Lessons Learned from My Summer Watching Cops: Why Domestic Violence Victims Do & Do Not Participate in Lethality Assessment Programs
- Description
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Lethality Assessment Programs (LAPs) are designed to help prevent intimate partner homicides by identifying high-risk victims and connecting them to advocacy services and support before violence escalates further. On paper, that makes sense. In the field, it’s much more complex. Anyone who has worked a domestic violence call knows that lethality screens and calls to advocates rarely happen under ideal conditions. The chaos of the scene and trauma from the incident can all influence victims and their decisions to cooperate with the LAP protocols. To date, however, less is known about why victims do, and do not, complete the lethality screen and speak to advocates.
This webinar draws on a researcher-practitioner study to explore this gap using data collected from a working LAP program in a rural-classified city. Using ride-alongs, field observations, interviews, police records, lethality assessments, and court outcomes, the session will help rural responders understand why victims may decline the LAP, what refusal means for case outcomes, and how agencies can improve follow-up after the initial call ends. The findings offer an important reminder: when victims decline the assessment or advocate call, it does not mean they are uncooperative, their case is doomed, or the system has nothing left to do. In this study, refusal was not associated with lower rates of charging, conviction, or confinement.
At the same time, refusal still tells us something important about timing, trust, trauma, officer framing, documentation, and follow-up. This session is designed to help officers, advocates, prosecutors, supervisors, judges, and coordinated community response teams better understand why victims may say no in the moment and how rural systems can keep high-risk victims visible after everyone leaves the scene.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Explain why domestic violence victims may decline lethality screening or advocacy contact, including trauma, fear, children on scene, privacy concerns, timing, and rural service barriers.
- Describe what one rural LAP study found about victim refusal and criminal case outcomes, including why refusal does not automatically mean a weaker case.
- Identify practical steps rural responders can take to improve LAP framing, documentation, advocacy follow-up, and coordinated review of high-risk cases.