Predicting dropout of court-mandated treatment in a British sample of domestic violence offenders

Abstract

Prior to starting a pro-feminist domestic violence rehabilitation programme, 120 British male domestic violence offenders completed psychometric and attitudinal measures that assessed pro-domestic violence attitudes, anger, locus of control, self-reported emotional and psychological abuse of a partner, interpersonal dependency and social desirability. Offenders who completed the programme were compared to those who dropped out on these measures and demographic variables. Just under one-third (32.5%) of offenders failed to complete the programme. Of those variables that discriminated between completers and dropouts (age, previous custodial sentences, age at first conviction, marital status, self-reported abuse, and diagnosis of depression), only age (being young), having previously received a custodial sentence and self-reported low levels of physical abuse of a partner predicted attrition. These results are discussed with reference to probation supervision.     

Men who batter women: A study in power

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between a batterer's perception of his partner's power and the severely of violent tactics. Subjects for this study were 21 males, who had been arrested for domestic assault. Batterers whose educational level was higher than their partners used more severity violent tactics in assault. A correlation was found between reward power and severity of abuse, indicating that batterers perceive their partners as having a high ability to reward.     

Injuries and Health Care Use in Women with Partners in Batterer Intervention Programs

Objective:To characterize injury frequency, injury patterns, and health care seeking behavior in women with intimate partners enrolled in batterer intervention programs. Methods: A standardized telephone interview was conducted on a sample of women with male partners enrolled in batterer intervention programs in four U.S. cities. Information on prior injuries and the utilization of health care services was sought. Results: Four hundred and eighty eight of the 648 women (75.3%) reported a history of prior injury as a result of abuse. Contusions were the most common injury. Of the women reporting contusions, 233 (51.4%) reported contusions as their only injuries. Another 220 women (48.6%) reported other injuries in addition to contusions. In the majority of cases (63.2%) the contusions were to multiple body parts. When the contusion involved only one anatomical region, it was mostly to the face. A total of 192 of the 488 injured women (39.3%) reported ever seeking medical care for injuries caused by their intimate partner. Twenty-three women (4.7% of the injured cohort or 3.5% of the total cohort) reported having ever been hospitalized for injuries sustained from abuse.     

Building on the Greenbook: A Perpetrator Pattern‐Based Approach to Improve Child Welfare’s Response to Domestic Violence

The Greenbook Initiative has acted as a catalyst for change across the United States and globe. In this article, the authors discuss how the Greenbook has shaped the environment related to perpetrator accountability in child welfare, how a paradigm shift in work with fathers can advance domestic violence‐informed practice, and how a perpetrator pattern‐based approach, as exemplified by the Safe & Together Model, can help advance the vision of the Greenbook.     

The reduction of violent crime through economic equality for women

Normally we do not link the reduction of violent crime with equal rights for women, this paper traces such a linkage. Central to the logic of this argument is that the distribution of the frequency of violent crime is often described by a bimodal curve which supposedly distinguishes between minor, unimportant offenders and a distinct group of serious offenders: the target for many policies being the latter. In fact, this bimodal distribution does not exist; therefore, policies based on it will be fruitless. The larger group of minor offenders is basically ignored. The distribution of violence is better described as a continuous skewed curve which retains its shape. Thus, an effective policy to reduce violence would have to shift the entire curve to the left. Reducing the more numerous acts of lesser violence rather than concentrating on the rarer cases of extreme violence would be more effective. Since much violence is nurtured in family settings, policies that decrease stress in family settings would have a meaningful impact on future violence. Stress could be reduced with greater economic equality for women, making it possible for them to leave potentially violent domestic settings. In the long term this would have an impact on violent crime.     

