Lynette Feder

A Comparison of Men and Women Arrested for Domestic Violence: Who Presents the Greater Threat?

Recent increases in the number of women arrested for domestic violence raise important questions about implementation of proarrest policies, equivalency of intimate partner aggression across genders, and management of female domestic violence offenders. This study compares demographic characteristics, criminal history variables, and the past domestic violence history of men (n = 5,578) and women (n = 1,126) arrested for domestic assault against a heterosexual intimate partner. Using victim reported information and data collected by local criminal justice agencies, we found that female arrestees were significantly less likely than males to have histories that warrant concern regarding the potential for future violence. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Criminal Prosecution of Domestic Violence Offenses An Investigation of Factors Predictive of Court Outcomes

Whereas significant research has been conducted to identify the legal and extralegal factors that influence police decisions concerning the arrest of domestic violence (DV) offenders, significantly fewer studies have examined prosecutorial and judicial decision making with regard to this offense. Among the few studies available in the extant literature, none have looked at the full range of decisions made during the adjudication process (i.e., pretrial release, prosecution, disposition, and sentencing). Similarly, few of the available studies have included female defendants, despite recent increases in the number of women charged for this offense. Using a sample of 4,178 defendants arrested for a misdemeanor or felony domestic violence offense, this research identified the suspect and offense characteristics that had the greatest effect on court decisions. Explanations for the resulting findings and recommendations for further research are discussed.

The Need for Experimental Methodology in Intimate Partner Violence: Finding Programs That Effectively Prevent IPV

The lack of rigorous evaluations of intimate partner violence (IPV) programs has severely limited our knowledge about what works. However, IPV programs can be rigorously evaluated through randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted ethically and safely. This article provides an example of how a RCT to test an IPV preventive intervention—the Enhanced Nurse Family Partnership Study (ENFPS)—was successfully implemented by a partnership of researchers and practitioners. The article concludes with some recommendations, arrived at by the researchers and practitioners on the ENFPS team, for achieving a successful collaboration thought to be essential in executing a field experiment.

Mandated Batterer Intervention Programs to Reduce Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is defined as assaultive behavior involving adults who are married, cohabitating, or who have an ongoing prior intimate relationship (Goolkasian, 1986). Due to the very private nature of this act, incidences of domestic assaults are less likely to come to the attention of police than are other crimes and therefore to be included in the official crime counts (Berk et al., 1984; Dutton, 1987; Hirschel et al., 1992). However, results from a number of wellregarded national studies (Straus and Gelles, 1986; Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000) indicate just how pervasive this problem continues to be. After many years of neglect, domestic violence has recently received a tremendous amount of attention from policymakers, researchers, and agency personnel. At first, shelters for abused women and their children appeared followed by programs for male batterers. With the dramatic growth in laws mandating or presuming an arrest response when police responded to domestic assault calls in the late 1980s, increasing numbers of batterers began appearing in courts throughout the nation. Judges saw that mandating these abusers into treatment programs provided an alternative sanction while simultaneously holding out the hope of breaking the cycle of violence and, in that way, truly helping victims of domestic violence. Obviously, the large numbers of individuals who are affected by domestic violence speaks to the importance of finding meaningful interventions to successfully deal with this problem. However, studies evaluating the effectiveness of batterer intervention programs show very mixed results. This systematic review