Evaluation of a Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence in Alexandria, Virginia, 1990-1998

This study was undertaken to evaluate Alexandria,
Virginia's Domestic Violence Intervention Program (DVIP), which is a
coordinated community response to domestic violence. Specifically,
the goals of the study were (1) to determine the effectiveness of
DVIP, (2) to compare victims' perceptions of program satisfaction and
other program elements between the Alexandria Domestic Violence
Intervention Program and domestic violence victim support services in
Virginia Beach, Virginia, (3) to examine the factors related to
abusers who repeatedly abuse their victims, and (4) to report the
findings of attitudinal surveys of the Alexandria police department
regarding the mandatory arrest policy. Data were collected from four
sources. The first two sources of data were surveys conducted via
telephone interviews with females living in either Alexandria,
Virginia (Part 1), or Virginia Beach, Virginia (Part 2), who were
victims of domestic violence assault incidents in which the police had
been contacted. These surveys were designed to describe the services
that the women had received, their satisfaction with those services,
and their experience with subsequent abuse. For Part 3 (Alexandria
Repeat Offender Data), administrative records from the Alexandria
Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) were examined in order to
identify and examine the factors related to abusers who repeatedly
abused their victims. The fourth source of data was a survey
distributed to police officers in Alexandria (Part 4, Alexandria
Police Officer Survey Data) and was developed to assess police
officers' attitudes regarding the domestic violence arrest policy in
Alexandria. In four rounds of interviews for Part 1 and three rounds
of interviews for Part 2, victims answered questions regarding the
location where the domestic violence incident occurred and if the
police were involved, their perceptions of the helpfulness of the
police, prosecutor, domestic violence programs, hotlines, and
shelters, their relationship to the abuser, their living arrangements
at the time of each interview, and whether a protective order was
obtained. Also gathered was information on the types of abuse and
injuries sustained by the victim, whether she sought medical care for
the injuries, whether drugs or alcohol played a role in the
incident(s), whether the victim had been physically abused or
threatened, yelled at, had personal property destroyed, or was made to
feel unsafe by the abuser, if any other programs or persons provided
help to the victim and how helpful these additional services were, and
whether a judge ordered services for the victim or abuser. After the
initial interviews, in subsequent rounds victims were asked if they
had had any contact with the abuser since the last interview, if they
had experienced any major life changes, if their situation had
improved or gotten worse and if so how, and what types of assistance
or programs would have helped improve their situation. Demographic
variables for Part 3 include offenders' race, sex, age at first
criminal nondomestic violence charge, and age at first domestic
violence charge. Other variables include charge number, type,
initiator, disposition, and sentence of nondomestic violence charges,
as well as the conditions of the sentences, imposed days, months, and
years, effective days, months, and years, type of domestic violence
case, victim's relationship to offender, victim's age, sex, and race,
whether alcohol or drugs were involved, if children were present at
the domestic violence incident, the assault method used by the
offender, and the severity of the assault. For Part 4, police officers
were asked whether they knew what a domestic violent incident was,
whether arresting without a warrant was considered good policy,
whether they were in favor of domestic violence policy as a police
response, whether they thought domestic violence policy was an
effective deterrent, whether officers should have discretion to
arrest, and how much discretion was used to handle domestic violence
calls. The number and percent of domestic violence arrests made in the
previous year, percent of domestic violence calls that involved mutual
combat, and the number of years each respondent worked with the
Alexandria, Virginia, police department are included in the file.
Demographic variables for Part 4 include the age and gender of each
respondent.