Advocates say simple questionnaires could save domestic violence victims

Editor's note: This story is one in a series examining domestic violence in the Flathead Valley.

Domestic violence experts have long emphasized the need for police, courts and victim advocates to increase the use of lethality assessments — surveys based on years of research that help determine whether an abusive relationship might turn deadly.

In its first report in 2005, for example, the Montana Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission recommended a 20-question assessment that would ask victims:

"Has the physical violence increased in severity or frequency over the past year?"

"Has he ever used a weapon against you or threatened you with a lethal weapon?"

"Do you believe he is capable of killing you?"

Such assessments are widely recognized as a valuable tool in addressing abuse by family members and intimate partners, helping victims recognize when they might be in danger and documenting factors known to increase the likelihood of homicidal behavior, which include access to firearms and a history of strangulation.

The questionnaires also provide a uniform way for various professionals — from patrol officers to prosecutors to shelter coordinators and victim advocates — to communicate risk and prioritize domestic violence cases. In some jurisdictions, the assessments also inform judges as they set bail and release conditions for alleged abusers.

"It has a very clear purpose, which is to identify victims in the highest level of danger," said Hilary Shaw, executive director of the Abbie Shelter in Kalispell. "And if everybody uses the same assessment, then all agencies across disciplines have a common tool with which to identify the clients who have the most need, and prioritize their safety over others who are in lower levels of danger.

"If you don't have the same measurement system, then that's a barrier to different agencies working together," Shaw said. "When we talk about preventing victims from slipping through the cracks, the danger assessment is the key."

NUMEROUS VERSIONS of lethality assessments, also called danger assessments, have been developed over the years, and they have turned up repeatedly among the Fatality Review Commission's recommendations. The commission — a panel of 20 experts from various disciplines appointed by the state attorney general — reviews domestic homicide cases across the state, searches for patterns and identifies gaps in the system for preventing and responding to abuse.

Yet many agencies — including the Flathead County Sheriff's Office and the police departments in Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls — have yet to adopt lethality assessments as a formal, routine component of their response to domestic violence.

"In most jurisdictions, we have learned that the assessments are completed at the patrol level, but in our area it has become pretty clear that won't be the case for now," Flathead County Attorney Travis Ahner said.

Ahner suggested the Flathead County Sheriff's Office has been reluctant to require deputies to perform lethality assessments, perhaps because they involve additional time and paperwork.

"There is always some resistance of some kind every time when we say, 'What do you think about this?' " Ahner said.

But Sheriff Brian Heino said his department has considered several different forms in use by other agencies, and he intends to implement one eventually. A victim advocate who used to work for the county had begun using an assessment, but Heino said his deputies have not routinely administered the questionnaires while responding to calls.

"It is something that we're going to use as a tool," Heino said, though he noted deputies collect much of the same information in their call logs and charging documents, and they are often familiar with the people involved in domestic violence calls from prior experiences.

As required by state law, local law enforcement officers also provide domestic violence victims documents that inform them of their rights and connect them with advocates at the county attorney's office and the Abbie Shelter.

Natale' Adorni, a trainer at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy, said officers receive a total of 13 hours of domestic violence instruction, and that includes courses on drug-endangered children, human trafficking, stalking, strangulation and protection orders.

Individual law enforcement agencies decide whether to use lethality assessments. Adorni said the Helena Police Department and the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office, for example, use assessments in coordination with local "lethality teams" that include victim advocates and other professionals, while other agencies fill out the forms solely for evidentiary purposes.

Heino noted officers also receive more generalized training on crisis intervention, and said he recently dedicated one detective to investigating cases of domestic and sexual violence. Previously, those cases were spread out among all the detectives in the sheriff's office.

As chief of the 10-officer Columbia Falls Police Department, Clint Peters said he could see lethality assessments as "a valid tool." But with caseloads climbing, he stressed that domestic violence calls already require a lot of time and attention.

