Domestic Abuse Reduction Team: Clinton County, New York, Executive Summary

• NCJ Number: 190989
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 7 pages
• Publication Series: NIJ Research Report
• Grant Number(s): 99-WE-VX-K010
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)

Annotation

This is an Executive Summary of a report on efforts by Clinton County, NY, to enhance criminal justice response to domestic violence.

Abstract

In 1997, officials in rural Clinton County, NY, established a Domestic Violence (DV) Case Coordinator in the district attorney's office and a special DV unit at the probation department. There were also attempts to coordinate victim services with prosecution plans. The total program was called the Domestic Violence Reduction Team (DART). The summary examines major findings and overall analyses of a process evaluation of this program. Data came from interviews with victims, case files from both the district attorney and the probation department, and reports from County police agencies. Promising features of DART include (especially) intensive probation supervision, and coordination between prosecution, probation, and advocacy agencies. Difficulties in implementation include the tension between victim empowerment and system needs, and the difficulty and importance of institutionalizing innovations and making them a routine part of the system. This tension between what victims want and say they need and the requirements of the system complicates efforts by knowledgeable agency workers to do the right thing, and complicates efforts to determine when a program "works."