What Is the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA)?

The Spousal Assault Risk Assessment, usually called the SARA, is a forensic evaluation that courts, probation officers, and corrections agencies use to judge how likely someone is to commit future intimate partner violence. The current version, SARA-V3, works through 24 risk factors and produces a structured professional judgment about three things: how severe future harm is likely to be, how soon it could happen, and how much intervention the case needs. If you are facing one, the results can shape bail conditions, custody rulings, sentencing, supervision level, and whether the court orders batterer intervention or electronic monitoring.

What the Tool Measures

SARA-V3 sorts its 24 factors into three domains.¹

The first domain, eight factors, looks at the nature of the violence itself. Evaluators rate whether the person used intimidation, made explicit threats, caused physical harm, or committed sexual violence, and whether the pattern qualifies as severe, chronic, or escalating. They also note any violations of supervision conditions tied to past incidents. Each factor is rated for the past year and for the person’s longer history.

The second domain, ten factors, examines the person being assessed. It covers problems in intimate relationships, conflicts in non-intimate relationships, employment and financial instability, personal trauma history, general antisocial conduct, major mental illness, personality disorder, substance use, violent or suicidal thoughts, and distorted thinking about partner violence. Alcohol and stimulant use draw particular attention because of the link to impulsive aggression. Personality traits marked by a lack of empathy or chronic hostility weigh heavily here too.

The third domain, six factors, is about the victim’s circumstances: barriers to physical security, barriers to financial independence, interpersonal support, community resources, the victim’s attitudes or behavior regarding the relationship, and the victim’s mental health.² These factors are not meant to assign blame. They help the evaluator see practical obstacles that might keep the victim from leaving or staying safe.

Who Performs the Evaluation

SARA assessments are usually conducted by forensic psychologists, clinical psychologists, or related professionals with hands-on experience in intimate partner violence cases. Probation officers and specialized corrections staff also use the tool to manage supervision.³

There is no universal certification exam or set minimum of training hours. The SARA-V3 manual says assessors should have advanced training and stay current with the research, and leaves the specifics to jurisdictions and employers. In practice, most evaluators hold at least a master’s degree and complete supervised assessments before working independently. If you plan to challenge the report in a hearing, the evaluator’s qualifications will be one of the first things in play.³

What the Evaluator Reviews Before Scoring

Before rating any factor, the evaluator builds a file. That typically includes police incident reports and arrest records, court records such as protective orders and prior convictions for stalking or harassment, past psychological evaluations, and medical records that flag underlying conditions or prior treatment. The point is a full picture of behavior over time, not a snapshot of one incident.

A clinical interview with you is standard. The evaluator is watching your current attitudes, how you regulate your emotions, and how you answer direct questions about the relationship and the alleged violence. Information from the victim carries equal weight. Victim statements to investigators give a perspective on the frequency, severity, and pattern of past incidents that the person being assessed may minimize. Collateral contacts with family members, witnesses, or treatment providers fill in gaps.

Good SARA practice looks at sequences and trajectories, including escalation patterns and cycles of reconciliation, rather than treating a single incident as the whole story.

How Risk Is Scored and Reported

Each of the 24 factors is rated on a three-point scale: not present, possibly or partially present, or present. The evaluator makes that call twice for every factor, once for the recent period (usually the past year) and once for earlier history. “Present” means clear evidence through records, interviews, or both. “Possibly or partially present” means some evidence exists but falls short of full confirmation. “Not present” means the evaluator found no supporting evidence.¹

Once the individual factors are rated, the evaluator produces a summary risk judgment using the Structured Professional Judgment model. This is where SARA parts company with purely mathematical tools. There is no numerical score and no single low-to-high label. The V3 summary addresses three separate questions: the likely severity of future harm, the imminence of that harm, and how much intervention the case requires. The idea is to tell the court not just whether someone is dangerous, but how dangerous, how soon, and what resources the case needs.¹

The structured judgment model also lets the evaluator weigh certain factors more heavily when the case warrants it. A history of non-fatal strangulation, for example, is one of the strongest predictors of future lethal violence, and an evaluator who identifies that pattern can let it drive the summary even if other factors score low.

Where the Results Get Used

SARA findings show up at multiple points in a case. In pretrial settings, judges use them to set bail conditions, decide on no-contact orders, and determine whether temporary release is safe. Family courts rely on them for custody arrangements, visitation, and protective orders. Corrections agencies use them to assign supervision levels and to build release conditions that target the specific risk factors identified.

The assessment also drives treatment orders. A high-severity, high-imminence result often leads to mandated batterer intervention programs, substance abuse treatment, or electronic monitoring. A lower-priority result might mean standard probation with periodic check-ins. Because the summary breaks risk into severity, imminence, and case prioritization rather than a single label, judges have more granular information to work with than a simple “high risk” verdict would give them.

Grounds for Challenging a SARA Report

The SARA generally holds up against the standards courts use to evaluate expert testimony, including Daubert criteria that look at whether a method is testable, peer-reviewed, and generally accepted. Attacking the tool itself rarely works. What does work is challenging how the evaluator applied it in your case.

Treating the tool as a checklist. SARA-V3 is not a tally. An evaluator who counted endorsed items without analyzing how those factors interact in the full case has misused the instrument.
Using a static snapshot. An evaluator who did not account for changes in substance use, relationship status, employment, or living situation is vulnerable on cross-examination.
Overvaluing protective factors, or undervaluing them. Treatment attendance is not the same as treatment benefit, and employment can add stress or access rather than stability. Either direction is a legitimate target depending on which way the report cut.
Ignoring conflicting instruments. If another risk tool used in the same case reached different conclusions, the evaluator should be able to explain the discrepancy rather than brush it aside.
Victim blaming. The victim vulnerability domain requires the evaluator to describe practical safety obstacles without implying the victim is responsible for the violence. Any pathologizing of the victim is a reliable line of attack.

How SARA Compares to ODARA

The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment, or ODARA, is the alternative you are most likely to hear about. ODARA is an actuarial tool that produces a numerical probability of recidivism. SARA uses structured professional judgment and describes risk qualitatively.

The practical difference matters. More than three-quarters of ODARA’s items are static, measuring things that cannot change, such as prior criminal history. That makes it fast to score but limited for showing whether treatment or changed circumstances have reduced someone’s risk. Nearly half of SARA’s items are dynamic, covering substance use, employment stability, and relationship patterns that can shift. SARA is more useful for shaping intervention plans and reassessing risk later, but it takes longer and demands a more skilled evaluator. Some jurisdictions use both, and research suggests the combination predicts both intimate partner violence and general criminal recidivism better than either tool alone.

What a Private Evaluation Costs

When the court does not appoint an evaluator, you or your attorney will typically hire a forensic psychologist to conduct the assessment privately. Fees vary with credentials, location, and complexity. Hourly rates for forensic psychologists generally start around $250, and a full SARA evaluation covering record review, clinical interview, collateral contacts, scoring, and report writing commonly runs between $1,500 and $2,800, sometimes more. Extensive records or multiple collateral interviews push the cost higher.

If the court appoints the evaluator, the cost may be covered by the jurisdiction or split between the parties depending on local rules. Defendants who cannot afford a private evaluation may be able to request a court-appointed assessor, though the availability of qualified evaluators varies by location. Before any private assessment begins, ask for a written fee estimate that covers the full scope of work.

1
PubMed Central. Psychometric Properties of the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment
2
Palo Alto University. Intimate Partner Violence (SARA-V3 and B-SAFER-2)
3
Risk Management Authority. Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide Version 3 (SARAV3)