Minors,gender, and family: The discourses in the court system of traditional Buenos Aires

The article deals with public attitudes toward family responsibility in early-nineteenth-century Bienos Aires, particularly as revealed in lawsuits occasioned by disputes over the custody of minors. The care and education of minors was ordinarily entrusted to parents, but death, incapacity, licentious conduct, poverty or abandonment often resulted in the minor being removed from parents and taken by others into custody of guardians or institutions of public welfare. The majority of the analyzed lawsuits resulted from an attempt by parents to recover their authority over their children. The lawsuits indicate that the racial, gender, social, and generational “disadvantages” of plaintiffs did not a priori determine the judgement, but rather that arguments for family stability frequently were decisive when heard by sympathetic judges. Disadvantages persons thus frequently argued sucessfully about the meaning of the family, as protagonists in the legal system that otherwise often marginalized them.     

Criminal history and social disadvantage as predictors of the severity of violent offending

ABSTRACT

Lethal violence is often seen as the tip of the iceberg and homicide perpetrators are seen as manifesting the most extreme number of various risk factors. This article explores whether that is the case. Using a unique data set combining data from several administrative registers with a nationally representative sample of different types of police-reported violence committed during 2010–2011 (N = 26,303 offenders) in Finland, we compare the offenders of five different types of violence (minor assault, assault, aggravated assault, attempted homicide, and completed homicide). In addition, we examine the association between the severity of violence and prior criminal history and different types of strain. The results give partial support to the hypothesis: the more serious the violence, the more crime prone and socially disadvantaged the offender. Yet, lethal offenders do not stand out alone; the division, rather, appears to be between offenders of serious (aggravated assault, attempted homicide, completed homicide) and less serious (minor assault, assault) forms of violence.     

Differentiating between physically violent and nonviolent stalkers: an examination of Canadian cases

This study is one of a few that empirically investigated factors that differentiated the physically violent stalker from the nonviolent stalker. Using discriminant analysis, 103 Canadian cases of "simple obsessional" stalking were examined. Overall, the success of the model for classifying cases into one of two groups was 81%. Results revealed that the physically violent stalker is more likely to: (a) have a stronger previous emotional attachment toward their victim; (b) be more highly fixated/obsessed with their victim; (c) have a higher degree of perceived negative affect towards their victim; (d) engage in more verbal threats toward the victim; and (e) have a history of battering/domestic abuse towards the victim. Overall, the variables that best differentiate the physically violent stalker from the nonviolent one appear to characterize underlying themes of anger, vengeance, emotional arousal, humiliation, projection of blame, and insecure attachment pathology.     

Characteristics of court-involved men and non-court-involved men who abuse their wives

The characteristics of court involved (CI) (n=86) and non-court-involved (NCI) men (n=42) who abused their wives and attended a treatment program were investigated. The groups experienced similar childhoods concerning family violence. The NCI men had more years of education, were more likely to be employed full-time, and tended to earn more money than the CI men. The NCI men also had more social support and scored higher on interpersonal problems than the CI men. The CI men were more likely to be separated, more reported drinking during their most recent assaultive occasion. Compared to the norms on the Basic Personality Inventory, both groups scored significantly higher on depression, anxiety, feelings of alienation, hypochondriasis, and impulse expression. CI men had higher denial and social introversion scores and NCI men had higher interpersonal problem scores than the norm. These findings have some implications for the planning of treatment programs.     

Victim Protection Orders and the Stake in Conformity Thesis

Victim Protection Orders have gained wide use by local courts as one method to protect victims of domestic violence. This study of protection orders involves interviews with individuals who obtained such orders in Arizona. The research questions specifically addressed those variables known as the stake in conformity variables in the six attempted replications of the Sherman–Berk Minneapolis Police Study, to examine their potential relevance for the effectiveness of victim protection orders. The findings of this study are analyzed in terms of other research about the effectiveness of victim protection orders.     

