NCJ Number
212254
Journal
Legal and Criminological Psychology Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Dated: September 2005 Pages: 189-209
Date Published
September 2005
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This British study examined the impact of completing a community-based rehabilitation program on the rate of domestic-violence recidivism and the time to the first offense after completing treatment; the pretreatment psychological, demographic, and offending histories of recidivists were examined as well.
Abstract
Participants were 86 males referred to the court-mandated Domestic Violence Perpetrator Program (DVPP) provided by West Midlands Probation Area. The period covered was between March 2001 and April 2002. The men were required to attend 1 induction session, 24 2 1/2-hour group sessions, and 5 follow-up sessions lasting 2 1/2 hours each. The core group sessions were once or twice a week. In order to complete the program, offenders were required to attend a minimum of 21 out of the 24 core content sessions. Attrition rates reported in this paper relate to attendance at the core group sessions. Police data were used to determine recidivism during the 11 months after program completion. Prior to program attendance, offenders completed a battery of six psychometric tests that measured anger, beliefs about wife beating, abusive behavior, interpersonal dependency, locus of control, and desirable responding. Twenty-one percent of the 86 offenders who began the DVPP reoffended within the 11-month posttreatment period. Completing the programs was not significantly associated with either alleged recidivism, or the time to the first alleged offense. Higher interpersonal dependency and more frequent contact with the police for theft and domestic violence in the 24 months prior to program attendance predicted posttreatment domestic-violence offending. The findings suggest future research into whether the risk for recidivism is higher for a distinct offender subgroup. 5 tables and 81 references