The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S.

Department of Justice and prepared the following final report:

Document Title: Preventing Repeat Incidents of Family Violence:

A Reanalysis of Data From Three Field Tests

Author(s): Robert C. Davis ; Christopher Maxwell

Document No.: 200608

Date Received: 06/24/2003

Award Number: 2000-WT-VX-0007

This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice.

To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federallyfunded grant final report available electronically in addition to

traditional paper copies.

Opinions or points of view expressed are those

of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect

the official position or policies of the U.S.

Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

PREVENTING REPEAT INCIDENTS 

OF FAMILY VIOLENCE: 

A Reanalysis of Data from Three 

Field Tests 

Robert C. Davis 

Christopher Maxwell 

Vera Institute of Justice 

July 2002 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

This study was funded by the National Institute of Justice under grant ## 2000-WT-VX0007. 

Requests for additional.infonnation about the research described in this report should be 

directed to Robert C. Davis, Vera Institute of Justice, 233 Broadway, 1 21h Floor, New 

York, NY 10279, or to rdavis@vera.org. 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

Abstract 

Preventing repeat victimization is one area of criminology that has shown particular 

promise in recent years. Based on the premise that persons victimized once are at higher 

risk than others of being victimized again, the British have developed successhl 

programs that focus crime prevention efforts on victims. This has been argued to be a 

sensible use of crime prevention resources and, indeed, a useful strategy for bringing 

down overall crime rates. 

Of all crimes, domestic violence has the highest repeat rate, especially in the first few 

weeks after an incident is reported to the police. In the early 1980s, officials in New York 

City developed the first programs to try to reduce repeat incidents of family abuse. On 

three occasions thereafter between 1987 and 1997, three separate field tests aimed at 

public housing residents who reported family violence to the police were conducted in 

order to evaluate the basic approaches used in these and other prevention programs. The 

field-test interventions consisted of (a) a follow-up home visit to households reporting a 

domestic incident by a police officer and social worker and (b) a public education 

program using community meetings, posters, and flyers to educate participants about 

family violence. The three field tests had inconsistent results. One analysis suggested a 

beneficial effect of the program while another suggested that the program had iatrogenic 

effects. Since the composition of the samples vaned across studies (two used family 

violence incidents and the third elder abuse incidents), one possibility was that the 

prevention program had different effects with different populations. 

try to resolve earlier inconsistencies. The results of the reanalysis indicate that the 

interventions brought about an increase in reporting of new abusive incidents both to 

authorities and to research interviewers. We cannot say whether the higher reporting rates 

among people who received the interventions were due to increased incidents of abuse or 

greater sensitivity to abuse. The findings in the reanalysis were consistent across 

measures and across the three studies, indicating that increased reporting of abuse is not 

idiosyncratic to one of the samples, but holds across the three different types of samples 

used in these studies. 

The results suggest an urgent need for more research on interventions designed to 

reduce repeat incidents of domestic violence, especially in light of current trends toward 

stronger and more coordinated intervention in family violence matters. In the meantime, 

our results suggest the need for monitoring and strong supervision of programs that 

intervene in households whose residents have recently reported domestic violence. 

The present paper combines the three databases to conduct a series of reanalyses to 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

Table of Contents 

Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 

Background .................................................................................................... 1 

The New York Experiments ........................................................................... 5 

Synthesizing the Findings .............................................................................. 7 

Methodology ........................................................................................................ 9 

The Intervention ............................................................................................. 9 

Abstraction of Key Variables ........................................................................ 10 

Outcome Measures ...................................................................................... 11 

Results .............................................................................................................. 13 

Analytic Plan ................................................................................................ 13 

Two-Study Recidivism Results ..................................................................... 13 

Three-Study Recidivism Results .................................................................. 14 

Home Visit Interventions Received versus Assigned ................................... 17 

Service Use Results ..................................................................................... 16 

Discussion ......................................................................................................... 18 

References ........................................................................................................ 21 

Appendix: Tables ............................................................................................... 27 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
I n t roduct ion 

Background 

One of the most promising areas of research in modem criminology is work on repeat 

victimization. For the past 25 years, victimization surveys have noted that a small 

percentage of the population experiences a relatively large proportion of all crime, and 

that one of the strongest predictors of victimization that researchers have isolated is being 

a victim on an earlier occasion (see, for example, Hindelang et al. 1978; Sorenson, 

Siegel, Golding and Stein, 1991). Reports by the Canada Solicitor General (1988), the 

National Board for Crime Prevention (1 994), and others have shown that sexual assault 

survivors stand a 35 times greater chance of revictimization than non-victims (see also 

Messman-Moore and Long, 2000; Gold, Sinclair, and Balge, 1999; Muehlenhard, 

Highby, and Lee, 1998; Collins, 1998), robbery victims a nine times greater chance, and 

residential burglary victims a four times greater risk (see also Budd, 1999; Bowers, 

Hirschfield, and Johnson, 1998; Robinson, 1998). Even many commercial thefts target 

the same premises victimized within the past 30 days (Whitehead and Gray, 1998). 

changes the probability of subsequent victimization (event dependency), or whether it 

operates as a marker of pre-existing risk (risk heterogeneity) (Sparks, 1981). In other 

words, is there some condition created by victimization that makes people more 

vulnerable to subsequent crime (for example, offenders revisiting an easy or rewarding 

target)? Or are certain individuals more vulnerable targets or more likely to be selected 

for victimization and for revictimization? Surprisingly, evidence points to both risk 

heterogeneity and event dependency as co-explanators of victimization (Ellingworth, 

Osbom, Trickett, and Pease, 1995; Lauritsen and Quinet, 1995). 

victimization for crimes as diverse as school crime, residential burglary, bias crime, 

domestic violence, auto crimes, neighbor disputes, and retail crimes (Farrell and Pease, 

1993). In domestic violence cases, for example, the risk of revictimization is highest 

within the first 1 1 days and declines thereafter (Lloyd, Farrell, and Pease, 1994). In 

residential burglary, 40% of repeat burglaries occur within one month of the previous 

burglary (Anderson, Chenery, and Pease, 1995); after about six months the likelihood of 

repeat burglary returns to the average levels for a given area (Polvi, Looman, Humphnes, 

and Pease, 199 1). These studies support the notion of event dependency in repeat 

victimization: That is, there is something about being victimized a first time that 

increases the risk of another victimization. For example, burglars visiting a house for the 

first time may note additional items worth coming back for. 

on proactive policing. “Hotspot” policing concentrates police attention on particular 

Criminologists who study repeat victimization have wondered whether victimization 

The risk of revictimization is greatest in the period soon after the previous 

‘ Work on repeat victimization provides the rationale for the new American emphasis 

Vera Institute of Justice 1 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

locations that request disproportionate numbers of calls for service (Sherman and 

Buerger, 1989; Townsley, Homel, and Chaseling, 2000; Johnson, Bowers, and 

Hirschfield, 1997). Police resources are devoted to identify and solve problems at hot 

spot locations to prevent further crimes from occumng. Problem oriented policing 

(Goldstein, 1990) puts police officers in the role of problem solvers. A major 

responsibility of law enforcement officers becomes developing strategies to prevent 

repeat incidents from occurring at residences or business that have reported a crime. Even 

more recently, COMPSTAT, with its emphasis on crime mapping, has forced district 

commanders to discern and prevent recurring patterns of criminal activity (Bratton and 

Knobler, 1998). 

