This review has been undertaken for New Zealand Police. Its purpose is to provide an overview of the international academic research and best practice literature on family violence risk assessment from about the last ten years, in order to inform improvements that the New Zealand Police may wish to make to its own family violence risk assessment processes.
The review therefore has a particular focus on the literature as it relates to family violence risk assessment by police organisations. It also focuses on risk assessment as it relates to predicting the reoccurrence of family violence, rather than the initial occurrence.
Methodology
Literature search strategy An electronic search was conducted using:
• the New Zealand Police Library online catalogue
• online journal /research databases ProQuest, Emerald, EBSCOhost (which incorporates Academic Search Premiere, SOCindex, and Business Source Premiere) • The Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse
• The New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse
• The UN Secretary Generals database on violence against women (http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/v-database.htm)
• MINCAVA electronic clearinghouse (Minnesota Center for Violence and Abuse – (http://www.mincava.umn.edu) and
• VAWnet (National (US) Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women – (http://www.vawnet.org/)
• NCJRS (National Criminal Justice Reference Service – http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/AlphaList.aspx)
• the internet search engine Google (www.google.co.nz) The literature search predominately identified research from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
• Identified references were accessed
o on the internet (as above),
o through the Royal New Zealand Police College library, and
o through personal communication with New Zealand Police staff at Police National Headquarters.
• Index pages from the acquired literature provided further references.
Published and unpublished studies were reviewed.
The quality of studies was not assessed as part of this review.