Protective Factors in New York Violence Risk Reports: Why an Opinion That Only Counts Risk Is Incomplete

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Violence and Threat Risk

A violence risk report that tallies only aggravating factors is half an analysis. The same structured method that identifies what raises risk is supposed to identify what constrains it—and an opinion that omits the second half overstates the first. What a risk opinion is actually supposed to do Counsel often imagines a violence risk evaluation as a verdict: dangerous or not, a number, a probability. That is not what defensible forensic practice produces, nor what the better instruments were built to deliver. The structured professional judgment (SPJ) model—the framework behind tools such as the HCR-20 Version 3—treats risk as conditional and manageable rather than fixed. It asks the evaluato

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