Yet, ironically, the British have been much better at capitalizing on the practical 

implications of repeat victimization than the Americans. British criminologists and law 

enforcement administrators have realized that, if being victimized once is a good 

predictor of who will be victimized in the future, then it makes sense to concentrate crime 

prevention efforts on persons who report victimization to the authorities (Farrell and 

Pease, 1993). This is seen as an efficient use of police resources: "By pointing to the most 

probable times and places of future offenses, repeat victimization also helps identify the 

times and places where offenders may be found and apprehended. There is potential for 

the development of a symbiotic relationship between crime prevention and offender 

detection ....I' (National Board for Crime Prevention, 1994, page 2). The British also 

recognize that it is clear that any program incorporating the problem-solving approach to 

policing should pay special attention to repeat victims, who contribute disproportionately 

to an areak crime statistics, especially in high-crime areas (Trickett, Osborne, Seymour, 

and Pease, 1992). 

Neatly enough, people are likely to be especially receptive to crime prevention 

opportunities immediately following victimization. There is a "window of opportunity" 

during the first weeks after a crime during which victims feel vulnerable and are willing 

to consider seriously behavioral and lifestyle changes (Davis and Smith, 1994a; 

Anderson, Chenery, and Pease, 1995). Anderson, et al. (1995: p.3) recently argued that 

"Crime prevention and victim support are necessary for the same people (recent victims) 

at the same time (promptly after their victimization). Reaction to the last offence, if it has 

a preventive element, is proaction to the next." 

A recent study found that all police forces surveyed had a repeat victimization 

strategy (Farrell, Edmunds, and Hobbs, 2000). Even the British insurance industry has 

been advised to recognize the significance of repeat victimization. Litton (2000) suggests 

that the industry is in a unique position to motivate its clients and to develop crime 

prevention programs for them. 

bitween research and practice (Anderson, Chenery, and Pease, 1995; Farrell and Pease 

1993; see Farrell, 1995 for a recent summary). In crimes ranging from burglary to 

In their work on repeat victimization, the British have pursued a model of interaction 

Vera Institute of Justice 2 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
CRAFT 

domestic violence to racial violence, researchers have forged alliances with law 

enforcement authorities to define problems and assess the results of interventions (for 

reviews, see Pease, 1998; Pease and Laycock, 1996; Farrell, 1995). 

program for victims of residential burglary on a housing estate. The strategies included 

replacement of coin operated gas and electricity meters (a frequent target), security 

upgrades, property marking, victim support and information, and "cocoon" neighborhood 

watch (involving the victim's six nearest neighbors). The evaluation showed a substantial 

reduction in burglary for the entire estate over the next three years, compared to itself and 

also compared to the remainder of the police subdivision (Pease, 1992). Similar programs 

for residential burglary victims in other British locales showed a decrease in repeat 

victimization without any evidence of displacement (Farrell, Chenery, and Pease, 1998; 

Tilley and Webb, 1994). Other programs have targeted commercial burglaries with 

encouraging results (Taylor, 1999). 

In a West Yorkshire project, victims of burglary or automobile theft received an increasing level of police response based on the number of victimizations suffered in the 

previous year. Strategies included (as appropriate to a particular victim) security 

upgrades, property/vehicle marking, "cocoon" watch, focused patrol, offender targeting, 

priority fingerprinting, and the loan of burglar alarms and vehicle location devices 

(Anderson, Chenery, and Pease, 1995). In a domestic violence reduction project, victims 

received wearable alarms linked to the police by cellular phone, responding officers 

received en route information on prior calls and on current court orders, victim service 

workers offered support and developed an action plan with the victim, and lecture and 

discussion sessions were held with the police to raise their awareness of the issue of 

domestic violence and the police role. Evidence from victim interviews indicated that the 

pendant alarms greatly increased the recipients' sense of security (Lloyd, Farrell, and 

Pease, 1994). One British program even targeted repeat victims of hate crimes at a 

housing authority estate (Phillips and Sampson, 1998). 

In this country, researchers and public officials have also begun to recognize the 

potential benefits of working with repeat victims. A recent National Research Council 

conference on crime prevention featured a panel on repeat victimization, and the Justice 

Department's Office for Victims of Crime has included repeat victimization in its 

national evaluation plan. Earlier, Davis and Smith (1 994a) reported the results of a field 

test of a crime prevention program administered to recent victims. One hundred ninety 

one New York City victims of robbery, burglary, and non-sexual assault were divided 

into two groups using a quasi-experimental design. One group received traditional crisis 

counseling while the other received instruction in crime prevention and was offered free 

upgrades of home security hardware. Relative to the crisis counseling group, victims 

akigned to the crime prevention training were significantly more likely to believe that 

the crime could have been avoided, had significantly greater knowledge of crime 

This model integrating practice and research was used to develop a crime prevention 

Vera Institute of Justice 3 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

prevention principles, and were significantly more likely to engage in precautionary 

behaviors. Victims who had experienced the crime prevention training had a 33% lower 

rate of revictimization than controls over the next twelve months. However, the sample 

was small and the difference only attained marginal statistical significance. Recently, the 

Police Executive Research Forum has conducted a field test in three cities of a program 

to reduce repeat burglaries (Clarke, Perkins, and Smith, 2001). 

Repeat victimization is a relatively rare phenomenon in some populations (see, for 

example, the work of Shaw and Pease, 2000, in Scotland) and common in others (see the 

study of U.S. adolescents by Menard, 2000). But it is most common in households which 

make domestic violence reports to the police. In domestic cases, the risk of 

revictimization is high and immediate: Chances of a new incident are highest during the 

first 11 days following the initial incident (Lloyd, Farrell, and Pease, 1994). 

violence was begun in New York City in the mid- 1980s. The New York Housing Police 

Department and Victim Services (now Safe Horizon) began the Domestic Violence 

Intervention Education Project (DVIEP) as a response to family violence hot spots in 

New York City. DVIEP crisis response teams, each consisting of a police officer and a 

social worker, were dispatched to follow up on the initial police response to domestic 

complaints. The teams provided victims with information on services and legal options 

and warned perpetrators (when they were present) of the legal consequences of continued 

abuse. The intent was to empower victims to increase the social and personal costs to 

perpetrators of abusive behavior. DVIEP is an early example of now-popular coordinated 

approaches to domestic violence that focus on both abusers and victims. Advocates have 

argued that such approaches hold the best hope of reducing recidivism in households 

experiencing domestic violence (Hart, 1992). 

