Metro-Dade Spouse Abuse Replication Project

• NCJ Number: 139734
• Author(s): A Pate; E E Hamilton; S Annan
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 418 pages
• Grant Number(s): 87-IJ-CX-K003
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

The Metro-Dade Spouse Abuse Replication Project was funded by the National Institute of Justice as a domestic violence experiment designed to increase the awareness of police administrators and to emphasize the usefulness of arrest as an effective response to the problem. Data set archived by the NIJ Data Resources Program at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, located at URL http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/nacjd.

Abstract

In Dade County, the experiment used a 2-stage randomization procedure to test the relative effectiveness of arrest and follow-up attention by the Safe Streets Unit in cases of spouse abuse. This report describes the planning process involved in creating the experiment as well as the implementation of the process. Victim interviews were used to assess the effectiveness of the two types of responses. The comprehensive questionnaires covered the history of the victim's relationship with the suspect, the nature and causes of the presenting incident, actions taken by the police on the scene, victim's evaluation of services rendered by police, the nature of the follow-up contact from the Safe Streets Unit, victim's history of abuse by the suspect, and the nature of subsequent abuse since the presenting incident. The analysis performed on data obtained from these interviews showed significant effects attributable to the arrest treatment with respect to both prevalence and incidence of physical assaults against the victim. No effect attributable to follow-up by the special domestic violence police unit was found. 20 tables, 5 figures, 7 appendixes, and 121 references