Hampshire and Thames Valley Police: DARAT
Algorithmic tool DARAT (Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment Tool) helps police officers to effectively grade the risk of future harmful incidents of domestic abuse.
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DARAT (Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment Tool) helps police officers to effectively grade the risk of future harmful incidents of domestic abuse, so that actions can be taken to reduce the forecasted risk.
There are tens of thousands of domestic incidents each year in each of Hampshire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police, and policing agencies are expected to risk assess the likelihood of future harm, and work to protect people from this harm. Due to the complex nature of each case, with hundreds if not thousands of bits of information available to officers, assessment of risk of future domestic harm is not something that an officer can accurately perform without assistance from a tool.
At present, DARAT is currently in a development stage and is not currently used for decision making. There are slightly different mechanisms by which DARAT is intended to be incorporated into decision making processes in the future, depending on which police force it is being integrated into, and which tool is being implemented. However, in general, these will group into two different mechanisms:
Mechanism 1: To provide the best possible level of care for persons involved in domestic abuse, the DARAT will be conducted by collating the information inputted into police systems by the initial investigating officer, and linking this to existing known information about persons involved in the incident. The algorithmic tool will then provide the risk grading, along with information about how the score was generated, to the supervisory officer at the same point that they would currently be finalising the risk grading, so that it can be used by the supervisory officer as they are making this decision.
Mechanism 2: There are some perpetrator cohorts who might benefit from in depth problem solving and care, whether through behavioural or needs based interventions from commissioned service providers or statutory offender management, and so the second mechanism will be available to identify cohorts of individuals with similar risk profiles who may benefit from this intervention. Multiagency conferences are conducted to determine where interventions may be beneficial, and this mechanism would allow cases to be sent to these multiagency conferences for problem solving in cases where DARAT has determined that there are perpetrators who pose a serial risk to victims. This will also allow for interventions to be tested to establish what works best in reducing domestic violence harm.
For more information, or to ask questions about the tool, please contact the development team at VRUTechnicalSupport@thamesvalley.police.uk.