Violence Assessment and Intervention: The Practitioner's Handbook

Violence Assessment and Intervention: The Practitioner’s Handbook, now in its third edition, provides a proven methodology, grounded in the current empirical research and the authors’ experience in successfully assessing and managing thousands of cases in a variety of contexts and environments, for analyzing concerning behaviors and potential threatening situations, and taking action in these challenging, dynamic environments before tragedy occurs. Threat and violence assessment and management is an essential process in reducing violence and its consequences. The ongoing challenge for those assessors, particularly in common workplace environments (e.g., educational settings, public agency settings, and business settings), is applying the applicable behavioral science research in a practical and effective manner to maximize safety.

The book begins by demonstrating the threat and violence assessment process from the point of the initial call and proceeds through the steps that quantify the situation and determine the appropriate response. The next section covers information gathering, victimology, and formulas and tools for risk assessment. Finally, the book explores organizational influences, school violence, ethics, security and consultation issues; the formation and running of threat management teams, and relevant laws related to violence assessment.

This book is a valuable reference for human resource professionals, security professionals, mental health practitioners, law enforcement personnel, and lawyers who are members of threat assessment teams, provide threat and violence assessment and management consultations, as well as expert witnesses in cases involving workplace violence, school violence, security negligence; or wrongful termination or disputed school disciplinary actions related to aggressive, threatening, or violent behavior.

James S. Cawood, PhD, CPP, CTM is President of Factor One, a California-based corporation specializing in threat and violence assessment and case management, behavioral analysis, security consulting, and investigations. He has worked in the area of violence prevention, security consulting, and incident resolution for more than 30 years. He has successfully assessed and managed over 5000 violence-related cases for federal and state government agencies, public and private colleges and universities, public and private corporations, and other business entities throughout North America, as well as in Europe and Asia. He has also provided program development and training in threat and violence assessment and management for these entities. He holds an MA in Forensic Psychology, and a PhD in Psychology.

Michael H. Corcoran, Ph.D., is the founder and President of the Workthreat Group, LLC. He has over 34 years of law enforcement experience and entered the risk assessment field in 1970 when he entered the U. S. Secret Service. He founded The Workthreat Group in 1988 to respond to workplace hostility, incivility, rudeness, harassment, intimidation, bullying, threats, domestic violence, stalking, suicidal ideation, and depression. His work has supported governmental and law enforcement agencies, Fortune 500 companies, medical, and mental health professionals, schools, and universities, and has dealt with over 10,000 individual cases involving assessing workplace inappropriate behaviors as mentioned above. He is also a co-founder of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP) and served on both their Los Angeles and National Board. He primarily provides threat assessments, and training to identify and deal with these topics; site surveys, fitness-for-duty evaluations, interventions, terminations, background checks, surveillance, investigations (covert and overt), and assistance in designing prevention policies and procedures to meet current compliance regulations.