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Batterer Intervention- Program Approaches and Criminal Justice
Strategies
Chapter1
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Foreword
In the late 1970's, activists working with battered
women realized that, although they might help individual victims, no real
progress could be made against the problem of domestic violence unless actions
were taken to reform perpetrators and challenge the cultural and legal supports
for battering. Batterer intervention was initiated as a first step toward
changing batterers and raising cultural awareness of the problem. Criminal
justice agencies have responded by referring an increasing number of batterers
to interventions via pretrial or diversion programs or as part of sentencing.
Among the programs contacted for this report, court-mandated batterers accounted
for approximately 80 percent of all batterers attending programs.
To be effective, an integrated criminal justice response to battering must
include all branches of the criminal justice system, from police to pretrial
screeners, prosecutors, judges, victim advocates, and probation officers. This
report provides information that these professionals need to work effectively
and knowledgeably with batterer intervention staff and to make informed choices
about program referral. Program staff will find information on the
responsibilities and concerns of criminal justice personnel who prosecute,
sentence, and supervise batterers. The primary goal of the report is to improve
the working relationship and mutual understanding between criminal justice
personnel and batterer program staff. A secondary goal of the report is to
expand the debate about innovative batterer intervention approaches to include
criminal justice personnel who work with batterers daily and criminal justice
policymakers who are concerned with domestic violence.
Jeremy Travis Director National Institute of Justice
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the many individuals in the study sites who laid aside their
pressing and important work to share with us their considerable knowledge about
batterer intervention. In particular, we wish to thank the batterer intervention
program directors who welcomed us: Meg Crager of Family Services of Seattle;
Joan Zegree of Zegree, Ellner and Berrysmith, Seattle; Dr. Ann Ganley, Seattle
V.A. Medical Center; Dr. Roland Maiuro, Harborview Medical Center of Seattle;
Roxanne Roos Finney, Ina Maka, Seattle; Anna Meyer, Seattle Counseling Service
for Sexual Minorities; Buruch Giday, Refugee Women's Alliance of Seattle; Dr.
David Adams of EMERGE, Cambridge; Dale Chell, Domestic Abuse Intervention
Service (DAIS), Des Moines; Robert Gallup of AMEND, Denver; Robert McBride, The
Third Path, Denver; Dr. Steven Stosny, Compassion Workshop, Montgomery County,
Maryland; Wil Avery, House of Ruth, Baltimore; and Jonathan Cohen, Batterers
Intervention Project, New York City. A number of other program directors shared
their experiences with us by phone; in particular we would like to thank
Terrence P. Crowley of Men Stopping Violence, Atlanta, and Sunya Faloyan of the
Empowerment Project, Charlotte. We also thank the numerous criminal justice
professionals, victim advocates, and policymakers who helped us with our site
visits, including: Judith Shoshana, Hon. Helen Halpert, Sheila Hargesheimer, Sid
Hoover, and Lynne Gordon in Seattle; Dr. Andrew Klein and Beth Ledoux in
Cambridge; Hon. Carol S. Egly, Hon. Cynthia Moisan, and Joe Quinn in Des Moines;
Suzanne Sigona, Linda Foote Smith, Dexter Shipman, Dr. Frank Robinson, Amy
Houghton, Debbie Buckmaster, Mark Barnes, and Linda Ferry in Denver; and Roni
Young, W. Roland Knapp, L. Tracy Brown, Rachel Wohl, and Peggy Araya in
Baltimore.
Advisory board members, Robert Foster, Dr. Adele Harrell, Dr. Daniel Saunders,
Dr. Richard Tolman, and Dr. Oliver Williams, were especially responsive and
involved in guiding this report to completion. We are very grateful for their
advice and insights. Dr. Edward Gondolf also provided important suggestions and
information throughout the research process.
