HISTORY OF INTERVENTION
WITH DV PERPETRATORS
Katreena Scott, Ph.D. C. Psych.
University of Toronto
MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM
 Family violence accounts for 33% of violent crime reported to
police
 30% homicides committed against females are perpetrated by
intimates
 Intimate partners perpetrate 23% of self -reported non-fatal
violent crime victimization (rape, assault, aggravated assault)
against females
 28% of substantiated child protection investigations are due
to child exposure to domestic violence
WHERE WE ARE GOING
 Mandatory arrest
 Making charges stick: DV Court
 Court-linked intervention programs: Partner Assault Response
(PAR)
 Risk Assessment and Risk Management
HOW DID WE GET MANDATORY ARREST
 Early to mid 1970’s
 General police practice was to separate for a “cool down”
period
 Not for some! Us social science people had already started to
try to mettle/collaborate and some police departments had
just undergone pretty extensive training in mediation
 In some jurisdictions, aim was for mediation to reduce rates
of arrest (advantages of crisis intervention)
WOMEN NEEDS FOR SAFET Y WERE
RECOGNIZED (MID TO LATE 1970’S)
Key messages
 It could happen to any woman
 Perpetrators (predominantly men) were the problem, not those
experiencing the abuse (this was not a problem related to the
victim’s personality)
 Consequences are serious and potentially long -term
 Society needs to change to protect women at risk
 Organization of shelters
 In the late 1970’s and early 80’s, began to advocate for a
dif ferent justice response
BERK AND SHERMAN’S EXPERIMENT
 American Sociological Review, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Apr., 1984),
 Police Foundation and the Minneapolis Police Department
 Field experiment on domestic violence .
 arrest
 advice (including, in some cases, informal mediation )
 an order to the suspect to leave for eight hours
 Six month follow -up af ter police intervention of of ficial data
and victim reports
RESULTS
Condition
Police Data, assault
Arrest
13%
Separate
26%
Condition
Victim Report, assault
Arrest
9%
Advise
37%
There was very little incapacitation
REPLICATIONS
 Minneapolis experiment replicated in six other cities.
 Meta-analysis by Sherman in 1992 concluded that replications
did not produce results as conclusively favouring mandatory
arrest as the original experiment
 Some evidence of dif ferential impact
 Stake in conformity (unmarried, unemployed, previously arrested)
 Procedural justice
MAYBE ARREST IS NOT ENOUGH
MID 1990’S: RISE OF THE DV COURT
 In 1997, the Domestic Violence Court (DVC) Program began in
6 Ontario communities
 Expanded fairly rapidly to all jurisdictions by the mid 2000’s
 Like other specialized courts, DVC aims to:
 Increase efficiency in processing cases
 Lessen the impact of crime by providing services to victims (V/WAP)
 Ensure that Crowns and Judges hearing these cases were trained in
the area
 Hold offenders accountable, associated intervention, carrot and stick
method of justice
EVALUATION OF DVC
 PRA Report to the Ministry of the Attorney General, 2006
 Some highlights
 Consistent evidence that the V/WAP through DVC improved the
provision of information and other services to victims
 Increase in use of risk assessments
 Increase in collection of evidence in addition to victim testimony (e.g.
911 calls)
 36% of offenders receive PAR as a condition of probation; other
counselling ordered more frequently (55%)
 Most men (91%) received probation (sometimes as well as
incarceration)
 Probation conditions increased with DVC program, in particular non association orders, no weapons and other counselling
EVALUATION OF DVC
 Average time from of fense date to guilty plea was 126 days
 For of fenders who did not enter the EIP, the average number
of days from of fense to was 159 days
 Wait times tended to be longer in larger urban centres,
especially Toronto
EVALUATION OF DVC
 DVC cases more likely to result in a plea or finding of guilt
(66%) as compared to all charges (52%)
 A lower proportion of DVC cases have the most serious charge
withdrawn or stayed as compared to general category of
criminal cases (24% vs. 44%)
IMPROVEMENTS STILL NEEDED
 Identified substantial problems with the IEP program in terms
of what kind of cases were making it into the program
 Identified problems with referral to PAR and with follow -up
around this
 Problem with communication among members of the system
 Problem with inconsistency between criminal court and family
court orders
 We can list others
OUTCOMES WITH AND WITHOUT DVC
 Recidivism of 500 men convicted in 2001 through DVC or non DVC (DOJ evaluation)
 Recidivism defined as at least one reconviction for any
criminal of fense between index of fense and Dec 31 , 2003
(approx. 2 yrs.)
 31% DVC and 32% non-DVC men were reconvicted
WHAT IF WE ADD TREATMENT?
BATTERER INTERVENTION PROGRAMS
 In the late 1970’s a few program for men were stated
including Emerge in Boston, RAVEN in St. Louis, AMEND in
Denver, Manalive in Marin County California, the Domestic
Assault Program in Tacoma Washington, and Men Stopping
Violence in Atlanta
 These programs used a variety of models of intervention
 In 1981 , a group of individuals in Duluth, Minnesota including
Ellen Pence and Michael Paymar established the Domestic
Abuse Intervention Project, the Duluth Model (26 weekly
group sessions)
BATTERER INTERVENTION PROGRAMS
 Duluth most natural extension of the justice intervention
 Primary mission is to promote safety for victims and
accountability for batterers
 Education about DV, help reduce minimization and denial,
promote accountability
 To a greater or lesser extent, teaching of relationship,
communication, emotion-regulation skills so that abusive
behaviour is more easily avoided
HOW EFFECTIVE IS BATTERER
INTERVENTION?