Elements of the approach begun in New York have been further developed widely in 

both England and in the U.S. For example, one English program offered victims wearable 

alarms linked to the police, access to counseling by victim caseworkers, and community 

meetings designed to raise awareness of domestic violence and the police role (Lloyd, 

Farrell, and Pease, 1994). In the U.S., a program in DuPage County, Illinois, combines a 

tough law enforcement approach to domestic violence with advocacy for the victims of 

violence. The advocates offer support, give women information about the legal system, 

and inform them about further counseling and advocacy services that are available 

(Weisz et al., 1995). The availability of federal funds under the Violence Against Women 

Act and the stipulation that jurisdictions develop a coordinated response to domestic 

violence have further encouraged the promotion of the empowerment in the U.S., 

especially in its use of advocates who are summoned to victims’ homes by the police to 

provide crisis counseling. 

The earliest program that worked with victims to prevent repeat incidents of domestic 

\ 

Vera Institute of Justice 4 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The New York Experiments 

Preliminary research conducted on the British multidisciplinary programs to reduce 

repeat domestic violence has suggested that they are effective in reducing repeat calls to 

the police (Kelly, 1999; Harmer, Griffiths, and Jenvood, 1999), although designs have 

been weak. In New York, there were similar early efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of 

the DVIEP model in reducing repeat instances of domestic violence, but results were 

inconclusive. Therefore, administrators decided to engage in more rigorously designed 

research to deterniine the effectiveness of follow-up visits and educational campaignstwo elements of the original New York program. 

Over a decade between late 1987 and mid- 1997, three separate field tests were 

conducted in New York City public housing projects. All three tested the same basic 

intervention model: Persons who reported family violence to the police were randomly 

assigned to receive or not to receive a follow-up visit from a domestic violence police 

officer and a social worker. The personal, follow-up visit that was tested was different 

from the normal intervention of the programs operated by the police department and 

Victim Services, which consisted more often of telephone calls or letters than of home 

visits. Researchers and administrators decided to test the personal follow-up visits 

because these were thought to be the strongest practical form of programmatic response 

that might be widely implemented. In the first two field tests, there was as well a second 

experimental treatment. Public housing units included in the studies were randomly 

assigned to receive or not receive education about domestic violence through brochures, 

posters, and public meetings. (The interventions are described in greater detail below.) 

The sampling frame for the first experiment (hereafter referred to as “the 1987 

domestic violence study”) was households in designated public housing units in 

Manhattan where someone had called the police in response to a family violence incident 

(this could be violence between romantic intimates, sibling violence, elder abuse, or other 

forms of violence between persons related or living under the same roof). The incidents 

were minor in nature, many not involving violation of criminal statutes: Only 7% of the 

incidents resulted in arrests and just 14% of victims reported any form of injury. Four 

hundred thirty-five victims were randomly assigned to receive a home visit as a followup to the patrol response. The control group received only the initial police patrol 

response. Additional calls for police services were tracked for both groups over the next 

six months. At the end of the tracking period, researchers attempted to interview victims 

to ask about new abuse, about satisfaction with the police response, and about the 

victims’ knowledge and use of social services. Interviews were completed with 72% of 

the sample. This unusually high success rate for a domestic violence criminal justice . 

sample was due in part to the low level of transience among New Yorkers living in public 

housing. 

According to law enforcement records, households that received either the home visit 

intervention or public education about domestic violence were more likely to call the 

Vera Institute of Justice 5 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

police during the subsequent six months than households that did not receive the 

interventions. Yet, according to victim survey data, there were no differences between the 

two groups in abuse during the six months following the trigger incident. In the literature 

on the effectiveness of arrest on curbing violence, victim reports and calls to the police 

are usually both treated as imperfect indicators measuring an underlying constrict of 

actual violence. However, the two measures clearly are not synonymous. Many 

victimizations-and especially many family violence victimizations-are not reported to 

the police (Strawand Gelles, 1990; Harris and Associates, 1979; Dutton, 1995). In a 

1997 Criminology paper (Davis and Taylor, 1997), we interpreted our pattern of results 

to mean that the experimental interventions did not affect actual violence levels, but did 

increase victims’ confidence in the police and made victims more willing to report 

violence when it occurred. Indeed, that explanation is consistent with theory on which 

field test was based: Program administrators had hoped that victims who received the 

intervention would call the police more often because they would gain confidence that 

the police would help. 

We conducted a second experimental investigation (reported in an NU Research in 

Brief; Davis and Medina, 2001) of the same interventions several years later, this time 

using a sample of 402 public housing residents who had reported elder abuse incidents to 

the police. Like the cases in the first field test, incidents in this study (hereafter referred to 

as the “elder abuse” study) were relatively minor. Five percent of the abusers were 

arrested, just 4% of victims reported any injuries, and in only 22% of the cases was a 

crime alleged to have occurred (the remainder were labeled by the police as verbal or 

family disputes). Once again, law enforcement records for these households were tracked 

for the next six months. As in the first experiment, we were successful in interviewing 

more than 70% of victims in the sample at the end of the six-month tracking period. Also 

as in the first experiment, we found that victims who received the home visit intervention 

called the police sooner and more often than controls. (Unlike the earlier study, however, 

there were no differences between households assigned to the home visit condition and 

those not.) Survey results showed that victims who received both home visits and public 

education were significantly more likely to report new abuse relative to those who 

received neither home visits nor public education. 

arrestee study), this time analyzing only the home visit intervention (and leaving out a 

public education treatment). This investigation, also conducted in a public housing 

setting, involved 197 victims of family violence. Unlike the earlier two studies, this field 

test was conducted on arrest cases. Twenty-two percent of abusers were charged with 

felonies, and the remainder with misdemeanors or violations. (The modal charge was 

third degree assault.) One in five of the victims reported some form of injury. We 

cbllected similar data to the other two experiments-new incidents reported on surveys or 

We also conducted a third experiment (hereafter referred to as the domestic violence 

Vera Institute of Justice 6 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
reported to law enforcement agencies-six months after the trigger incident. Data from 

this study, for which we received no outside funds, are reported here for the first time. 

Synthesizing the Findings 

The first two studies in the series were consistent in the finding that households that were 

assigned to receive a home visit called the police more fkequently over the next six 

months than households that were assigned to a control condition. In the 1987 domestic 

violence study, the same was true for households assigned to the public education 

condition. In the first study, where we did not observe differences in violence reported on 

victim surveys, the results seemed to indicate that the interventions did not affect actual 

abuse, but encouraged victims to call the police when abuse occurred. However, in the 

second (elder abuse) study, where not only was more violence reported to the police, but 

more violence was reported on victim surveys by those who had received both 

interventions, the finding is more troubling. Since victim surveys are widely accepted as 

an indication of true incident rates, our results suggest that the interventions actually may 

have increased abuse, not just reporting of abuse. 

