Professor Gérard Labuschagne PhD is a Director and co-owner of L&S Threat Management. He was the Section Head of the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) specialised Investigative Psychology Section (IPS) for 14 years and resigned on the rank of a Brigadier. The IPS is responsible for assisting the SAPS with investigations of psychologically motivated crimes, which include threat assessments. The Section is also the only unit with a mandate to compile offender profiles for unknown suspects in cases of interpersonal violence and communicated threats. He is a Clinical Psychologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the British Psychological Society, a trained hostage negotiator and homicide investigator, a criminologist, and an admitted Advocate of the High Court. Gérard and his business partner Bronwynn are the only two US Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP) Certified Threat Managers (CTM) from the African continent, of which there are only 130 CTMs worldwide. Gérard is also the President of the African Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (AfATAP) which was founded in 2019, to promote the profession of threat assessment on the African continent.
He holds a Diploma in Criminal Justice and Forensic Auditing obtained from the then Rand Afrikaans University, a Bachelors Degree Majoring in Psychology and Criminology from the University of Pretoria, an Honours Degree in Psychology from the University of Pretoria, an LLB from UNISA, a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Pretoria, a Masters Degree in Criminology from the University of Pretoria, and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Pretoria.
He is on the editorial board for the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling and the Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, a consultant to the National Institute of Justice of the Department of Justice in the USA, and a fellow of the International Academy of Investigative Psychology. He is a member of the International Homicide Investigators Association. He was an adjunct faculty member of the California School of Forensic Studies at Alliant International University in the USA. From April 2013 until April 2016 he was a Professor Extraordinarius at the Department of Police Practice at UNISA, and previously a Professor Extraordinarius at the Department of Criminology at UNISA. He currently holds an Honorary Associate Professorship in the Division of Forensic Medicine and Pathology at WITS University. He is a member of the Association of European Threat Assessment Professionals.
Prior to joining the South African Police Service in October 2001 he was employed as a consultant Clinical Psychologist at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria. During the same time he was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Pretoria.
He has provided training to the Belgium Police’s Profiling Unit, the Australian Federal Police, Scotland Yard, Monroe Country Sheriff’s Department in Florida, and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in California, and Botswana Police. He has also been invited as a guest speaker to international conferences such as the Association of European Threat Assessment Professionals and Canadian Association of Threat Assessment Professionals.
Specific training courses that are important that he has attended include: Threat Assessment and Management by Prof Stephen Hart of Simon Fraser University in Canada, Homicide and Death Investigation Course of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Hostage and Suicide Negotiation by the SAPS, Criminal Behaviour Analysis by Dr Peter Collins of the Ontario Provincial Police in Canada, Medicolegal Death Investigation Course at the Department of Medicine of the University of St Louis in the USA, Crime Scene Analysis and Profiling by Sgt (Ret) Jim Van Allen of the Ontario Provincial Police, Arson and Bomb Scene Analysis by Detective Ed Nordskog of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Arson and Bomb Squad, Explosives Identification by Major Lindsay Smith of the SAPS Explosives Section. Bloodstain Pattern Analysis by Ross Gardner from the USA, SCAN (Statement Analysis) by the Laboratory for Scientific Interrogation, Forensic Interviewing by Megaplan IIS, Sexual & Violence Risk Assessment by Bram Van Der Meer (Netherlands), Evidence Based Assessment of Offender Dynamics in Offender Profiling by Sgt Paul Delhauer (ret) Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Stalking Assessment and Management by Prof Stephen Hart of Simon Fraser University in Canada, and Cold Case Investigation by retired Supervisory Special Agent Mark Safarik of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, Psychopathy Assessment and Diagnosis by Dr Peter Collins of the Ontario Provincial Police in Canada, Threat Assessment by Dr Russ Palarea of Operational Psychology Services (exNCIS).
