Nature and Scope of Violence Against Women in San Diego [California], 1996-1998

The goal of this study was to compile and analyze data
about incidents of domestic violence in San Diego County, California,
in order to enhance understanding of the nature and scope of violence
against women. The following objectives were set to achieve this goal:
(1) to develop a standardized interview instrument to be used by all
emergency shelters for battered women in the region, and (2) to
conduct interviews with shelter staff. For this study, the San Diego
Association of Governments (SANDAG) collected information about
domestic violence in San Diego County from clients admitted to
battered women's shelters. The Compilation of Research and Evaluation
(CORE) intake interview (Part 1) was initiated in March of
1997. Through this interview, researchers gathered data over a
22-month period, through December 1998, for 599 clients. The CORE
discharge interview (Part 2) was theoretically completed at the time
of exit with each client who completed the CORE intake interview in
order to document the services received. However, data collection at
exit was not reliable, due to factors beyond the researchers' control,
and thus researchers did not receive a discharge form for each
individual who had an intake form. For Part 1 (Intake Data),
demographic variables include the client's primary language, and the
client and batterer's age, education, race, how they supported
themselves, their annual incomes, and their children's sex, age, and
ethnicity. Other variables cover whether the client had been to this
shelter within the last 12 months, the kind of housing the client had
before she came to the shelter, person's  admitted along with
the client, drug and alcohol use by the client, the batterer, and the
children, relationship between the client and the batterer (e.g.,
spouse, former spouse), if the client and batterer had been in the
military, if the client or children were military dependents, the
client's citizenship, if the client and batterer had any
physical/mental limitations, abuse characteristics (e.g., physical,
verbal, sexual, weapon involved), and the client's medical treatment
history (e.g., went to hospital, had been abused while pregnant,
witnessed abuse while growing up, had been involved in other abusive
relationships, had attempted suicide).  Additional variables provide
legal information (number of times police had been called to the
client's household as a result of domestic violence, if anyone in the
household had been arrested as a result of those calls, if any charges
were filed, if the client or batterer had been convicted of abuse), if
the client had a restraining order against the batterer, how the
client found out about the shelter, the number of times the client had
been admitted to a domestic violence shelter, the client's assessment
of her needs at the time of admittance, and the
interviewer/counselor's assessment of the client's needs at the time
of admittance. Part 2 (Discharge Data) provides information on
services the client received from the shelter during her stay (food,
clothing, permanent housing, transitional housing, financial
assistance, employment, education, medical help, assistance with
retrieving belongings, assistance with retrieving/replacing legal
documents, law enforcement, temporary restraining order), and
services this client received as a referral to another agency
(attorney, divorce, child care, counseling, transportation, safety
plan, victim/witness funds, mental health services, department of
social services, Children's Services Bureau, help with immigration,
drug treatment).

Tags: abuse, battered-women, domestic-violence, intimate-partner-violence, needs-assessment, victims, violence-against-women, women, womens-shelters
Organization: Department of Justice