As mentioned, there were differences between the samples, most notably in terms of 

age and nature of victidoffender relationship (see table, p. 11) that may account for the 

different results. The victims in the elder abuse study may have been involved in more of 

a dependent relationship with the abuser, making leaving a less likely option. If abusers 

of elderly relatives become angered by attempts to intervene, there may be no good 

escape for the victim. 

The use of follow-up visits and public education to empower victims has become a 

common enhancement to the police patrol response to domestic violence, often funded by 

federal dollars. The intervention has usually been justified on the basis of reducing repeat 

incidents of violence. But at least some of our experimental data suggests that the 

intervention may be having the opposite effect. If that is the case, this is information that 

police departments and domestic violence coordinating councils need to know. 

This paper reports on the results of a reanalysis that merges cases from the three 

experiments. The analysis conducted on the combined databases, with an N of nearly 

1,000 cases, has sufficient statistical power to detect even small inter-group differences in 

outcome measures. It was our hope that by combining the databases, we would be able to 

develop consistent conclusions about the effects of the follow-up home visit and public 

education interventions. The three samples are diverse in terms of the nature of victimperpetrator relationships (family violence or elder abuse) and types of incidents (minor 

incidents in two of the studies, many not rising to the level of crimes; assaults and other 

criminal incidents in the other). They also took place in a changing context, with a strong 

pro-arrest law going into effect in 1995, prior to the start of the elder abuse and domestic 

violence arrestee studies. The diversity in samples and context promotes greater 

Vera Institute of Justice 7 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
generalizeability of results from the combined analysis: Any results that hold up across 

the thee studies would be robust and apply across a range of settings. 

\ 

Vera Institute of Justice 8 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Methodology 

Normally, meta-analytic techniques are used to synthesize the results of a series of 

experiments (e.g., Stanton and Shadish, 1997). However, in this case, we are in the 

fortunate position of having access to the original datasets and of having variables that 

are comparable across the sets. Therefore, we combined the databases from the three 

experiments to conduct a single analysis of the effects of the follow-up intervention. The 

sections below describe the program model that was the target of the evaluations, the 

process of creating comparable variables across the datasets, and the analysis strategy. 

The Interventions 

Home visit intervention. For designated incidents, a team consisting of a social worker 

and a police officer visited households within a few days of a domestic complaint. The 

team who visited the home attempted to edulcate the victim and perpetrator (if present) 

about the criminal and escalating nature of family violence and encourage the household 

to seek change through the use of courts and other services. 

present and on the victim's receptiveness to assistance. During that time, victims were 

informed about services and about pursuing legal remedies, especially obtaining 

restraining orders. Referrals were made, most commonly to counseling services and 

support groups, drug and alcohol treatment programs for batterers, battered women 

shelters, home security improvement services, health care assessment and assistance, 

emergency financial assistance, assistance with relocating to other public housing units, 

and respite assistance for caregivers who batter seniors. On-the-spot crisis counseling was 

provided when indicated. (More details on thC home visits are available based on victim 

survey data in Davis and Medina, 2001, and Davis and Taylor, 1997.) 

In cases where the complainant was not home in two tries, literature was left and/or 

phone contact made with the household. Contact was made with the household in 69% of 

cases in the 1987 domestic violence study and in 84% of the cases in the elder abuse 

study. (No information on outcomes of home visit attempts is available for the domestic 

violence arrestee study.) While it might be argued that this reduces the internal validity of 

the studies, we and other evaluators have argued (Davis and Smith, 1994b; Gartin, 1995) 

that the fact that an intended criminal justice intervention is not always actually delivered 

does not reflect a weakness of the experiment. The test was of a public policy 

intervention-a program to make reasonable efforts to conduct follow-up home visits 

within time and budgetary constraints. Only in a perfect world would every household 

have received the intended follow-up visit. Researching such a system might tell us about 

whether home visits work in theory, but would not inform us about apublicpolicy which 

attempts to conduct home visits. This issue is discussed further in the conclusion. 

Home visits generally lasted 10-30 minutes, depending on whether the batterer was 

Vera Institute of Justice 9 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Public education intervention. In the first two field tests, this intervention consisted of a 

leafleting and poster campaign and presentations at community and tenant association 

meetings. With cooperation of housing authority staff, leaflets were delivered to the door 

of every apartment in housing projects assigned to the public education treatment. Posters 

and additional leaflets were placed in common areas, such as around mailboxes and in 

housing managers' offices. 

The leaflets contained information on the legal rights of victims, locations of 

emergency and long-term services, and the importance of the police in ending family 

violence. Presentations at community meetings were designed to familiarize housing 

project residents with the family violence team in the local Housing Police precinct and 

to educate the community about the nature of family violence. 

an informational model: Making information available to victims about their rights and 

the services and legal options available to them was designed to empower victims. 

Empowered victims would then be emboldened to terminate untenable relationships or to 

work to end the battering within the context of the relationship. Secondarily, the 

interventions were designed to instill a sense of fear and circumspection in abusers. 

The two interventions that made up the New York field tests were based primarily on 

Abstraction of Key Variables 

We planned to use outcome measures based on criminal justice information sources and 

victim interviews. From criminal justice sources, each of the three databases contained 

the proportion of households reporting new domestic incidents to authorities within six 

months of the trigger incident, counts of the number of new calls for police services 

within six months following the trigger incident, and the time between the trigger 

incident and the first new incident of reported abuse. 

of violence in the past six months with the widely used Conflict Tactic Scale (CTS) 

(Straus, 1979). The scale includes the number of times victims were assaulted with a 

weapon; threatened with a weapon; hit, kicked, or shoved; had property damaged, or 

were harassed. Under the scoring system recommended by Straus (1 979), weapon assault 

incidents were given weights of eight, followed by weapon threats (six), and hits, kicks or 

shoves (two). The rest of the items received a weight of one. In the elder abuse study, we 

used a variant of the CTS adapted by Pillemer and Finkelhor (1988) that included 

measures of physical, psychological, and financial abuse. The great majority of abusive 

incidents were minor in nature. Nearly all that resulted in injuries involved at most cuts or 

abrasions not requiring professional medical treatment. 

proportion of victims reporting any new abuse and a measure of the frequency/severity of 

abuse. All three experiments also used similar versions of questions about victim use of 

social services (including legal assistance, victim services, church groups, courts, 

In the first and third studies, victims were queried about the frequency and severity 

From the abuse questions, we developed for all three datasets a measure of the 

Vera institute of Justice 10 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
shelters, and support groups) that generated counts of the number of services used, from 0 

to 6. 

The three datasets also had available comparably coded information on victim age 

and involvement in a romantic relationship with the abuser. These were important 

demographic variables to assess because the distributions of age and relationship to the 

abuser vaned across studies. 

