NCJ Number
193613
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2002 Pages: 206-232
Date Published
February 2002
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This article examines the effectiveness of batterer intervention programs from the battered woman's perspective.
Abstract
Victims pursue legal intervention after numerous attempts to stop the abuse or when they perceive the abuse to be escalating and severely affecting their own and their children's lives. Although many women are grateful for the intervention, a sizable number worry that required participation in a program would increase their partner's anger and thus their own danger. The study of partner abuse that was the basis of this article involved in-depth, one-on-one interviews with 33 women identified in police reports as victims of domestic violence in a rural county in Ohio. Nearly half (45 percent) of the women interviewed thought the batterer intervention program was effective. Those who felt the treatment did not work attributed it to their partner's unwillingness to change, psychological problems, or continued substance abuse. The article emphasizes the need to examine multiple forms of abuse when evaluating the effectiveness of a program, because batterers may stop physically assaulting their partners following program completion but continue or increase verbal abuse and threats. It also urges that future studies of the effectiveness of domestic violence intervention programs incorporate victim voices, elicited through both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Notes, references