NCJ Number
213065
Journal
Violence Against Women: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal Volume: 12 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2006 Pages: 137-159
Date Published
February 2006
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This article presents evaluation findings from an assessment of the Family Violence Response Team (FVRT), which provided crisis intervention, emergency treatment, and referral services to adult and child victims of domestic violence in San Diego, CA.
Abstract
Comparisons of batterer recidivism rates for the intervention and control groups indicated that the intervention group served by the FVRT had higher rates of recidivism than did the control group. The only demographic variable found to influence batterer recidivism was marriage, with married batterers being only slightly less likely to recidivate than unmarried batterers. The findings suggest that the FVRT program was not an effective domestic violence intervention program and indeed, may have unintentionally created conditions that precipitated further violence. Data were drawn from official police records for 327 FVRT clients who had an index police visit in 1998 and for 798 controls with an index police visit in 1997. The recidivism measurement relied on police calls for help through July 2000. Data were analyzed using Pearson’s chi-square, Pearson’s correlation, odds ratios, and the Kaplan Meyer survival analysis. Future studies should focus on collecting more information about the victim and the batterer in order to explore a greater range of predictors of repeat violence. Tables, figures, references