The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment: Predicting Violence Among Men With a Police Record of Intimate Partner Violence in the United States

Abstract

The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) is an actuarial risk assessment tool for intimate partner violence (IPV) recidivism. Despite its international use, there is no published validation of the ODARA’s predictive accuracy in a U.S. sample. We studied 356 men in New York police records of IPV against a female partner to examine the ODARA’s predictive accuracy for IPV recidivism (base rate 35%), non-IPV violent recidivism (against a nonpartner; 16%), any violent recidivism (49%), and nonviolent recidivism (50%), in a fixed 2-year follow-up. Using 11 scorable ODARA items, area under the curve values were significant and ranged from .590 to .630, indicating small to medium effects. Expected/Observed indices revealed poor calibration with 2-year IPV recidivism rates in ODARA construction and cross-validation samples. Findings support the generalization of the ODARA’s predictive accuracy in different populations and outcomes, but a need for new norm development for higher risk populations.