Carolyn Peake, program manager for the project at the National Institute of
Justice (NIJ), took an active interest in the development of the report,
including attending site visits to Seattle and Montgomery County, Maryland, and
provided valuable support throughout the project. Cheryl Crawford, the
contracting officer's technical representative at NIJ, and Virginia Baldau,
former Director of NIJ's Office of Development and Dissemination, both provided
helpful suggestions that improved the report. Peter Finn of Abt Associates
substantially improved drafts with his careful editing. Jocelyn Page of Abt
Associates ably assisted with the compilation and analysis of State standards
and guidelines for batterer intervention. Karen Minich, Angela Allegro, Sherri
Brooks, Patricia Harmon, and Mary-Ellen Perry patiently coordinated the
production of the report and the final desktop publication.
Kerry Murphy Healey, Ph.D. Consultant to Abt Associates Inc. Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Christine Smith Abt Associates Inc. Cambridge, Massachusetts
Chris O'Sullivan, Ph.D. Victim Services Research New York, New York
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Executive Summary
Requiring batterers to attend intervention programming as a condition of
probation or component of pretrial diversion is fast becoming an integral part
of many jurisdictions' response to domestic violence, yet many judges and
probation officers lack basic information about the goals of and methods used by
local batterer programs. The diversity of available programming and the
emotionally charged ideological subtext to program choice make understanding and
working with program providers potentially difficult for criminal justice
professionals. This report is intended to meet the need for increased
information exchange between criminal justice professionals and batterer
treatment providers. Specifically, this report will help criminal justice
personnel -- including prosecutors, judges, probation officers, and victim
advocates - - better understand the issues surrounding batterer intervention and
enable them to make appropriate referrals to programs and to communicate
effectively with program providers. Program staff will find the report helpful
in their efforts to understand the constraints faced by the criminal justice
agencies that refer and monitor batterers as well as the underlying goals of the
criminal justice system -- to protect victims and to deter reoffense -- and thus
be able to align program practices with criminal justice expectations.
The Nature of the Problem
The legal definition of battering varies from State to State. As defined by many
intervention providers, battering is a constellation of physical, sexual, and
psychological abuses that may include physical violence, intimidation, threats,
emotional abuse, isolation, sexual abuse, manipulation, the using of children,
economic coercion, and the assertion of male privilege (such as making all major
family decisions, or expecting the woman to perform all household duties). Only
some of these behaviors -- most commonly assault and sexual assault -- are
illegal. The majority of batterers arrested are heterosexual men; however,
between 5 and 15 percent of those arrested for battering are women. Among
females arrested for battering, many are thought to be "self-defending
victims" who have been mistakenly arrested as primary or mutual aggressors.
A small percentage of those arrested for battering are gay or lesbian. According
to the 1992 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), over 1,000,000 women
were victimized by intimates (boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse or ex-spouse)
compared to 143,000 men. In murders where the relationship between the victim
and the offender was known, 26 percent of female murder victims were killed by
intimates while 3 percent of male murder victims were killed by wives or
girlfriends. (For the purposes of this report, the term "batterer" is
given a masculine pronoun unless female batterers are being discussed.)
The cost of domestic violence to society and to the victims of battering is
immense. Battering results in physical and psychological damage to victims,
deaths, increased health care costs, prenatal injury to infants, increased
homelessness of women and children, physical and psychological damage to
children exposed to violence in their homes, and corresponding increases in
demand for social, medical, and criminal justice services.
The Causes of Domestic Violence
Three theoretical approaches dominate the field of batterer intervention;
however, in practice, most interventions draw on several explanations for
domestic violence in their work. Each theory of domestic violence locates the
cause of the violence differently.
o Social and cultural theories attribute domestic violence to social structures
-- such as patriarchy -- and cultural values that legitimate male control and
dominance over their domestic partners. Feminist (or "profeminist")
batterer interventions are based on women's experience of these social and
cultural factors, and use education and skills-building to resocialize
batterers, emphasizing equality in intimate relationships.
o Family-based theories blame violent behaviors on the structure of the family
and family interactions rather than on an individual within a family. Family
systems interventions emphasize building communications skills and may involve
the use of couples counseling with the aim of family preservation. Family
systems interventions are less common than other types of interventions because
many practitioners object to treatments that do not assign blame to the batterer
and identify a victim, and because this intervention approach may transfer some
responsibility for the battering to the victim or endanger the victim if not
performed conscientiously. As of 1996, 20 States had standards or guidelines
that prohibit the use of couples counseling in batterer treatment.
o Individual-based theories attribute domestic violence to psychological
problems such as personality disorders, the batterer's childhood experiences, or
biological disposition. Psychotherapeutic, cognitive-behavioral, and attachment
abuse interventions are based on this theory.
