Testing the Impact of Batterer Intervention Programs and Court Monitoring in the Bronx [New York City, New York], 2002-2004
Description
The purpose of this study was to provide a definitive test
of whether batterer programs and varying intensities of judicial
monitoring reduce reoffending among domestic violence offenders.
Study enrollment took place between July 23, 2002, through February 27,
2004. In Part 1, Batterer Program Experiment Data, convicted male
domestic violence offenders from court parts AP10 (Pretrial
Appearances) or TAP2 (Trials) of the Bronx Misdemeanor Domestic
Violence Court were randomly assigned into one of four experimental
conditions. The four conditions were batterer program plus monthly
judicial monitoring (n = 102), batterer program plus graduated
monitoring (n = 100), monthly monitoring only (n = 109), and graduated
monitoring only (n = 109). Defendants assigned to a batterer program
completed either the Domestic Violence Accountability Program (DVAP)
run by Safe Horizon or the Men's Choices Program run by the Fordham
Tremont Community Mental Health Center. The offenders were tracked for
at least 12 months after sentencing, and for up to 18 months for most
of the men, to determine whether they fulfilled the conditions of
their sentence, were rearrested for domestic violence, or were
reported by the victim to have engaged in new incidents of abuse.
Using each offender's New York State criminal identification number,
complete criminal record files, including prior criminal history and
recidivism, were obtained from the New York State Division of Criminal
Justice Services (DCJS). Victims were interviewed about new domestic
incidents committed within one year of sentencing. In Part 2,
Monitoring Experiment Data, a quasi-experimental study using
propensity score matching compared recidivism outcomes between the
randomized offenders in Part 1 and a control group of conditional
discharge (CD) offenders convicted of identical offenses, but who, as
a result of the normal sentencing process, received neither a batterer
program nor any form of monitoring. The propensity score predicted the
probability of inclusion in the randomized trial (Part 1) sample,
based not on actual membership in that sample, but on the statistical
probability of membership in it, as computed from the observed set of
background characteristics. Each offender in the randomized trial was
then matched to the offender in the CD only group with the nearest
propensity score. Sometimes multiple offenders from the the initial
trial were matched to the same CD only offender. Variables in both
Part 1 and Part 2 of the data set include demographic variables for
both the defendants and victims, defendant arrest history, current
sentence, assignment to a batterer program, type of judicial
monitoring, and victim reports of new incidents of violence after
sentencing.