NCJ Number
233354
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 25 Issue: 8 Dated: November 2010 Pages: 765-776
Date Published
November 2010
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study examined the opinions of victims of intimate partner violence regarding their willingness to go to trial.
Abstract
Criminal justice officials assume that intimate partner violence victims oppose filing charges against their abusers. In a study of 94 respondents, reluctance actually occurred with the prospect of going to trial. While 70 percent supported filing charges, only 37 percent wanted a trial. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses help explain the reasons women gave for their opinions about trials. The strongest quantitative predictor was that as the level of the victim's injury sustained from the crime increased, their support for a trial increased. Gondolf and Fisher's (1988) survivor theory predicted factors that influenced victims' support or opposition to a trial in the quantitative section. The nested ecological model explained approximately half of the open-ended responses to those opposing trials while the goals of sentencing model articulated most victims' support for trials. Tables and references (Published Abstract)