Johnson County using tool to assess domestic violence risk

IOWA CITY - Johnson County law enforcement officials are using a new system designed to help determine a domestic assault perpetrator's likelihood to reoffend and give judges another piece of information to use when making rulings regarding things like bond and no contact orders.

Officers from the Iowa City Police Department, University of Iowa Department of Public Safety and Johnson County Sheriff's Office are training this week on the use of the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment, or ODARA. Iowa City Police domestic violence investigator Scott Stevens said police, judges, Department of Human Services personnel, Department of Corrections officials and others have been receiving ODARA training since June and the plan is to conclude training this month.

ODARA was developed in Canada based on a study of nearly 600 domestic abuse cases. The state of Maine has adopted ODARA and now Johnson County is serving as a pilot site to assess how to implement ODARA at the local level. The initiative comes from the Iowa Accountability Program and is funded through the U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women.

Johnson County was picked for the pilot based on a long-standing relationship between the Iowa Accountability Program and Iowa City-based Domestic Violence Intervention Program.

While law enforcement and other officials use ODARA in different ways, depending on their role in the criminal justice system, Stevens said a goal of the tool is to make sure everyone is on the same page in terms of an offender's likelihood to reoffend.

'ODARA is an actuarial tool that allows us to speak the same language,” he said.

Assigning a score

Police officers responding to a domestic assault try to answer 13 questions relating to the perpetrator and the assault, such as whether the suspect has prior instances of domestic or non-domestic assaults, if the suspect threatened to kill the victim, if they have children together or if the victim has children from a previous partner and if the suspect tried to confine the victim.

Based on those answers, a suspect is given a score from zero to 13.

'It doesn't demand that you're an expert in the field of domestic abuse,” Stevens said. 'It's only a couple more questions than a normal interview would include.”

Each question is scored a zero or a one, depending on the answer. The answers are then added up and the total is the ODARA score, which represents the assailant's likelihood to reoffend in the next five years. For example, 17 percent of the men who score a 1 are likely to reoffend; 39 percent of the men who score a 4 are likely to reoffend and 74 percent of the men who score a 7-13 are likely to reoffend.

ODARA does have limitations. Because the study upon which the assessment tool is based only looked at cases of men assaulting their female domestic partners, ODARA cannot reliably be applied to cases involving women assaulting men or same sex couples.

Still, ODARA offers a way of standardizing what had before been left up to the instincts of police and prosecutors when it comes to the chances of someone reoffending, said Rachel Zimmerman-Smith, an Assistant Johnson County Attorney who handles the bulk of the county's domestic violence cases.

'This is a way of having a common language to describe that (instinct) that's based on actual data instead of saying, ‘I get a bad feeling about this guy,' ” Zimmerman-Smith said.

Tool in the toolbox

The ODARA score is included in criminal complaints for domestic assault arrests and can potentially be used in a variety of ways after the person enters the criminal justice system. A judge seeing a high ODARA score could recommend a higher bond at the time of an initial appearance; the score could be factored into the level of supervision a defendant receives after a conviction; and the assessment could factor into whether a no contact order is lifted, Zimmerman-Smith said.

'This is a way of getting some actual facts and data into the mix,” she said.

Sixth Judicial District Associate Judge Deborah Farmer Minot said judges don't often have a lot of information at the time of initial appearances. She said ODARA provides judges with more data, although they are not required to make decisions based on an ODARA score.

'Any reliable information that helps a judge make a reliable decision is welcome,” she said. 'ODARA is another tool in the toolbox.”

Service agencies that assist the victims of domestic violence can also use ODARA. Delaney Dixon, assistant executive director of the Domestic Violence Intervention Program, told police during training this week that ODARA scores can be used to assure victims that they were right to be afraid and to involve the police.

'This is used to validate the victim's feelings,” Dixon said.

Becky Kinnamon, director of the Crimes Against Persons Program in the State Court Administrator's Office, said legislation has previously been proposed that would require risk assessments for all domestic assault arrests and similar proposals could appear again. When she set out to find a program that could be used in Iowa, ODARA stood out for it's 77 percent accuracy rate and its ease of use. ODARA also is being used in Black Hawk County, but Johnson County is the test case for fully implementing it across police departments, courts and service providers.

'We're starting here (in Johnson County) and learning what we need to learn in order to move forward,” Kinnamon said. 'We know it may look different in other communities.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8238; lee.hermiston@thegazette.com