NCJ Number
215808
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 12 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2006 Pages: 917-935
Date Published
October 2006
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This study investigated a variety of legal and extra-legal variables for their ability to predict intimate partner violence recidivism.
Abstract
The results indicated that many of the legal and extralegal factors previously hypothesized as impacting intimate partner violence recidivism were actually unrelated to batterer recidivism. Variables discovered to be unrelated to batterer rearrest included prosecutorial actions, imprisonment, placement in a batterer treatment program, cohabitation status, marital status, gender, employment, victim support for arrest, and substance use at the time of the incident. On the other hand, three variables were found to significantly predict rearrest for intimate partner violence within an 18-month followup period: (1) use of a weapon; (2) offender prior arrest for any offense; and (3) the presence of a protective order at the time of the precipitating incident. Additionally, race was found to predict rearrest, with African-Americans more likely than Whites to be rearrested within 18 months. The findings suggest that the criminal justice system’s “one shoe fits all” approach to domestic violence will not help prevent further violence from occurring. Rather, the criminal justice system is advised to focus on the chronic offender since it is these types of offenders who are most likely to reoffend. Data were gathered on 872 misdemeanor cases or violation of probation cases involving domestic violence that were processed through Sacramento County Court System’s Domestic Violence Court between January 2000 and April 2000. All cases involved heterosexual couples but some cases were composed of female offenders and male victims. Multivariate regression analyses were employed to investigate how case processing outcomes, extralegal variables, and offender characteristics impacted rearrest within an 18-month period. Future research should further investigate the mechanisms underlying the greater recidivism risk for African-Americans. Tables, appendix, notes, references