Pioneers in Batterer Intervention: Program Models
Most pioneers in batterer intervention established programs based on a feminist
educational model. The Duluth model is an example of a feminist educational
curriculum. The EMERGE model blends feminist educational approaches with more
intensive group work concerning relationships. At AMEND, feminist educational
topics are used as a basis for an in-depth intervention addressing batterer
psychology and moral development. All program models for batterer intervention
discussed in chapter 3 are structurally similar; each proceeds from intake to
assessment, victim contact, orientation, group treatment, completion or
termination, and follow-up.
Current Trends in Batterer Intervention
A "one-size-fits-all" approach to batterer intervention cannot
accommodate the diverse population of batterers entering the criminal justice
system. Two new trends reflect the belief that more specialized approaches are
needed:
o interventions tailored to a specific type of batterer (based on psychological
factors, risk assessment, or substance abuse history); and
o interventions designed to enhance program retention and efficacy with specific
populations (based on sociocultural differences such as poverty, literacy, race,
ethnicity, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation).
Criminal Justice Response
Batterer intervention programs cannot be expected to deter domestic violence in
isolation: a strong, coordinated criminal justice response is also needed. The
combined impact of arrest, incarceration, adjudication, and intensive probation
supervision may send as strong -- or even stronger -- message to batterers about
their responsibility for their abusive behavior as batterer programs can. As key
actions the criminal justice system can:
o Expedite Domestic Violence Cases. Adopt policies to expedite batterers' trial
dates, sentencing, probation contact, and batterer program intake.
o Use Specialized Units and Centralized Dockets. Specialized domestic violence
prosecution and probation units, and centralized court dockets for battering
cases and restraining orders improve services to victims and better coordinate
batterer prosecution, sentencing, and supervision.
o Gather Broad-based Offender Information Quickly. Create a system to gather
complete defendant information for prosecutors and judges, including previous
arrests and convictions (for both domestic violence and other crimes), substance
abuse, child welfare contacts, and victim information.
o Take Advantage of Culturally Competent or Specialized Interventions. Maximize
effective use of batterer programming by seeking appropriate interventions for
batterers who are indigent, high risk, female, mentally ill, or incarcerated.
o Coordinate Batterer Intervention with Substance Abuse Treatment. In cases
where the batterer has an alcohol or drug abuse problem, courts should mandate
treatment as well as batterer intervention. Probation officers should
intensively monitor batterers' compliance with substance abuse treatment through
weekly urine testing.
o Be Alert to the Risks to Children in Domestically Abusive Households. Judges
and probation officers should be alert to the danger posed by domestic violence
to children (even to children who are not themselves physically abused) and
coordinate with child protective services and programs that specialize in
domestically abusive families to insure that batterers' children are safe and
are receiving appropriate services.
o Create a Continuum of Supports and Protection for Victims. Victim advocates
should be provided to monitor victim safety and to assist victims with the
criminal justice system from the time of the assault through trial and/or
probation. Victim advocates attached to probation units are particularly
important in monitoring the safety of women whose batterers are sentenced to a
batterer program.
o Encourage Interagency Cooperation. Organize formal coordinating committees of
probation officers, prosecutors, battered women's advocates, child protection
workers, and batterer intervention providers to discuss batterer referral and
monitoring policies regularly.
Conscientious supervision by criminal justice agencies (including monitoring by
pretrial services, the judiciary, and probation officers) is central to criminal
justice policy concerning battering and successful cooperation with batterer
interventions.
Sources of Help and Information
There are numerous sources of additional information on batterer intervention,
including State and national organizations, reference services, research
literature and program manuals, and individuals who are willing to share their
expertise with others in the field.
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Batterer Intervention-
Program Approaches and Criminal Justice Strategies
Chapter 1
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Violent Men
