Marya Hart asked how many jurisdictions actually have reliable and consistent guidelines for batterers' treatment programs which are followed by sentencing judges? It is unclear to me what is meant by "reliable and consistent" in the question posed. Our survey and analysis of mandatory and voluntary state (U.S.) and provincial (Canada) guidelines did not systematically examine the extent to which guidelines were observed by courts mandating domestic violence offenders into treatment. It is an interesting question and, in our view, a subject for additional study. However, our survey did interview representatives from all U.S. state domestic violence coalitions and their rough equivalents in Canada, and in most jurisdictions compliance with standards was either driven by legislation requiring that (U.S.), or influenced through lobbying and advocacy where standards were voluntary. Also, funding was often contingent on programs adhering to guidelines. One apparent weakness we found was that monitoring mechanisms for systematic review of compliance were generally non-existent other than through audits.
How many courts are sending men to unethical, "quickie" anger management seminars or similar programs? We suspect many because that is what we were told by a number of survey participants. Of course, this is another argument in favor of approved programs since they create a type of firewall against those questionable psycho-social practices that have been widely criticized for the potential risks they pose to victims/survivors. 2) How many abusers flunk out of treatment (fail to complete or to show up in the first place)? Are these men receiving sanctions from the courts? Are their failures counted in the success statistics of the programs, or does research only measure change among men who complete the program? There are several questions here. Many studies indicate a high rate of "no-shows" or drop outs from these programs, and anecdotal information appears to support those figures. I would have to go over the studies again to be more precise, but I seem to recall figures as high as 60 to 70 percent never complete if one counts those who made contact at least once with a program. Again, this says little about the efficacy of a program for a person who does enter and complete it, however. Including those who never begin or those who drop out in an assessment of program effectiveness appears to me to be unreasonable unless the standard of program success includes recruitment and retention. One problem in setting this standard is that success may be measured, as I wrote previously, by a program's unwillingness to keep a man who consistently refuses to engage in a change process. Suspension or expulsion can send an important signal to his partner that he will not change and help her possibly make a life-saving decision. Because of this, retention would be an unreliable measure for "effectiveness." Most studies that measure program "success" by assessing repeat abuse do mention dwindling sample size with extended post-treatment measures but they try to minimize outcome bias for this by controlling for varying factors between completers and non-completers such as education, socio-economic status, previous abuse, plus a variety of standardized psychological or marital indexes and tests. I guess the bottom line on that one is how much credibility you attach to such research designs and that is a philosophical question (ontology and epistemology). Personally, I have always argued for varying methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative. 3) How much false hope is inculcated among victims by the promise of treatment? How many women reconcile with their abusers thinking counseling will cure the problem, only to be victimized once again? I know of one study by my colleague, Dr. Edward Gondolf, that found participating in a program for batterers was the single most important factor (surprisingly even more salient than socio-economic status and education as I recall) for a woman returning to the same relationship. My hunch (and this is borne out in research from the field of criminology) is that re-victimization is much more likely if the counseling does not directly address the abuse but is instead founded on a more general personal growth or psychological well-being agenda. Hence, the need for that firewall mentioned above. 4) Does the promise of abuser treatment allow the community--in particular police, judges and prosecutors--to evade their responsibilities: to take abuse seriously as the crime it is, to establish meaningful protection for the victim? The question appears to imply that you can't do both: have abuser "treatment" and meaningfully protect. Studies increasingly seem to show --and I think there is a growing consensus amongst practitioners here as well-- that no single agency, system or resource can be effective by itself. A coordinated, multi-systems intervention including counseling or some rendition of that to stop the violence is the preferred approach. Arrest and confinement alone is no more "successful" than "treatment" without sanction for non-compliance. (Jails are really terrible schools to teach men about misogyny). While mental health initiatives like these programs can be included in the wide array of available tactics for control or accountability evasion, I would argue, as I have previously, that the proliferation of domestic violence offender programs have contributed more towards developing a culture that undermines the legitimacy of woman abuse rather than maintaining it. Certainly the 30+ focus groups we did with survivors of domestic violence across the state of Texas last year gave ample evidence of increasing awareness of domestic violence and better responses by police, prosecutors and judges over the last two decades. While much work has yet to be done, I think most who have worked in this field in North America over some time would concur with this impression. Juergen Dankwort, Ph.D. Vancouver, B.C. Canada ***End-violence is sponsored by UNIFEM and receives generous support from ICAP*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe end-violence OR type: unsubscribe end-violence Archives of previous End-violence messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/end-violence/hypermail/