Table: 

Comparison of Key Variables across Studies 

Outcome Measures 

Prevalence of new abusive incidents. The basic measure we used to analyze effects of 

treatments upon recidivism was the proportion of cases in which new abusive incidents 

were reported to the police or to research interviewers. These data were analyzed using 

logistic regression models. 

Frequency ofnew abusive incidents. It has been argued that the prevalence of an event 

may not be a good yardstick for understanding the impact of a social intervention and in 

particular criminal justice sanctions. Famngton (1 987) argued that a single offense during 

a follow-up period does not necessarily mean the failure of a rehabilitation program or 

lack of deterrence since the intervention may still have caused fewer crimes per person. 

The CTS used in our study actually confounds frequency and severity of incidents (since 

some incidents are weighted more heavily than others). In addition to learning whether 

the interventions affected the proportion of households reporting a new abusive incident, 

Vera Institute of Justice 11 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
we also wanted to know whether the interventions mitigated or exacerbated the frequency 

or severity of incidents. 

The CTS measure has a highly skewed distribution (most cases have no repeat 

incidents, while a few have many and severe repeats). When dealing with such data, the 

use of linear regression or ANOVA models can result in inefficient, inconsistent, and 

biased estimates since these tests assume a multivariate normal distribution of the 

experimental data. Therefore, we used negative binomial regression, developed to model 

distributions of failures where a majority of the sample does not fail at all during the time 

observed, while only a handful failed more often. The use of negative binomial was also 

appropriate because of high levels of overdispersion, i.e. conditional variances are greater 

than conditional means. 

Latency to new abusive incidents. In addition to examining whether the interventions 

affected the proportion of households reporting new incidents and the fiequency/severity 

of incidents reported, we were also interested in knowing whether the interventions 

affected the time to the first new incident of abuse following the trigger incident. The 

time-to-failure analysis uses a Cox semi-parametric regression model to compare 

differences between treatment conditions in terms of hazard rates (hazard rates are 

estimates of the relative risk of failure per unit time, given that the case has survived until 

a particular instant). Our model introduces independent variables representing treatment 

designations and study (first, second, or third) in order to estimate whether the baseline 

hazard fimction is dependent on the level of each independent measure. 

Use ofsocial services. Use of services is a count variable with negatively skewed 

distributions similar to counts of new abusive incidents. These data were analyzed using 

negative binomial regression models, analogous to that described above for frequency of 

new abuse. 

Vera Institute of Justice 12 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Analytic Plan 

The first and second studies each used a factorial design with home visits and public 

education as treatments. In the third study, the home visit was the single independent 

variable. Therefore, our primary analysis was with data from the first two studies, to 

determine whether the two factors separately or in concert affected recidivism and service 

utilization. Following presentation of the results of the two-study analysis, we present the 

more limited analyses that examine the effects of home visits based on data from all three 

studies. 

For analysis of all outcome measures using the various techniques described above, 

we included terms representing the two experimental treatments and designation of which 

of the three studies each case came from. We also included nature of victirdoffender 

relationship and victim age as covariates. ' Each table reporting multivariate results 

contains two statistical models-the first with only main effects and the second with 

main effects and terms representing interactions between treatments. 

Two-Study Recidivism Results 

Tables 1, 2, and 3 consider the direct and interactive effects of offering follow-up home 

visits and a public education program, based on the 1987 domestic violence and elder 

abuse studies that included both of these treatments. 

Table 1 summarizes the new abuse measures for both the police reports and victim 

interviews broken down by levels of public education and home visits and by study. 

When the data from the two studies are combined (rightmost columns), the highest rates 

of officially-reported victimization occur in the cell which received both home visit and 

public education treatments. This is true for prevalence and frequency measures based on 

official data. It is also true for prevalence of abuse based on survey data. The only 

' We compared case characteristics between experimental and treatment groups for each of the three 

studies. In the 1987 study, there were no significant differences between those assigned to public education 

or control in terms of victim and perpetrator age or gender; relationship between victim and perpetrator; 

prior arrests and complaints; and length of relationship. There were no significant differences between 

those who were and were not assigned to receive home visits based on victim or perpetrator age; 

relationship; victim gender; prior arrests and complaints; and length of relationship. There were significant 

differences between those assigned and not assigned to home visits based on perpetrator gender (25% of 

home visit perpetrators were female compared to 16% of controls). In the elder abuse study, experimental 

and control groups did not differ on victim injury; victim and perpetrator age; victim gender; perpetrator 

race; relationship between victim and perpetrator; and existence of an order of protection against the 

abuser. There were significant differences at the .05 level in terms of victim race (37% of victims in the 

home visit group were Hispanic versus 26% in the control group) and perpetrator gender (7 1 % of 

pqetrators in the home visit group were male compared to 62% of control perpetrators). In the domestic 

violence arrestee study, no significant differences were detected between those assigned and not assigned to 

receive a home visit in terms of victim age and education; previous complaints filed with the police; nature 

of relationship between victim and perpetrator; and charge class (felony or misdemeanor). 

Vera Institute of Justice 13 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

exception is frequency of new abuse based on survey data, where the highest rate was 

among those receiving both treatments and the lowest rate was among those receiving a 

home visit, but not public education. 

Table 2 reports the results from the multivariate tests of the two randomly assigned 

treatments based upon the police records. The upper portion of the table presents main 

effects of the two treatments. The results are remarkably consistent across measures. In 

five out of six comparisons, assignment to home visit or public education treatments led 

to significantly greater prevalence and frequency of police reports as well as shorter 

times to failure. The only comparison that was not statistically significant was time to 

failure according to levels of public education. But even this comparison just missed 

attaining statistical significance (p-value =.06). Beside the significant treatment effects 

we also found that increasing age of victims exerted a small but significant increase in the 

odds of failure. Every additional year in age added one percent to the odds of failing. In 

addition, those assigned to the elder abuse study reported significantly lower rates of 

failure on average compared to those in the 1987 domestic violence study. 

The lower portion of Table 2 presents a model that includes interaction effects. In this 

model, all six main effect comparisons between levels of home visits and levels of public 

education reach statistical significance. The interaction of the two, however, was not 

significant, indicating that the effects of home visits and public education were additive. 

the victim reports. Analysis of main effects presented in the top portion of the table 

shows significant increases in the frequency of abuse for those who were assigned to 

receive home visits (compared to those assigned not to receive home visits) and for those 

assigned to receive public education (compared to those assigned not to receive public 

education). Prevalence results are in the same direction, but not statistically significant. In 

addition, increasing age did not affect the prevalence of new abuse, but did significantly 

increase the frequency of abuse. 

The lower portion of Table 3 displays interaction effects. With the interaction model, 

both treatment effects lead to non-significant increases in the prevalence of victimization, 

and the interaction of the two treatments produced a trend toward increased abuse that 

was nearly significant (p-value = 0.09). 

