Comparison of the HCR-20v3, the WAVR-21v3, and the CAG performance across workplace homicide scenarios: A pilot study.

December 10, 2025

Scalora, M. J., Viñas-Racionero, R., & Cawood, J. S. (2020). Comparison of the HCR-
20v3, the WAVR-21v3, and the CAG performance across workplace homicide scenarios: A pilot study. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 7(3-4), 186-199. https://doi.org/10.1037/tam0000154

From the article’s abstract: “Although rare, instances of lethal workplace violence generate a climate of insecurity among the workforce and spur a myriad of initiatives designed to combat this problem. While many of these initiatives have already proved fruitful, there are several practical concerns that must be further resolved. One of these concerns is the lack of empirically validated instrumentation to guide the assessment of individuals with the potential to become violent at the workplace. Accordingly, this pilot study sought to provide preliminary data on the comparability of three violence risk assessment instruments, the Historical, Clinical, Risk-Management-20 Version 3 (HCR-20V3), the Workplace Assessment of Violence Risk-Version 3 (WAVR-21V3), and the Cawood Assessment Grid
(CAG)—the latter two were designed specifically for assessing the risk of violence in workplace settings. Collectively, our results suggest that these three instruments demonstrated a potential to guide risk assessment processes effectively. Specifically, the three instruments showed statistically comparable levels of rater reliability, a fair degree of convergence, and similarly adequate predictive power. Despite its pilot character and particular outcome population, this study provided a starting point from which to continue examining the instruments’ capability to provide accurate forecasts of risk for physically violent behavior in workplace settings.“

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