Prior Sexual Intimacy - An Important Factor in Threat Assessment

On the west side of town, a woman is murdered by her stalker while walking to her car. In the suburbs, a man kills his ex-wife and three children and then turns the gun on himself. In the industrial district, a man takes a gun to his wife’s workplace and begins shooting. Each of these events raises the same question: could this tragedy have been prevented?

Threat assessment—a term often used by criminal justice and mental health professionals but seldom defined—is an investigative and analytical process that seeks to answer this question. Threat assessment examines the social, biological, and psychological factors that affect whether an individual is likely to act violently at a given time.1 Unlike traditional investigations, which happen after a crime takes place, threat assessments are conducted to prevent future violence from occurring. The goal of this approach, which is still developing, is to identify and manage the highest-risk offenders to prevent future violence. For stalking, a crime that is by definition ongoing, the benefits of threat assessment are significant.

Threat assessment begins with identifying and investigating the risk factors that indicate someone may be likely to commit a violent crime. Perpetrators of violence often have a "traceable history of problems, conflicts, disputes, and failures that affect their potential for future violence."2 Identifying, investigating, and evaluating the factors that influenced a perpetrator’s history (and their combined effect) help evaluators assess the likelihood that a subject is moving in the direction of violence. Although it is not possible to identify all the risk factors affecting an individual,3 investigators try to identify as many of these indicators as they can.

In practice, the threat assessment process ranges from using a computer program to weigh and score risks to using checklists to assemble and then assess any available data on the perpetrator. Under ideal circumstances, threat assessments are done by a trained forensic psychologist with full access to information about them. In reality, most criminal justice agencies do not have that luxury. Yet all professionals who come into contact with victims and perpetrators (e.g., police, advocates, prosecutors, and probation officers) should be doing some form of threat assessment.

Post-threat-assessment strategies vary widely, depending on the crime and the resources available in the victim’s community. At a minimum, identifying a high level of threat should result in extensive safety planning for the victim and heightened vigilance from law enforcement in investigating the crime. Every professional who works with victims should be familiar with threat assessment and should play a role in using the technique to prevent crimes.

Prior Sexual Intimacy
Many experts view prior sexual intimacy between the stalker and the victim as one of the most significant predictors of violence in stalking cases.4 Law enforcement and the public tend to underestimate or even discount the high level of danger associated with this factor. Yet the research results are clear. J. Reid Meloy, a nationally recognized forensic psychologist and researcher in threat assessment and stalking, analyzed a number of risk factors, including major mental disorders (such as schizophrenia and mood disorders), explicit threats toward the victim, presence of personality disorders,5 chemical dependence or abuse, and prior criminal history.6 Of the three most significant predictors identified by the study (prior sexual intimacy, prior criminal history, and chemical abuse or dependence), prior intimacy showed the highest correlation with violence.

Meloy’s results are not surprising when viewed alongside other major research findings on stalking. In the National Violence Against Women Survey (cosponsored by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), 77 percent of female stalking victims were stalked by someone they knew and 59 percent by an intimate partner.7 Women stalked by a current or former husband or cohabitating partner reported that they were physically assaulted 81 percent of the time8 and sexually assaulted 31 percent of the time.9 Stalking and Intimate Partner Femicide, the National Femicide study on women who were murdered by former intimate partners, found that 76 percent of the victims had been stalked before being murdered.10

Why is former intimacy such a red flag? Former intimate partners often stalk to exact revenge for the rejection and humiliation they experienced when the relationship ended. For many of these stalkers, rejection leads to rage.11 Investigator Amy Santiago, a detective who investigates serial stalking cases in the Domestic Violence Unit of the Alexandria, Virginia Police Department, reports that, "with past intimates, there is often an anger and rage that is not always present in cases involving non-intimates.�?If the victim answers the door, the stalker could kill her." "In homicides by former intimates," Santiago added, "the murder is sometimes more violent than in non-intimate homicides. The body may be in worse shape—maybe the face is mutilated. The victim may be both shot and stabbed." Investigators need to understand that the high degree of anger often present in intimate partner stalking cases may indicate a high risk of future violence.

Even the most angry and violent stalker can’t harm the victim, if he can’t find her. Yet former intimates are extraordinarily well equipped to hunt down their former partners because of all they know about the victims. They know where their victims work; the route they take to work; who their friends and family are; where they shop for groceries; their favorite restaurants, dentist, andhobbies; their Social Security number; and a great deal of other information. Stalkers can use this information to track, access, and physically confront their victims. Stalkers who share custody or have visitation rights also have a court-ordered opportunity for physical confrontation and murder.

Implications
What do professionals who work with stalking victims need to know about prior intimacy as a risk factor for violence? Above all, they should recognize that stalkers who are prior intimates may pose a grave threat to their victims. They should assign these cases a high priority and consider using surveillance and other aggressive investigative techniques when possible and appropriate. Investigators should ask, "How much and what information does this stalker have about the victim? What opportunities does the stalker have to commit violence?" They should also collaborate with any community agencies that can contribute to keeping victims safe. Victims urgently need to have a safety plan and know whom to call if the stalker initiates direct or indirect contact. Thoroughly investigating and vigorously prosecuting these (and other) stalking cases can prevent future violence.