The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) is an actuarial instrument for evaluating risk of intimate partner violence (IPV). It is used to identify men at risk of violent recidivism; that is, a new offense of assault among men who have already committed an act of IPV. The ODARA is scored based on events at or prior to the most recent occurrence of IPV (the index assault). This article describes how the ODARA was developed and validated, its use within a two-level assessment approach, and its application to other research questions.
Development and Validation
The ODARA was the first IPV risk assessment to be empirically developed. That is, component items were selected through statistical analysis in a follow-up study of offenders. The construction research included 589 men with a police report of assault on a current or former cohabiting partner and used information contained in police and criminal records to identify offender characteristics and circumstances that best distinguished men who had a subsequent record of IPV from those who did not. Multivariate analyses were used to identify unique predictors, and the statistical sampling technique of bootstrapping was used to maximize the likelihood that the results would generalize to new samples. This empirical method makes it possible to develop assessment norms.
The ODARA contains 13 items, each scored 1 for yes and 0 for no based on explicit scoring criteria. In summary form, the items are as follows: pre-index domestic assault in police or criminal records, pre-index nondomestic assault in police or criminal records, pre-index sentence to 30 or more days in custody, failure on pre-index conditional release, threat to physically harm or kill anyone at the index assault, confinement of the partner–victim at the index assault, partner’s concern about future domestic assaults, more than one child of the offender or victim, victim having a biological child with a former partner, pre-index assault on the victim while she was pregnant, offender substance abuse, and barriers to victim support. The total score is the sum of the item scores, prorated where necessary for items treated as missing.
Actuarial tables for the ODARA show normative data for total scores. One piece of data is the likelihood of IPV recidivism, defined as a new record of assault on a cohabiting partner in the follow-up that averaged almost 5 years. This information depends on the definitions and time frames used in the original research and will not necessarily calibrate or generalize to other samples. The table also shows rank order in terms of the percentage of offenders at or below each score. These percentiles can be more informative as they allow individual offenders to be compared with other offenders in terms of their risk of IPV recidivism, regardless of its definition or absolute probability. The use of actuarial data to evaluate individual risk is considered controversial by some, but the predictive validity of this method is well established for both violence risk and general offending, and the numeric information that is yielded by actuarial assessment has been seen to improve violence risk communication.
Reliability and Validity
Interrater reliability of ODARA scoring among researchers and police officers has been excellent (≥.90). The ODARA’s ability to discriminate between subsequent recidivists and nonrecidivists has been demonstrated among men with or without a correctional history, presentenced offenders, and incarcerated men and women. Some research has validated the ODARA as a predictor of general violent and criminal recidivism and domestic sexual recidivism, among other outcomes. ODARA scores are also associated with the timing, frequency, and severity of subsequent IPV. In meta-analytic research, the ODARA compares favorably with other leading IPV risk assessments.
ODARA and Domestic Violence Risk Appraisal Guide
A two-level risk assessment process has been conceived in which the ODARA is used as a brief frontline tool, and the Domestic Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (DVRAG) is used where more in-depth assessment is possible and desirable. The DVRAG was developed as a result of research examining information not normally available to police for their ability to improve on the ODARA’s predictive accuracy. Existing assessments were tested for their incremental value, and the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised was the most consistent contributor to the empirical models of dichotomous and continuous measures of IPV recidivism, including severity and injury. An algorithm was derived for weighting Psychopathy Checklist–Revised score and ODARA items to construct the DVRAG. It is recommended that the DVRAG be used whenever the ODARA score is 2 or more, and a reliable Psychopathy Checklist– Revised score can be obtained.
Other Applications of the ODARA
ODARA score has been associated with IPV recidivism by female offenders, although women reoffend at a lower rate than men. As a result, the ODARA can be used to rank order female offenders with respect to their risk of IPV recidivism, but further research is necessary to obtain normative data regarding the absolute probability of reoffending among female offenders.
Emerging research indicates that ODARA scores are higher among male IPV offenders with co-occurring violence against children. A relevant ODARA item is the partner having biological children with a former partner, which is a key risk factor for child abuse.
The ODARA has been used to evaluate the effect of policing intervention on IPV controlling for pre-arrest risk. A benefit of arrest was detected among lower risk cases, in that recidivism was delayed.
References:
- Hilton, N. Z., Harris, G. T., & Rice, M. E. (2010). Risk assessment for domestically violent men: Tools for criminal justice, offender intervention, and victim services. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
- Hilton, N. Z., Harris, G. T., Rice, M. E., Houghton, R., & Eke, A. W. (2008). An in-depth actuarial risk assessment for wife assault recidivism: The Domestic Violence Risk Appraisal Guide. Law and Human Behavior, 32, 150–163. doi:10.1007/s10979-007-9088-6
- Hilton, N. Z., Popham, S., Lang, C., & Harris, G. T. (2014). Preliminary validation of the ODARA for female intimate partner violence offenders. Partner Abuse, 5, 189–203. doi:10.1891/1946-6560.5.2.189