Violence Toward Judicial Officials

Abstract

This article explores several unique aspects that distinguish judicial officials from other public figures targeted for violence. Assaults and threats against judicial officials derive from the officials' role in the judicial system. They tend to have multiple victims, be motivated out of anger or disappointment over a particular court case, and--because of the court case--involve an interpersonal relationship between target and assailant. The article also argues for the necessity of researching both attackers and nonattackers in order to compare the similarities and differences between them, for example, the method by which attackers and nonattackers choose to communicate with or contact their targets. The article concludes with a call for more research on local judicial jurisdictions. This promises the largest laboratory for understanding violence toward judicial officials.

A glimpse of threat assessment and management activity performed by the United States Marshals Service.

“…Interestingly, the present sample were less likely to threaten their targets directly, which is also consistent with prior research (Calhoun, 2001; Scalora et al, 2002a). While popular knowledge may suggest that those who threatened are more likely to pose a threat, such notion has proven misleading from a practical and statistical point (Fein & Vossekuil, 1999; Scalora et al, 2002a).…”

“…Overall, the results of this study are in line with prior literature and underscore that problematic activity against judicial officials is grievance-based and has the potential to escalate into approach behavior (Calhoun, 2001). Coinciding with early studies on disturbing and threatening contacts (Calhoun, 2001; Fein, Vossekuil, & Holden, 1995), there is no profile of individuals who engaged in problematic contacts against officials within the judicial sector. Consistent with other targeted violence samples, a significant percentage of subjects demonstrated signs of severe mental disorder (48%).…”

Broadening campus threat assessment beyond mass shootings

“…Most (93%) exhibited behavioral indications of planning (e.g., gathering weapons, threatening targeted individuals), displayed intentions to friends, schoolmates, or siblings (81%), and generated concern from at least one adult (88%). Reviews of intended attacks toward British royalty, Western European politicians (Mullen et al, 2008), and United States judicial officials (Calhoun, 2001) had comparable findings. Thus, for targeted violence prevention, security professionals are trained to notice forewarning pre-incident behavior and intervene in these concerning situations prior to attack (Fein & Vossekuil, 1999;Fein et al, 1995;Meloy et al, 2008).…”

“…Targeted attacks were shown to be infrequent with 43 assassinations or attempted assassinations of prominent individuals in the United States (e.g., politicians, celebrities; Fein & Vossekuil, 1999) between 1949and 1996, 23 attacks on British Royalty between 1778and 1994(Mullen et al, 2008, 3 United States federal judges killings between 1979 and 2001 (Calhoun, 2001), and 37 United States primary/secondary school shootings between 1974 and 2000 (Vossekuil, Fein, Reddy, Borum, & Modzeleski, 2002). This scarcity suggested limited usefulness in addressing targeted violence through general risk assessment techniques (e.g., base-rates and static risk factors), which would wrongly identify many non-violent stakeholders and fail to identify some high-risk situations (Randazzo & Cameron, 2012;Reddy et al, 2001).…”

The Stalking of Public Figures: Management and Intervention

“…Checklists need to be the subject of quantitative research to ensure that they are both reliable and valid. Some studies have specified risk factors among approach behaviors towards public figures (17)(18)(19) but research in this arena is at an embryonic stage. For the time being, some useful variables may be derived from the wider research on the prediction of violence (e.g., school adjustment, presence or absence of various mental illnesses or personality disorders, previous offence history), whilst others may be gleaned in part from analyses of actual attacks on public figures (e.g., 5).…”