At 13:28 28-01-02 -0600, Juergen Dankwort wrote:
(...) 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 (...)
It is certainly logical from a program provider's perspective to only have
non-recidivism measured for program completers. Indeed, it appears that
many candidates are rejected or expelled before completing the program
because program administrators establish a poor prognosis for change.
However, from society's perspective, it is perfectly reasonable to try and
ascertain what proportion of the total population of apprehended abusers is
liable to not reabuse as a result of being "sentenced" to attending a
program. Victims also need to know this instead of having to settle for
statistics based on a "prepared" and really not representative sample.
If that percentage is as minuscule as it appears to be, this is extremely
relevant to crucial social choices such as victim and child safety, where to
put resources, offender registries, sanctions, parental privileges, mandatory
family law schemes such as joint custody and systematic visitation, etc.
Juergen also writes, in response to Marya Hart:
>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. (...)
I don't feel the question did that. Indeed, I think that it is the
"programs" community itself that goes out of its way to situate what it
calls "treatment" as an alternative to sanctions and to a focus on victims'
rights, not merely valid as an addition to them. This is not merely
discourse; it is played out in reality every time a judge makes a decision
about whether to sanction an abuser or "give him another chance" by sending
him to a program (and most programs do fall back on "anger" management to a
great extent; there is no "firewall", even with "approved" programs).
Offering both interventions necessarily together would be very useful but
it just isn't what is happening. So Marya Hart's question remains central.
Martin Dufresne
Montreal Men Against Sexism
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