Security Threat Management in Prison: Revalidation and Revision of the Inmate Risk Assessment for Segregation Placement

Prison officials often rely on restrictive housing to promote institutional safety and security. However, a growing body of research indicates this type of confinement has little impact on inmate behavior or institutional order. An alternative approach involves providing the most dangerous and disruptive inmates with increased case management services and other proactive programmatic opportunities. The success of this strategy requires an ability to prospectively and accurately identify the most problematic inmates. The results of this study indicate that Risk Assessment for Segregation Placement (RASP) and its revised Oregon version (RASP-OR) are valid predictors of segregation placement and institutional misconduct. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Cyber Security Professionals’ Challenges: A Proposed Integrated Platform Solution

As cyber threats and attacks are immensely increasing and broadly spreading catastrophically worldwide, cyber security professionals need to cope up with such a highly demanding environment. Security teams, such as Security operation Centre (SOC), Incident Response (IR) and Threat management teams are the people responsible for dealing with cyber security threats and attacks from detection to containment and preventing future incidents; which encompasses some significant challenges that might impose some limitations to the efficiency and effectiveness of activities cyber security professionals conduct, as these processes are time-consuming. In this paper we propose an integrated platform to help cyber security professionals to proactively manage cyber security threats and emerging incidents by providing an automated functionality that can optimize the workflow. The proposed security platform is supposed to diminish the average time taken by cyber security professionals to respond to cyber incidents with an average of 42%. This study can be used as a preliminary design for such an integrated platform.

International Legal Perspectives on Threat Assessment

Threat assessment and threat management occur within the evolving context of legal issues that both enhance and restrict threat investigation and intervention activities. Legal issues affecting threat management practice in Europe and the United States include criminal code statutes and case law that define relevant crimes such as stalking, criminal threats, domestic violence, and other violent crimes that fall within the purview of threat assessors. Additional issues include civil commitment procedures such as involuntary hospitalization, as well as bail and probation conditions. New developments in threat management–related laws are usually precipitated by tragedy and violence. Most recently, in the United States, this led to red flag laws and Extreme Risk Protection Orders in the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in 2018. Similarly, in Germany, the suicide of a stalking victim has resulted in greater sensitivity by the legal system to victim impact in stalking cases. Red flag law preliminary research data related to threat reduction have been promising, and ideally the impact of legislative changes in multiple threat management contexts on victim safety should continue to be assessed so that evidence informs violence risk legal responses.

Threat Assessment and Management in Higher Education

This chapter provides an overview of the development, implementation, and operation of threat assessment and management practices within institutions of higher education. The authors provide a brief summary of the history and development of campus threat management over the past 25 years, noting the contributions of a range of disciplines, research, and informed practice. The chapter delineates the essential elements of a comprehensive threat assessment and management process designed to help campus practitioners to identify, assess, and intervene across the range of potential threats and concerns that may arise. The authors provide an overview of legal duties and issues relevant to threat management, referencing legal principles and cases that have informed standards of practice for the field. Finally, the authors discuss opportunities for advancing the practice of threat management to sustain and enhance the health, safety, and well-being of campus communities.

Domestic Violence Risk Assessment

Many cases referred for threat assessment involve intimate partner violence (IPV). As a form of targeted violence, IPV fits the preventative focus of the threat assessment model. However, heterogeneity of IPV offender profiles, the personal nature of the relationship between aggressor and target, and concern for a diverse range of undesirable but relatively probable outcomes present distinct challenges to effective threat management. In this chapter, the authors offer a theoretically grounded and empirically informed framework for evaluating and managing threats to intimate partners. They describe empirically validated IPV risk assessment tools, and outline an approach to IPV threat assessment using the guiding principles of risk, need, and responsivity; such guidelines emphasize communication and collaboration with the threat management team and third parties, including the victim, and include perpetrator controls that attend to the perpetrator’s criminogenic needs. The authors also discuss victim safety issues and potential situational risk factors applying to IPV cases.

Source Interviewing in a Threat Management Context

Threat assessment professionals regularly interact with sources who are deceitful or reluctant to engage in a conversation, especially when asked to provide sensitive information. Besides listening well, which still is the most important information recovery agent, how can interviewers lower resistance and stimulate openness when structuring their questioning? And what does science teach us about verbal, nonverbal, and more personal skills and characteristics of the interviewer who is successful in creating a rich interpersonal dialogue, forging new understandings, and uncovering valuable new information? This chapter aims at answering these questions.

Mitigating Harm in the Military

In 2013 the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) created a Threat Management Unit (TMU) to examine aberrant, aggressive, and violent behavior. This article examines the experiences of developing that unit from the most nascent stage: gathering information from experts, developing understanding of how the organization was handling concerning behavior cases, and deciding a process to be useful to consumers requiring threat assessment and threat management consultation. This chapter provides the learning, key observations, and ultimate structure of the CGIS TMU, as well as an overview of military culture and the military member personality, and suggestions on how to navigate the resources within a military organization.

Threat Assessment and Threat Management

This introductory chapter sets forth three foundations for threat assessment and management: the first foundation is the defining of basic concepts, such as threat assessment and threat management; the second foundation outlines the similarities and differences between threat assessment and violence risk assessment; and the third foundation is a detailed overview of research findings, theoretical avenues, measurement instruments, and developments in practice over the past quarter-century. The goals of the chapter are to introduce professional readers to the young scientific field of threat assessment and management and to clarify and guide seasoned professionals toward greater excellence in their work.