials

A new study suggests the usage of a "triage tool" that can help law enforcement more accurately assess threats of violence and predict attacks against police, judges and other criminal justice officials which can lead to better preventive measures.

The study has been published in the journal of Violence and Gender.

According to researchers, being proactive and identifying high-risk individuals that may pose a threat can save lives.

The violence risk factors and risk management strategies that form the basis for an effective approach to minimise such targeted attacks.

"Dr. Logan's triage tool, which establishes violent risk factors that can put a first responder at risk is something every law enforcement officer, probation and parole officer, case worker and social worker must have in their back pocket when responding to a home or other location, where the potential for violence is real," said study researcher Mary Ellen O'Toole from George Mason University in the US.

Matthew H. Logan, a HALO Forensic Behavioural Specialists (British Columbia, Canada), provides a scoring system to rank numerous danger-related factors, such as rule breaking, violence at a young age, and substance abuse.

He presented specific case studies and the scores each of the violent offenders received, indicating the threat they represented to criminal justice officials.

"Dr. Logan has spent years putting this tool together based on his own experience as a clinical psychologist, a behavioral analyst and a sworn member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police," O'Toole added.

"He chose this journal to share this assessment tool because of our multidisciplinary readership and the ever-growing need for our first responders to have a way to assess for danger before walking through that front door, where so many have been killed in the past," O'Toole stated.