Threat Assessment

Behavioral threat assessment is a fact-finding process that is used to evaluate whether someone who has made a threat of violence may in fact engage in the violence that is threatened and to determine effective strategies for preventing the intended violence. It is a process that is often confused with other assessment processes, specifically with violence risk assessment or profiling, even though behavioral threat assessment differs in important ways. Before explaining what behavioral threat assessment is, this entry first explains what it is not by clarifying how violence risk assessment and profiling differ.