"I can tell you that the average [partner or family member assault] is probably already taking one of my two guys off the street for an hour and a half," Peters said. "Not to be cold-hearted, but we need to get the information that we can, get that person in jail, get our report done, etc. and proper documentation. And then our hope is that the victim then reaches out to the victims' rights advocates, and potentially we could partner with them to determine where do we go from here."

GREG GIANGOBBE is familiar with concerns about the time it takes to conduct lethality assessments.

A 20-year veteran of the Phoenix Police Department, he trains law enforcement on APRAIS — the Arizona Intimate Partner Risk Assessment Instrument System — an approach that teaches officers how to recognize signs of domestic violence and utilize an 18-question risk assessment.

Under the APRAIS model, completed risk assessments are promptly shared with local shelters, victim advocates and other resources. Participation is voluntary, and victims are informed beforehand that the information they choose to share could be accessed by the alleged abuser.

"The entire process is about respecting the victim from start to finish," Giangobbe said.

Giangobbe said Arizona has about 120 law enforcement agencies that respond to domestic violence calls, and more than half have undergone APRAIS training over the past two years. By the start of next year, he said, the model will be formally integrated into the curriculum of the state's eight police academies.

"If an agency claims they just don't have the time or resources, I try to show them an Arizona community with limited funding and limited staff, and explain to them how that agency managed to pull this off," Giangobbe said. "It doesn't matter how busy you are. They can spend six or eight minutes talking to the victim like they're their sister, giving her some information, giving her respect and trying to help her.

"If that's not good policing," he said, "then I don't know what is."

THE APRAIS model isn't just used in Arizona. The Billings Police Department recently adopted a modified version of it after several years of searching for a better way to evaluate threats in domestic violence cases.

Officer Katie Nash, the department's domestic violence investigator, said a team began testing the APRAIS model in 2018 to "see if the form was workable on a call." Today, she estimates about 60% of the department has been trained on the model, and despite some resistance from other officers, the results overall have been positive.

"Studies actually show that repeat offenders are not only dangerous to the victims, but to law enforcement as well," Nash said. "In our system, if an abuser is believed to be high risk for harming others, that person is flagged so the officers have a head's up that an abuser is violent. I think that helps officers realize that things like this are helpful to them, too."

Nash also emphasizes the assessment could help victims recognize the severity of their own situations and get out sooner, potentially eliminating the need for officers to respond to the same residences time and again.

"A big part of this is connecting them to other resources, like our shelter," Nash said. "We know domestic violence is a cycle, in terms of victims going back to abusers. But if they understand the risks associated with that and what resources are available, they're less likely to feel compelled to go back, and this form helps with that."

Nash and others look forward to a day when courts or lawmakers make lethality assessments a mandatory part of law enforcement training — which might come as a shock to departments that haven't adopted them already.

"I really think other counties may look to our agency one day to see how we pulled this off. We're ahead of the curve now," Nash said. "People who have been working on this for a long time believe that a law might pass one day. The attorneys and judges set this to say, 'You have to do this,' and when that happens, counties that haven't built programming around this might really struggle."

FOR NOW, the task of administering lethality assessments in Flathead County may be left to the Abbie Shelter, which recently gained two new victim advocates.

"At this point, I believe we'll probably be the ones to take it on," said Shaw, the shelter's director. "If we can show that a risk assessment might help prevent these incidents, we might be able to pave the way for it to be adopted by others. We want to be able to demonstrate how important a tool like this can be, especially when it comes to those more threatening, violent cases."

The goal, she said, is to foster more coordination among the various agencies that assist victims and punish or rehabilitate their abusers.

"It's an unfortunate observation that things won't move forward without domestic and sexual violence organizations, like ours, taking the reins," she said, "when domestic violence is one of the most frequent calls for law enforcement and one of the most frequent types of cases for prosecutors."

Get help: If you are facing domestic abuse or know someone who is, call the Abbie Shelter's 24-hour helpline at 406-752-7273, or reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE.

Kianna Gardner may be reached at [email protected]. Assistant editor Chad Sokol may be reached at 406-758-4439 or [email protected].