Proprietary instrument · Kestralis Group LLC

The KTI-W.

Kestralis Threat Indicators – Workplace. A structured professional judgment framework for assessing the risk of targeted violence in workplace contexts. Eight domains. Twenty-six factors. Four operational risk levels. Original Kestralis work, grounded in the published behavioral science.

Why we built it

An instrument written for the work, by the people doing the work.

Structured professional judgment is the dominant methodology in operational threat assessment because it preserves the practitioner's reasoning while disciplining it through a standard factor set, anchors, and documentation requirements. The category contains a small number of recognized instruments — each shaped by the assumptions, vocabulary, and audience of its authors.

The KTI-W is Kestralis's contribution to that category. We built it because the clients we work with — corporate threat assessment teams, in-house counsel, outside counsel preparing for litigation — needed an instrument written by operators rather than academics: stripped of clinical jargon where ordinary language serves; documented in formats that hold up under regulatory and legal scrutiny; and integrated with the licensed investigative capability that most threat assessments require but few firms can deliver.

The KTI-W is not a replacement for the SPJ instruments practitioners are already trained on. It is an alternative — one designed around the way our principals actually conduct assessments, document them, and defend them in the rooms where the work is reviewed.

The structure

Eight domains. Twenty-six factors. Coded against behavioral anchors, integrated by structured judgment.

Each factor is coded Absent · Present · Prominent — with a dynamic trajectory of Increasing · Stable · Decreasing

— 01

Pathway and Planning Indicators

Observable behaviors associated with progression along the pathway from grievance and ideation to attack preparation. Their presence — and particularly their combination — is the substantive concern in operational threat assessment.

Target research · acquisition of attack-relevant means · operational rehearsal · pre-attack probing · final-act preparations

— 02

Fixation and Grievance

The subject's preoccupation with a perceived wrong and the identification of one or more parties as responsible. Fixation and grievance — particularly when escalating — are central drivers of trajectory.

Grievance saturation · target identification · identification with violent models

— 03

Communication of Intent

How subjects of concern communicate grievance, plans, or intent — to the target, to third parties, or to public audiences. The empirical record is that most targeted attackers communicate intent prior to action.

Direct articulation · third-party disclosure (leakage) · veiled or conditional threat behavior

— 04

Destabilizing Life Events

Life circumstances that may accelerate the trajectory of risk by removing stabilizing influences, intensifying perceived stakes, or creating the conditions for catastrophic thinking.

Acute loss or status collapse · domestic violence circumstances · acute personal crisis

— 05

Weapons and Violence History

The subject's access to means of harm and prior conduct involving threats or violence — both static historical pattern and dynamic current circumstance.

Weapons access and acquisition · history of threat or violence · workplace as adversarial theater

— 06

Mental State and Behavioral Change

Observable changes in functioning, communication of suicidality, and the cognitive framework that often precedes catastrophic action. The KTI-W captures observable change and stated cognition — it does not diagnose mental illness and does not require licensed clinical evaluation to code.

Functional deterioration · suicidality and end-of-life indicators · last-resort cognition

— 07

Organizational and Contextual Factors

Workplace conditions that contribute to risk — both as drivers (perceived injustice, isolation) and as failures to detect, respond, or contain.

Workplace conflict and perceived injustice · isolation and diminished connection · inadequate organizational response

— 08

Protective and Mitigating Factors

Stabilizing influences that may interrupt or de-escalate the trajectory. The SPJ literature is clear that risk is the product not only of accelerating factors but of the absence of stabilizing ones; protective factors are methodologically essential, not a courtesy to the subject.

The factor names, definitions, anchors, inquiry questions, worksheet, risk level descriptions, and report template of the KTI-W are original Kestralis work. The underlying science is drawn from the published threat assessment literature.

01 · 2011
Hart & Logan
Structured professional judgment methodology
02 · 2002
Douglas & Kropp
SPJ approach to violence risk assessment
03 · 2003
Calhoun & Weston
Pathway-to-violence operational model
04 · 1995
Fein, Vossekuil & Holden
U.S. Secret Service NTAC foundational research
05 · 2002
Vossekuil et al.
Safe School Initiative — pre-attack behaviors
06 · 2012
Meloy et al.
Warning behavior typology
07 · 2000
O'Toole
FBI leakage and threat assessment
08 · 2001
Mullen, Pathé & Purcell
Fixation research
09 · 2010
James et al.
Fixation and warning behaviors
10 · 2004
Rugala & Isaacs
FBI workplace violence monograph
11 · 1993
Baron
Foundational workplace violence research
12 · 2015
OSHA
Workplace violence prevention guidance
13 · 2005
Swanberg & Logan
Domestic violence as workplace-spillover

Practitioner standards

An instrument is only as good as the practitioner using it.

SPJ frameworks are explicitly designed for multidisciplinary use. KTI-W practitioners draw on training from the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP), the U.S. Secret Service NTAC programs, federal law enforcement threat assessment training, or comparable sources — combined with practical investigative experience drawn from law enforcement, military or intelligence service, licensed investigative practice, corporate security, or forensic mental health practice.

Where indicators in an assessment suggest the need for clinical evaluation — questions of mental illness, substance use, competency — the practitioner refers for appropriate clinical assessment and integrates the finding into the threat assessment, rather than substituting one for the other. The KTI-W produces a structured risk finding to inform threat management decisions; conclusions concerning psychiatric diagnosis, fitness for duty in the clinical sense, or competency are outside the scope of the instrument and require appropriate licensed practitioners.

Kestralis recommends formal case consultation on every assessment producing a finding of High Concern or Imminent Risk, and on every assessment that may be the subject of litigation or regulatory review.

— Engage

When the situation calls for a structured assessment.

Behavioral threat assessment engagements are the operational home of the KTI-W. When a specific situation needs assessment now — or when an organization needs to build internal threat assessment capability — we engage through the threat assessment service line.

Threat Assessment Service Schedule a Consultation

— Trademarks & disclosures

KTI-W™ and Kestralis Threat Indicators – Workplace™ are trademarks of Kestralis Group LLC. The KTI-W instrument is original Kestralis work; the underlying scientific concepts — the pathway to violence, warning behaviors, fixation, leakage, structured professional judgment — are drawn from the published behavioral science and government research literature.