Police Risk and Threat Assessments
A Scoping Review of Current Policing Practice in England and Wales
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 22417294 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Eric Halford (0000-0002-3913-1679, autor de correspondencia) |
| Año | 2026 |
| Fecha de publicación | 2026-05-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sí |
| Open Access | Sí |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 0928-1371 • E-ISSN: 1572-9869 |
| Editorial | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10610-026-09676-x |
| OpenAlex | W7162629715 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Referencias citadas | 106 |
This scoping review examines the current landscape of police risk and threat assessment in England and Wales, identifying origin, breadth and scope of application, as well as empirical efficacy. The analysis highlights a strong adherence to core principles of risk and threat assessment, with structured professional judgement (SPJ) approaches being favoured. The most rigorous and empirically validated assessments are found at the individual or typological level, and relate to sexual and violent offenders, domestic abuse, threats to public figures, and indecent image offenders. In contrast, issues are identified in application of dynamic assessments related to decision-making and vulnerability related risk, as well as typological assessments regarding missing persons, police custody, honour-based abuse, anti-social behaviour, and mental health, where frameworks are either absent, new and untested, lack empirical foundations, or are inconsistently applied. At the strategic level, risk and threat governance instruments remain largely unevaluated despite their central role in setting priorities at local and national levels. The discussion highlights the challenge in the trade-off between breadth and depth. Dynamic models seek to raise standards and consistency, while sacrificing the precision often provided by specialist tools, which remain narrowly applied. Finally, recurring issues of repurposing tools across domains and inconsistent human application highlight that the limitations of assessment are not solely technical but also institutional and primarily relate to culture, resources and training.
Corporate governance · Empirical research · Grey literature · Judgement · Risk assessment · Risk Governance · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending · Stalking, Cyberstalking, and Harassment
International Handbook of Threat Assessment
The “Golden Thread”
The Cambridge Crime Harm Index
Risk assessment and risk management
The ‘officer effect’ in risk assessment for domestic abuse
Guiding police decisions or falling short? A critical theoretical review of the national decision model
Have you considered the opposite? A debiasing strategy for judgment in criminal investigation
Police risk assessment and case outcomes in missing person investigations
Return home interviews with children who have been missing
Classifying missing persons cases
Radicalization into Violent Extremism I
Beyond intimate partner relationships
Drawing upon the evidence to develop a multiagency risk assessment and risk management framework for domestic violence
Predicting Domestic Abuse (Fairly) and Police Risk Assessment
The geometry of shadows
Vulnerability assessment across the frontline of law enforcement and public health
Risk assessment tools used at the policing stage for health and crime outcomes
Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Policing, and Risk Assessment for Law Enforcement
Exploration of the risk factors contained within the UK’s existing domestic abuse risk assessment tool (Dash)
Developing an empirical classification of violent offences for use in the prediction of recidivism in England and Wales
On the decision-making framework for policing
Intimate Femicide
Intimate Partner Femicide
Measuring Coercive Control
Kirat
Algorithmic policing
Dynamic assessment of registered sexual offenders
Missing persons
Variation in detainee risk assessment within police custody across England and Wales
Intelligence Led Policing, Managerialism and Community Engagement
Vulnerability and Policing
Risk assessment and the prevention of radicalization from nonviolence into terrorism
Dashing Hopes? the Predictive Accuracy of Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment by Police
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Can harm be predicted? On the development and validation of a statistical model for predicting harm in missing person incidents
The individual risk assessment of terrorism
Scoping studies
An Examination of the Structural Properties of the Extremism Risk Guidelines (ERG22+)
| Velocidad de citación | historical |
|---|---|
| Altamente citado | No |