 Quasi-experimental studies (i.e., compare outcomes of men
who completed the group to those who did not) generally find
a significant moderate ef fect of intervention (e.g. 20%
dif ference in re-assault rates)
 Experimental studies (again six funded by the DOJ in the US)
find minimal impact of intervention for men randomly
assigned to groups
 Lots of problems with random assignment
 What about dose, is it fair to consider someone who attended one
session as having completed the program?
 Low response rate from women
WHERE WE ARE NOW
 Cochrane Collaboration, by Smedslund G, Dalsbø TK, Steiro A ,
Winsvold A , Clench-Aas J, 2007
 “The research evidence is insuf ficient to draw conclusions
about the ef fectiveness of cognitive behavioural interventions
for physically abusive men in reducing or eliminating male
violence against female partners. This does not mean that
there is evidence for no ef fect. We simply do not know
whether the interventions help , whether they have no ef fect,
or whether they are harmful .”
BUT WE HAVE LEARNED A LOT!
WE CAN SHOW CHANGE…





In attitudes towards partner
In level of minimization
In communication skills
In anger regulation
In knowledge of the definition of abuse and of abuse supporting cognitions
But, it is dif ficult to establish that any of these changes are
associated with reductions in reassault
RESULTS FROM 10 ONTARIO PAR
PROGRAMS
2.5
2
1.5
1
Disavowal of
responsibility
Partner blame
Pre-program
Denial
Post-program
FREQUENCY OF REPEAT ASSAULT
EFFECTS OVER TIME
IMPACT OF DROPOUT
 Program completion is associated a 44% reduction in the
likelihood of partner-reported re-assault, from a recidivism
rate of 55% for program dropouts to a recidivism rate of 36%
for program completers (Gondolf, 2002)
 Similar results were reported by Bennett et al. (2007) in their
analysis of 899 men referred to 30 dif ferent BIP programs.
These researchers found that program completion was
associated with a 39% reduction in the likelihood of
reassault.
PREDICTORS OF REASSAULT
 History of violent arrests
 Continued, problematic use of alcohol and/or drugs
 Failure to complete treatment
 Any new charges
 Severe psychopathology (some controversy)
 Women’s perception of danger (not onetime assault but
multiple)
*some overlap with standard risk assessment measures,
Gondolf’s analysis found no additional advantage once these
variables accounted for
SUMMARY SO FAR
 Arrest alone can be helpful for men who have a high stake in
conformity and/or who have a strong sense of procedural
justice
 DVC courts help ensure the justice process moves smoothly,
but may not alter rates of recidivism rates
 Intervention helps to promote change among those who
complete the program. Drop -out itself is a good indicator of
risk.
WHERE WE ARE NOW: RISK ASSESSMENT
AND MANAGEMENT
 Now we can identify the higher risk of fenders
 Let’s see what we can do with them, our 33% reassaulters or
especially our 15 to 20% multiple reassaulters
 Most likely to dropout of intervention
 Most likely to have previous charges for a range of offenses and be
judged as moderate or high risk
 Most likely to reoffend quickly and to cause injury
 More likely to have complicating additions problems
 More likely to have a lower stake in conformity
DIFFERENTIAL RESPONSE BASED ON LEVEL
OF RISK
 Risk assessment is now a routine part of service in many areas,
and it is becoming more ubiquitous
 Use of risk assessment as part of intervention for women is fairly
common
 Agreement that risk assessment without risk management is not
helpful
 Working to pull together teams to make sure that high risk men
don’t slip through the cracks
 We are trying to facilitate access to safety for high risk women
 All of these things make sense and should be continued
BUT WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE MEN?
 Increase criminal sanctions
Is there another option?
THINKING ABOUT RISK ASSESSMENT
 We do know that risk assessment instruments like the B SAFER and ODARA are reliable and valid
 We don’t know if use of these instruments by probation or
cour ts is related to reductions in recidivism
 We do know that many women have completed the Danger
Assessment
 We know ver y little about how this impacts her decision making around safety
 We do know that services to men are increasingly being
organized by the level of risk he presents
 We don’t know anything about sharing this risk information
with offenders
HEALTH BELIEF MODEL
WHAT IF WE STARTED TALKING TO MEN?
 Specifically, what if we started talking to men about their
level of risk to re -assault their partner? Or specifically, to
perpetrate a lethal assault? What if we raised their perceived
susceptibility?
 What if assessed their sense of the severity of the
consequences?
 What if we started talking to men directly about specific
preventative actions and addressed perceived benefits and
barriers?
WHAT IF WE LINKED THIS TO WHAT WE
ALREADY KNOW ABOUT INTERVENTION?
 Longer, more intense treatment
 Some evidence from the criminal justice system on risk, needs,
responsivity
 Growing evidence and skill in providing cognitive -behavioural therapy
 Impact of engagement
 Evidence that we are more successful when we “meet men where
they are at”
INTERVENTION WITH HIGHLY RESISTANT
CLIENTS
Significant and substantial difference in rates of program completion
(Scott et al., 2011)
Intervention Type
% Complete
Motivation Enhancement
82%
Standard Programming
47%
Effects maintained when other significant predictors of program completion were
included. Men assigned to motivation enhancing intervention were still three and a
half times more likely to complete then men assigned to standard programming
Results echoed in studies by studies done by other researchers: Scott & Wolfe
(2003); Taft, Murphy, King, Musser & DeDeyn (2003); Taft et al., (2001); Woodin,
Rosenbaum, Taft, Murphy, Musser, et al. (2008)
38
STAY TUNED…
 Would risk discussions for DV work similarly to risk
discussions about heart attacks?