Assessing the effect of batterer program completion on reassault using propensity scores

Recent experimental evaluations have suggested little or no effect of batterer programs on reassault but are compromised by methodological and analytical issues. This study assesses program effect using propensity score analysis with a quasi-experimental sample in an attempt to address these issues. The sample consisted of 633 batterers and their partners from three geographically dispersed batterer programs and a 15-month follow-up with their female partners. Subclassification on propensity scores was used to balance program completers and program dropouts. The propensity score was estimated as the probability of completing the batterer program conditional on observable characteristics. Direct adjustment indicates that program completion reduced the probability of reassault during the 15-month follow-up by 33% for the full sample, and by nearly 50% for the court-ordered men.     

“Squishy” problems and quantitative methods

The edited text of a talk on potential hazards in the application of quantitative methods to “squishy” problems without well-defined structure, of the type frequently encountered in government policy and decisionmaking. Squishy problems are defined, and a three-level conceptual model of analysis which displays the relative roles of logical inference and qualitative human judgment is described. Two ways in which people use models of all types, as a surrogate for the substantive problem (e.g., Newtonian mechanics as a surrogate for “real” mechanics), and as a perspective on the problem (e.g., two-dimensional perspective drawing) are described and contrasted, and some of the implications of the difference for the analysis of squishy problems are discussed.