Table 3 reports the results for the multivariate test of the treatment effects based upon 

Three-Study Recidivism Results 

Table 4 reports bivariate results based on the official and victim interview data from all 

three studies. In 10 out of the 12 within-site bivariate treatment comparisons, the 

experimental group has greater prevalence, frequency, or shorter times-to-failure than the 

control group. Four of these 12 comparisons reached traditional levels of statistical 

significance. The four significant results were based upon officially recorded failures, and 

three of the four significant differences were found among the elder abuse experiment 

comparisons: Among the elder abuse victims, those assigned to receive home visits had 

Vera Institute of Justice 14 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

significantly greater failure rates regardless of the measures’ parameter (prevalence, timeto-failure, or frequency). 

The rightmost columns of Table 4 show the multi-study comparisons between those 

assigned to home visits to those who were not. A greater proportion of those assigned to 

home visits reported new violence, according to both official data and survey data. Those 

assigned to home visits also reported a higher frequency of abuse to the police and had 

shorter time to failure. The differences between the frequency of incidents and time-tofirst-failure by treatment group were both statistically significant. Those assigned home 

visits had a mean rate that was about 63% greater than those not assigned to receive home 

visits, and those assigned home visits failed for the first time on average about 12 days 

before those not assigned to receive home visits. However, neither the prevalence 

measure based on official data nor the prevalence measures based on victim reports 

attained statistical significance. 

5 reports the results using official data. The multivariate analysis displayed in Table 5 

showed that those assigned to receive home visits reported new abuse sooner and 

reported more frequent abuse than those not assigned to receive home visits. The same 

was true for the prevalence measure, but the effect attained only marginal statistical 

significance (p = .065). 

studies were significantly less likely to fail on average compared to those in the 1987 

domestic violence experiment. For the time to failure and the prevalence analysis, older 

victims were less likely to be victimized than younger victims. For the prevalence 

analysis, those with missing relationship status were significantly less likely to fail 

compared to the not mamed victim/offender dyads. 

for each of the three outcome measures based on official data.’ In the analyses with 

interaction terms, those assigned to home visits had a higher frequency of failure and 

shorter times to failure than households not assigned to the home visit condition. The 

results for the prevalence measure were in the same direction but, as in the model above 

without interaction terms, did not approach statistical significance. None of the treatment 

x study interaction terms were significant. Also as in the upper portion of the table, 

victims in the elder abuse study reported fewer failures on all three measures relative to 

victims in the 1987 domestic violence study. 

Table 6 reports the analysis of prevalence of new abuse based on survey results. The 

proportion of victims reporting new abuse did not differ significantly according to 

whether victims were assigned to receive a home visit or not. Like the majority of other 

The three-study multivariate analyses confirmed most of the bivariate analysis. Table 

In all of the models, victims in both the elder abuse and domestic violence arrestee 

The lower portion of Table 5 adds an interaction term between treatment and study 

\ 

* A test of the proportionality of the hazard rates by assigned treatment found that they were not 

proportional overtime. Therefore, the time to failure model with interaction terms adds an additional timedependent parameter that addressed the non-proportionality problem. 

Vera Institute of Justice 15 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
, i'l 

comparisons, however, those assigned home visits had greater odds of victimization. In 

fact, for both outcome measures (victim interviews and police reports), victims assigned 

home visits had similarly greater odds (+29% and +28%) of failing compared to the 

control group. In addition, those assigned to the domestic violence arrestee treatment, 

particularly those in the control group, had smaller odds of victimization than those 

assigned to the 1987 control group. 

Service Use Results 

Table 7 reports the frequency of services received by the victims across the studies and 

treatment groups. The first set of comparisons shows the percentages of victims receiving 

different amounts of service by study and by whether or not the victims were assigned to 

get home visits. The second set of comparisons reports the percentage of victims 

receiving different amounts of service by study and by whether or not the victims were 

assigned to receive public education programming. Across the three studies, about one in 

three victims received at least one service after the initiating incident, but just about 5% 

received more than four services. On average each victim received about 1.6 services 

between the initial incident and the final victim interview. 

one treatment and two-thirds received two or more services. The mean number of 

services received was 2.26 in the 1987 and 1.81 in the arrestee study. Among the victims 

in the elder abuse study, only a slight majority of victims received one or more services. 

The mean number of services received between the initial incident and the final victim 

interview by the elder abuse victims was just 0.74. Table 7 also shows that the difference 

in the number of services received according to experimental treatments within each 

study was not significantly different. Thus, on average, victims received about the same 

amount of services regardless of their assigned treatment.3 

Table 8 reports the results from a multivariate negative binomial regression model of 

the quantity of services received. The model on the left compares quantity of services 

received between those who received home visits and those who did not across the three 

studies (victim relationship to abuser, victim age, and study were statistically controlled). 

The first model shows that the victims assigned to receive home visits only received 

slightly more services than those not receiving home visits. The model on the right, based 

only on the 1987 study and elder abuse data, considers whether assignment to public 

education adds to the quantity of services received. In this model, neither home visits nor 

public education nor the joint effect of both treatments significantly increased the number 

The vast majority of victims in both the 1987 and the arrestee studies received at least 

The between study conclusions regarding the number of services are based upon a three-way Bonferroni 

M,ultiple Comparison Test that was run in conjunction with a General Linear Model that also controlled for 

treatment assignment. All three comparisons reached statistical significance with p-values < 0.02. The 

treatment comparison (home visits vs. no home visits) was not significant (b= .16; p-value = ,124). 

Vera Institute of Justice 16 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
of services received by the victims. Thus, there is no evidence that either of the 

experimental interventions increased victims’ use of services. 

Home Visit Interventions Received versus Assigned 

The consistent higher reporting of new abuse by victims assigned to receive a home visit 

is, perhaps, surprising, since the intervention was brief. Moreover, not every household 

assigned to the home visit condition received personal contact from the field team: In the 

1987 study, 3 1% of households assigned to the home visit condition in fact received only 

literature because residents were not home during the two home visit attempts. In the 

elder abuse study, 16% received only literature. 

In Table 9, we present a dose-response analysis, comparing recidivism rates between 

households where personal contact was established through a home visit and households 

assigned to receive home visits that received only literature. We would expect that if the 

home visit intervention is truly causing an increase in reported abuse between 

experimental and control households, then those households where personal contact was 

made should report more subsequent abuse than households where literature was left after 

unsuccessful home visit attempts. 

The figure shows that in five of six comparisons those cases assigned to the home 

visit condition that received personal contact reported more abuse both to police and to 

research interviewers on the six-month survey. This was true in both studies for 

frequency of complaints made to the police, in both studies for fi-equencyheverity of 

abuse reports made to research interviewers, and in the 1987 study for prevalence of 

abuse reports made to research interviewers. The only exception to the pattern was for 

prevalence of abuse reported to research interviewers in the elder abuse study. Thus, we 

confirm that more potent “doses” of the home visit lead to higher rates of reporting of 

new abuse. 

