PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania State Police are adopting a new training program aimed at protecting domestic violence survivors from life-threatening abuse.
The Lethality Assessment Program is a screening tool that law enforcement can use while responding to a domestic incident to identify victims who could be at a higher risk of being harmed again or killed.
Danni Beinschroth with the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence said the program, which has been around since 2012, asks a set of questions to assess the lethality of a situation.
“And the way that lethality is assessed is through various types of behaviors that the survivor will report having experienced from the abuser,” Beinschroth said.
If the victim’s answers uncover behaviors like threats with a weapon or abuse happening in public and in front of children, police will be trained to identify them as a high risk.
They will be immediately connected with domestic violence advocates to begin safety planning and receive a range of services.
While the program will certainly help those in bigger cities like Philly and Pittsburgh, Beinschroth said the State Police’s training will also help rural communities.
“I think it's just gonna be really helpful to sort of close any existing gaps that I think oftentimes survivors and law enforcement agencies are experiencing in these rural areas.”
Last year, two-thirds of those screened were identified as high-risk.
“It really shows the importance of having an identification tool such as LAP that not only provides a way for us to identify these cases where there is a very serious risk of loss of life and lethality, but also is able to put some possible resources in place that help mitigate that risk,” Beinschroth said.
Nearly 500 other law enforcement agencies use the program in Pennsylvania.
