NCJ Number
238329
Date Published
2012
Length
162 pages
Annotation
This book examines the impact of legal sanctions on the recidivism of men who are involved with the civil and criminal courts for domestic violence related offenses.
Abstract
Chapter 1 introduces the influence of civil and criminal legal sanctions or dose-responses upon the risk of recidivism of domestic violence. Chapter 2 provides a context for legal sanctions and the criminalization of domestic violence, discussing the intersection of history, politics, personal troubles, and public issues. Chapter 3 explores sociological theoretical perspectives on domestic violence, within the context of personal troubles and public issues. It discusses theoretical perspectives that inform criminal justice responses to domestic violence: social exchange/deterrence, social learning, feminist theory, and the ecological framework. Chapter 4 explains the rationale and describes the methods and data used to examine the impact of legal sanctions on recidivism rates among perpetrators of domestic violence in the county over a 5-year period; also described are the research design, data sources, sampling frame, dependent and independent variables, hypotheses, and analysis. Chapter 5 presents the characteristics of the 607 men included in the study, such as age, race, prior court involvement, post-index case court involvement, battering intervention program hours, and incarceration time. Chapter 6 describes the men in the sample who met the criteria for recidivism of domestic violence, and draws comparisons to those who did not have any domestic violence related cases filed during the follow-up period as well as what variables significantly influence recidivism rates. Chapter 7 discuses the analyses results and compares them to prior research. Chapter 8 summarizes the findings of this study and discusses the implications for future research on legal sanctions and recidivism of domestic violence. Tables, figure, references, and index