\ 

Vera Institute of Justice 17 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Discuss ion 

The results of the reanalysis of data from three separate field tests of the same 

interventions unequivocally demonstrate that the interventions cause an increase in 

reporting of new abusive incidents to authorities and to research interviewers. On 14 out 

of 14 measures of new abuse included in the two reanalyses-both those based on official 

reports and on victim interviews-we found that those groups assigned to receive home 

visit or public education interventions reported more abuse than control groups. In seven 

out of 10 comparisons in the three-study analysis, differences between treatment levels 

reached statistical significance. In two of the four comparisons performed in the twostudy analysis, results attained statistical significance. The fact that the findings were so 

consistent across the three studies indicates that increased reporting of abuse is not 

idiosyncratic to one of the samples, but holds across the three different types of samples 

used in these studies. However, we do not know the extent to which the results are 

applicable to similar programs in other places or to populations outside public housing. 

Does increased reporting necessarily mean increased abuse, or could it be that 

persons who were assigned to the intervention groups had become more sensitized to 

abuse? In the report on the elder abuse results contained in Davis, Medina, and Avitabile 

(2000), some data are presented that argue against the sensitization hypothesis. But in the 

end, we cannot know for sure which alternative is correct. We were not expecting to find 

increased reports of abuse and so did not design the studies to distinguish between 

increases in abuse and increased sensitivity to abuse. 

Going into these studies, we had assumed that the effects of the interventions would 

be to empower victims through information about their situation, available services, and 

legal options. The program logic model posited that new abuse would decline as victims 

extracted themselves from self-defeating relationships or worked with social services and 

criminal justice staff to develop strategies to end the abuse while staying in the 

relationship. However, we found no evidence that those who received the interventions 

were more likely to avail themselves of social or legal services, so the intervention could 

not have worked-at least not in the way intended. 

through which to analyze the interventions. That literature suggests---contrary to 

common myth-that careers of batterers are likely short or very sporadic (Feld and 

Straus, 1989; Maxwell, Garner, and Fagan, 2001; Langan and Innes, 1986; Quigley and 

Leonard, 1996). For those batterers who do not desist or reduce their abusive behavior 

over a period of time, Fagan (1 989) argues that social and legal sanctions may be 

effective. According to Fagan, actions by victims that raise the personal or social costs to 

the batterer may promote a reduction or cessation in abuse. The intervention we 

ex'amined might be expected to promote desistance by empowering women to leave the 

relationship, demand change under threat of leaving, or inflict shame on the abuser. 

There is a literature on desistence of domestic violence that may be useful as a lens 

Vera Institute of Justice 18 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
D R =.&? 

Moreover, the mere physical presence of a police officer might have been expected to 

directly stigmatize those abusers who were present at the time of the home visit. 

But Fagan also warns that sanctions may backfire and produce increased abuse, 

especially among those with chronic histories of abuse. That may be what happened in 

our sample, where it is possible that the combined interventions may have increased new 

abusive incidents by inciting abusers. We do not have direct evidence on this point since 

we did not interview abusers. 

There is, however, some precedent for iatrogenic outcomes resulting from attempts to 

intervene in domestic violence. One is from the work of Ford (1991). He reports results 

from a true experiment that batterers who were prosecuted to conviction were 

significantly angrier than men whose cases were diverted or dropped. 

Dugan, Nagin, and Rosenfeld (1999) found suggestions of an iatrogenic effect of 

victim services on domestic homicide rates. Dugan, et al. regressed domestic homicide 

rates on several measures including availability of services for victims. They found that 

the presence of hotline and legal advocacy services were associated with lower homicide 

rates of married males. However, availability of counseling services was positively 

correlated with homicides of both married males and unmarried females. 

intimate violence in NIJ’s Spouse Abuse Replication Project (Maxwell, Gamer, and 

Fagan, 2001). However, Sherman’s (1992) analysis of the SARP data found that among 

unemployed spouse abusers in Milwaukee, arrest actually increased the annual frequency 

of reported violence by 43%. For every 1,000 unemployed suspects, an arrest policy 

might cause more than 200 more reported acts of domestic violence per year. Sherman’s 

analysis of data from two other SARP sites also indicated that arrest increases violence 

among unemployed spouse abusers 

Finally, in one of the better-designed studies of batterer intervention, Harrell(l991) 

reported that a larger proportion of men assigned to batterer intervention programs 

committed new abuse compared to men assigned to a control group. Differences on two 

of the three measures attained statistical significance. 

We caution the reader to consider several facts in interpreting our work. We tested 

specific elements of an intervention strategy based on empowering victims. The fact that 

we found these elements to increase reports of new abuse does not invalidate the 

empowerment model. All we can say is that the follow-up home visits as they were 

conducted for our research increased reports of new abuse. Had the visits been structured 

differently or had the follow up contact used telephone or letter modalities (as was the 

case with the program in regular use in New York), we might have found a different 

pattern of results. 

Some might argue against combining data from the studies at all. Although the 

ikerventions were similar, the populations and offenses were quite different from one 

study to the next. Also, one of the outcome measures (frequency/severity of abuse) was 

After years of debate, a recent report found a positive effect of arrest on reduction of 

Vera Institute of Justice 19 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
defined somewhat differently in the elder abuse study than in the other two. These are 

important differences. Nevertheless, we believe that combining the studies and finding 

clear differences by treatment increases the generalizeability of the findings. And 

including relevant demographics and study identity variables in the analyses should 

control for inter-study differences. 

Our results strongly suggest the need for monitoring and careful supervision of 

programs using the techniques tested here until new and more comprehensive research 

can be conducted:This research should include measures of awareness of what 

constitutes abuse and qualitative interviews with victims who report new incidents of 

abuse to attempt to tease out the difference between actual abuse and increased 

sensitivity. It should also rank new incidents on a seventy scale to determine whether 

differences between treatment groups were due to serious incidents (which anyone would 

agree constitutes abuse) or to minor incidents (which some might not construe as abuse). 

Finally, the research ought to include interviews with abusers as well as victims to 

determine how abusers' attitudes toward victims, their emotional states, and their 

motivation to commit abuse might have been impacted by the interventions. This is 

research that would be difficult to do well because the abusers may prove difficult to 

locate, may be unwilling to be interviewed, and would have strong incentives not to give 

honest responses to all questions. Moreover, there are serious human subjects issues that 

would have to be addressed and resolved since we now suspect that victims in such a 

study who received interventions might be placed in some jeopardy. But such research 

would point the way forward out of the untenable position we are now in where wellintentioned services may place victims at risk. In the end, it is important that this research 

be conducted in order to provide the most effective and responsible service possible to 

domestic violence victims. 