‘It’s Not OK’, but ‘It’ never happened: parental alienation accusations undermine children’s safety in the New Zealand Family Court

ABSTRACT

While the public campaign slogan in New Zealand when referring to family violence, is ‘It’s Not OK’, many women in New Zealand report that the Family Court prefers the catchphrase ‘It never happened’. When women and children escaping violence and abuse reach out to the New Zealand Family Court for protection believing the justice system will help them, they often enter an alternative reality where they are not believed and are subsequently made less safe. This is particularly so for those women whose well-founded fears for their children’s safety get reinterpreted as evidence of a deliberate attempt to alienate the children from their fathers. The Backbone Collective, an independent organisation, surveyed New Zealand women about their experiences in the Family Court, finding that many women reported being accused of parental alienation. This paper investigates the sources of these allegations of parental alienation and how they impact mothers and their children. We argue that the use of parental alienation in the New Zealand Family Court is undermining the international rights of children.     

Re-Conceptualising the Policing of Hatred: Confessions and Worrying Dilemmas of a Consultant

Community Safety Units in the London Metropolitan Police handle over 9000 reported incidents of ‘hate’ crime each month. This paper explores the work of these Units through its conceptualisation of the notion of vulnerability. The workload of the CSUs includes domestic, racist and homophobic incidents. The victim/perpetrator relationship, it is assumed, provides special motivation for the offender's violence and requires police to consider special support for the victim. The paper begins with an exploration of how the MPS conceptualises ‘hate crime’. Its rationale for dedicated resources for the policing of particular forms of violence can be found, I suggest in the second part of the paper, in the way in which violence itself is conceptualised. I then offer a different term for thinking about hate crime – targeted violence. I go on to argue in depth how the(faulty) logic about violence obscures our ability to take people's ordinary experiences of intimidation, threat and bodily harm seriously in law and in society. The term ‘hate crime’, I conclude, in advertently reinforces this (faulty) logic. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The impact of pre-treatment responsivity and treatment participation on violent recidivism in a violent offender sample

This study assessed whether pre-treatment responsivity (psychopathy, motivation to attend treatment, denial and minimisation of offending behaviour, and feelings of guilt or shame) predicted violent recidivism and/or moderated the effectiveness of a violence intervention programme. Participants were 114 male violent offenders who were referred to a structured violent offender group treatment programme; 84 offenders commenced the programme. Results showed that treatment completion did not have a significant main effect on recidivism but that psychopathy scores moderated the effects of treatment. Offenders with high scores on the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) who were rated as having good engagement with treatment, or who completed treatment, had similar violent recidivism rates compared to offenders with low PCL:SV scores. In contrast, offenders with high PCL:SV scores who dropped out of treatment or were poorly engaged had significantly higher rates of violent recidivism. These findings indicate that treatment effectiveness could be enhanced, and greater reductions in recidivism achieved, if programmes find ways to engage and maintain psychopathic offenders in treatment.     

Predicting the Use of Different Conflict Tactics Among Arab Siblings in Israel: A Study Based On Social Learning Theory

The article presents a study conducted among 832 Arab adolescents from Israel, in an attempt to predict their use of different tactics (i.e., reasoning, verbal abuse, and physical violence) to resolve conflicts with siblings from the perspective of social learning theory. Different forms of the CT Scales were utilized to elicit information on Arab adolescents' exposure to and experience with different conflict tactics in their families of origin, as well as on their use of such tactics with siblings. Results indicate that the more they witnessed reasoning in their families of origin, the greater the likelihood that they would use the same tactic to resolve conflicts with their siblings. At the same time, the more they witnessed or experienced verbal abuse and physical violence, the greater their use of verbal and physical violence against their siblings. A detailed discussion of different patterns of violence in Arab families as reported by the adolescents is presented, and several implications of the study are addressed.     

Stalking in the Context of Domestic Violence

Abstract

This article examines the effect of criminal justice intervention in domestic violence on stalking in that relationship. Almost two hundred female victims of misdemeanor domestic violence in three jurisdictions were interviewed three times after their cases had closed. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a subsample of 21 victims who had experience with stalking. Specific court outcomes in domestic violence cases and whether or not the victim cooperated with the prosecution do not impact whether or not a domestic violence victim experiences subsequent stalking. Women who experienced stalking in addition to domestic violence were more likely to use the system in the future than women who just experienced domestic violence. The qualitative interviews revealed additional findings regarding victims' opinions of the criminal justice response to stalking in the context of domestic violence.     

