Lone Actor Violence: Stepping Through Formulation and Risk Decision Making

Lone actor violence is considered to be a diverse category of offending, encompassing acts of terrorism, school/university shooting, workplace killings, and rampage/mass murders.

In response to the emerging violence, specialised units and teams tasked with dealing with threats and persons of concern police have been established. This has created a range of new and varied roles across police, corrections, mental health services, other government agencies, and the private sector. Legislation has also changed across many states and countries with the expansion of criminal code definitions of terrorism and the implementation of continuing detention orders in some places. Consequently, there has been surge in the commission of lone actor offending, along with a number of convictions against those planning and intending to carry out a violent attack.

At the same time, there has been increasing demand on risk and threat assessment tools to provide evidence based risk estimates to inform the decision-making relating to persons of concern. Due to this, many risk tools and threat management approaches have been developed and implemented at a seemingly rapid rate.

Risk and threat assessments are essential tools to mitigating lone actor violence and mass casualty events, however, with these forms of assessments still in their infancy, professionals need to exercise caution and discretion in reaching their conclusions. To assist with understanding concepts or threat and risk, methods of formulating ‘risk’ and ‘level of concern’ will be discussed. The training will also explore risk management strategies and the benefits of a collaborative case management approach.

The workshop will be targeted at those with existing knowledge of lone actor violence or violent offenders. Although the training will specifically examine the application of risk and threat principles to inform decision-making and risk judgments, the training will still provide valuable learning to anyone generally interested in this form of offending. The training will have broad applicability to police, corrections, mental health practitioners, security personnel, academics, and students.