Intimate Partner Violence in Mandatory Divorce Mediation: Outcomes From A Long-Term, Multi-Cultural Study

The broad purpose of this study is to identify long-term outcomes for couples with/without IPV who are mandated to attend mediation. The investigators propose to track five years through multiple official databases, a large (n=1015) representative sample of mediation couples. The first goal is to determine if a mediation center reliably identifies couples with IPV. The study will: (1) link frequency data measuring very specific IPV-related behaviors in mediation case files to data in superior and limited jurisdiction courts and to police records. The second goal is to assess if divorce decrees/parenting plans include safety protection factors. The study will assess for: supervised exchanges/visitation, confidential addresses, batterer treatment, contact constraints between parties and a finding of domestic violence. The third goal is to assess if mediation agreements/divorce decrees are violated over time. The study will assess for over five years: (1) specific types and outcomes of every superior court action taken post-divorce; (2) police records for IPV-related incidents; and (3) court records regarding orders of protection/injunctions against harassment (applied for, withdrawn, issued). Finally, the study proposes to test a conceptual model using variables that might affect mediation, divorce case and post-divorce outcomes. ca/ncf