Bennington County Integrated Domestic Violence Docket Project: Outcome Evaluation Final Report

• NCJ Number: 238664
• Author(s): Max Schlueter Ph.D.; Peter Wicklund Ph.D.; Robin Adler Ph.D.; Joan Owen B.S.; Tim Halvorsen B.S.
• Date Published: December 2011
• Length: 52 pages
• Sale Source: Vermont Ctr for Justice Research
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This report from the Vermont Center for Justice Research presents the results of an outcome evaluation on Bennington County's Integrated Domestic Violence Docket Project.

Abstract

The four major findings of the outcome evaluation of Bennington County's Integrated Domestic Violence Docket project are: 1) the project appears to be a promising approach for reducing post-program recidivism among defendants convicted of domestic violence; 2) the project appears to be a promising approach for reducing the number of post-program reconvictions among defendants convicted of domestic violence; 3) recidivists from both study groups engaged in a variety of different post-program criminal behaviors which suggests a high level of service needs beyond the presenting problem of domestic violence; and 4) based on available data, on average the project processed domestic violence cases twice as fast as the Bennington County District Court and three times faster than other district courts statewide. The Integrated Domestic Violence Docket Project in Bennington County, VT, was initiated in September 2007 to provide immediate responses to domestic violence events by coordinating Family and Criminal Division cases. The program follows the one family, one judge idea and works by allowing a single judge, one day each week, to have immediate access to all relevant information concerning the case regardless of the traditional docket, and to gather all appropriate stakeholders together regardless of any traditionally limited roles. Data for the evaluation came from an analysis of the criminal history records of 2 groups of offenders: 140 offenders who were referred to the project and 102 offenders whose cases were prosecuted in the county's district court without the benefit of the project. The evaluation found that by integrating all domestic violence related matters involving the same people, Bennington County's Integrated Domestic Violence Docket project was able to achieve its goals of preventing further abuse and violence and remediating the effects of prior abuse on family members. 30 tables and 3 figures