NIJ VAW Revict
A Concept Paper on Research about the Long-term Efficacy of Court Intervention on the Reduction of Repeat Battering

The proposed research is a plan to discover the long-term effects of criminal justice and court interventions on the pattern of offender domestic violence. The goal is to discover what combination of court interventions safeguards the same or different victims from repeat domestic violence offenses. The study will extend the data base on 353 domestic violence offenders who were arrested from July 1995 through February 1996 for misdemeanor assaults and violation of protective orders in East Norfolk Domestic Violence Court in Massachusetts. Their arrest and civil order histories will be followed through 2004, providing a ten year longitudinal study of offender abuse and other criminal behavior. Longitudinal record data will be supplied by the Massachusetts Criminal History Board. Additional data on arrest will be obtained from courthouse records to determine if additional offenses have been committed against the same or new victims. The analyses will apply methods used to analyze criminal careers. ca/ncf