Exploring the Stressors of Low-Income Women with Abusive Partners: Understanding Their Needs and Developing Effective Community Responses

This study examined how women's experiences of domestic violence may affect their level of stress, as measured by difficult life circumstances and stressful life events for 107 women living in poverty. Results indicated that women with abusive partners reported higher levels of stress than women who had not experienced abuse. Women's perceptions of how their experiences of domestic violence impacted their health and the type of events women perceived to be most stressful were also examined. Symptoms most frequently perceived to be a result of abusive experiences were heart pounding/racing, trembling hands, headaches, and sleep problems. Implications of the findings for research and community intervention are discussed, including the importance of providing not only crisis intervention services, but also the need to create and maintain long-term support and advocacy services for women who have experienced domestic violence.     

Hostility and stress as mediators of aggression in violent men

This research investigated hypothesized differences on the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory between five groups of men who varied in terms of being violent toward female cohabitants, nonfamily members, or no one, and in terms of marital satisfaction. Other measures, such as stress and childhood abuse data, were employed to interpret the findings. A two-way MANCOVA (group by race) with six sociodemographic covariates revealed significant differences on three Hostility Inventory subscales. The maritally violent men had significantly higher total Hostility than any of the other groups and were significantly discriminable from the other groups. Nonetheless, the beliefs and behaviors of violence-prone individuals overlap to some degree. A cognitive-behavioral model with stimulus variables of life Stressors, intervening variables of hostility and negative stress reactions, and response variables of different forms of aggression served as a framework for interpreting the results.     

From the Inside Out: Efforts by Homeless Women to Disrupt Cycles of Crime and Violence

The premise that childhood victimization is a risk factor for crime and violence in adulthood finds general support, though few agree that there is a direct causal relationship. Mediating factors and intervening variables are often studied. Rarely investigated, however, are the complex and difficult dynamics experienced by those enmeshed in these “cycles of violence.” In this study we explore the struggles of homeless women to disrupt patterns of violence in their lives. Using in-depth qualitative interviews, we illustrate how these women learn and understand that they are caught up in cycles of crime and violence and, to varying degrees, have made active efforts to disrupt them. However, we find that they have very few tools or resources with which this could be accomplished, which ultimately thwarts potentially successful efforts for lasting change while foregrounding deficiencies in systemic support.     

Family systems in central Russia in the 1830s and 1890s

Czap, Moon, and Mironov have suggested that two regional models for the rural family existed side by side in 19th-century Russia. This article approaches the question by examining the rural family as a statistically describable system occurring in a given economic and institutional context. The material applies to 8 local communities representing central Russia in the 1830s and 11 in the 1890s, the majority being the same communities in both cases. The aim is to determine from the household arrangements, economies, and institutional frameworks of these communities the kind of context in which a certain family system occurred. By relating these conclusions to data on the economic circumstances and social structures of the different parts of central Russia, two regional family systems are identified. Czap's “Eastern European family type” predominated in this area in the 1830s. Because the reforms and reorientation of economic activities in the 1860s brought about changes in household arrangements, however, a pattern characteristic of communities with a substantial degree of social stratification became the norm for most of the area.     

Evaluating the Efficacy of Protection Orders for Victims of Domestic Violence

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to gauge the efficacy of protection orders for victims of domestic violence. The theoretical basis for this analysis is Johnson's (1995) theory that there exist two distinct forms of domestic violence: “common couple violence,” which consists of low-grade, mild abuse that is equally perpetrated by both men and women, and “patriarchal terrorism,” which involves severe mental and physical abuse that is used primarily by men to control their female partners. Based on Johnson's theory, it is hypothesized that protection orders will be less effective for women who experience patriarchal terrorism than for women who experience common couple violence. The results of this analysis indicate that the primary independent variable, that is, whether a woman experiences common couple violence or patriarchal terrorism, is not a good predictor of protection order violation. However, several secondary independent variables were found to be significant, including victim's race and employment status, as well as the couple's living arrangements at the time of the protection order.