US News: California County Takes Different Approach to Domestic Violence

The adoption of the “Domestic Violence High Risk Team Model” has seen significantly effective results. According to the crisis center, there were zero domestic violence-related homicides in the high-risk team’s greater Newburyport area between 2005 and 2016, with 81% of all offenders found guilty in court. The DVHRT is essentially a standard operating procedure which utilizes evidence-based risk assessment to alert the domestic violence response system when a case has a high risk of turning lethal. Once a high risk case is identified, a multi-disciplinary team of domestic violence advocates, local law enforcement, prosecutors, probation, corrections, and other community based organizations implements case specific intervention plans to mitigate the immediate danger. As of now, the model has been adopted in more than two dozen communities across Massachusetts and is spreading rapidly around the United States to cities like Cleveland, Schenectady, etc. Click here to read more.