\ 

Vera Institute of Justice 20 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Vera Institute of Justice 22 

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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

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Vera Institute of Justice 23 

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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

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,i 

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Vera Institute of Justice 24 

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Vera Institute of Justice 25 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Series Paper 101 .) London, UK: Home Office 

\ 

Vera Institute of Justice 26 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Appendix: Tables 

Table 1. Base Rates of Officially Recorded and Victim Reported Failure 

by Treatment Groups 

1987DV El& Abuse Bdhstdles 

Public Edwation Public Educatmn Public -on 

No Yes No Yes No YeS 

ma of Police Reports 

No Horn Vi Grp. 32% 39% 134%] 1- 

Assigned Horn VI Gxp. 37% 45% 39?? 36% 38% 41% 

Man Frequency of Police Reports 

No HornVi Grp. 

Assigned Horn Vi Grp. 

prevaience of Viimization 

No Horn Vit Grp. 42% 39% 36% 26% 4oo/o 33% 

Asagned Horn VGts Grp. 38% 52% 37% 37% 38% 45% 

Mzm Frequency of Victimhtion - 

No Horn Vit Grp. 6.59 7.15 5.25 5.99 5.48 

Assigned Horn Vits GI~. 

Bolded values m boxes wre statistically diflixnt fiom each other a! pvalue c0.05 

Vera institute of Justice 27 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

Table 2. Rates of Officially Recorded Failures (2 study comparison) 

Prevalence (a) Time-to-Failure (b) Frequency (c) 

Model I. Direct Effects b s.e. P-value (Exp)b b s.e. P-value (Exp)b b s.e. P-due (Exp)b 

Relationsh~p (not married) 

hkrlied 0.17 0.18 0.331 1.19 0.12 0.14 0.412 1.12 -0.15 0.16 0.349 0.86 

*g -0.n 0.37 0.462 0.76 -0.25 0.30 0.415 0.78 0.03 0.19 0.890 1.03 

Victim Interview -0.29 0.16 0.078 0.75 0.00 0.13 0.984 1.00 -0.25 0.34 0.457 0.78 

Study(1987 DV) 

Assigned Treatment (No Home Visit Grp.) 

Mgned Treatment (No Public Education) 

Victim's Age 0.01 0.01 0.041 to1 0.01 0.01 0.OU 1.01 0.01 0.01 aou 1.01 

Elder Abuse -0.57 0.22 0.008 0.56 -0.41 0.17 0.015 0.66 -0.66 0.18 O.OO0 0.52 

Receive Home Vkits a34 0.15 0.026 1.40 0.29 0.U 0.018 1.33 0.57 0.14 O.OO0 l.76 

Receive Public Education 0.3 0.15 0.027 1.40 0.22 0.12 0.068 1.25 a39 aa 0.008 147 

Constant -b45 0.35 O.OO0 0.23' -1.18 a34 0.000 a31 

*ha 1.81 0.46 0.O00 

Sgma 0.23 0.52 0.661 

Model 11. Direct and Interaction Effects 

Study (1987 DV) 

Elder Abuse -0.9 0.22 0.008 0.56 -0.41 0.17 a015 a66 -0.67 0.18 am 0.51 

Home Visits Only a51 a22 0.020 1.66 0.30 0.12 0.014 1.35 0.81 a21 am LU 

Public Education Only 0.35 0.15 0.022 1.42 0.24 0.12 0.048 1.27 0.64 au 0.005 l.90 

Assigned Treatment (No Treatment Grp.) 

HomeViits +PublicEd. -0.33 0.30 0.273 0.72 -0.30 0.24 0.210 0.74 -0.44 0.28 0.124 0.65 

Constant -1.45 a35 am 0.23 -1.30 0.34 0.m 

*ha 1.81 0.46 O.Oo0 

Sigma 0.23 0.52 0.661 

Notes: ahgistic Regression Model; &Cox setrd-Parametric Regression Model; FNegative Binominal Regression Me1 

The models with the interaction tarns also contain all of the direct effects, but they are not reported here because they are My 

reported in the direct effects model. Bolded coeEcients are statistically signlfrcant at pvalue ~0.05 

\ 

Verz Institute of Justice 28 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DF? AFT 

Table 3. Rates of Victimization (2 study comparison) 

Prevalence (a) Frequency ( C) 

Mdel I. Direct Effects b s.e. P-value (Exp)b b s.e. P-value(Exp)b 

Relatiodq (not mmried) 

Married 0.34 0.20 0.084 1.41 0.09 0.12 0.485 1.09 

wg -0.08 0.48 0.873 0.93 -0.82 a39 0.034 0.44 

VlWSAge 0.00 0.01 0.739 1.00 402 0.00 0.O00 a% 

W(1W Dv) 

Elder Abuse -0.26 0.24 0.293 0.78 -ax ai6 0.000 a47 

Assigned Treatment (No Home Viit Grp.) 

Assigned Treatrrmt (No Public Education) 

constant -0.37 0.40 0.354 l.28 a24 0.O00 

&ha am 0.03 am 

sigma 183 0.07 am 

Receive Home Vits 0.25 0.17 0.153 1.28 0.41 0.U 0.O00 b51 

Receive public Education 0.05 0.17 0.773 1.05 0.43 aio 0.000 1.54 

We1 11. Direct and Interaction Effects 

W(1WDv) 

Elder Abuse -0.25 0.24 0.312 0.78 -0.93 0.27 0.001 a4o 

Assigned Trealmmt (No Treatment Grp.) 

Home Vits Only 0.25 0.18 0.158 1.28 -0.12 0.25 0.624 0.89 

public Education Only 0.02 0.17 0.911 1.02 -0.16 0.26 0.545 0.86 

Home Vits + Public Ed. 0.59 0.35 0.088 1.81 0.62 0.35 0.074 1.86 

constant -0.36 0.40 0.360 L64 0.45 0.O00 

&ha 0.33 0.31 0.289 

sigma l.68 0.16 O.Oo0 

Notes: zbgstic kgpmon Me]; ?Negative Binolrdnal Regression Me1 

The mdek with the interaction term also contain all of the dmct effects, but they are not reported here 

because they are already reported m the direct effects model. Bolded coefficients are statistically 

sigmficmt at pvalue c0.05 

\ 

Vera Institute of Justice 29 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 4. Rates of Officially Recorded and Victim Reported Failures 

by Treatment and Study 

35.6Yo 40.8% 

0.269 

0.58 1.13 

0.001 

157.8 146.1 

0.0% 

Full Sample 

N with Police Information 

Prevalence of 

Recidivism 

(a) Within study P-value 

(a) Between study P-value 

Mean Frequency of 

Recidivism 

(b) Within study P-value 

@) Between study P-value 

Mean N of Days to FirstIncident 

(c) Within study P-value 

(c) Between study P-value 

0.45 0.75 

0.013 

151.6 134.4 

0.015 

123 149 

64.8% ' 73.9% 

0.047 

10.9% 36.Yh 

0.298 

Victim Interview Sample 

N with Victim Interviews 

% of Study Sample 

(a) Within study P-value 

(a) Between study P-value 

Prevalence of 

Victimization 

(a) Within study P-value 

la) Between study P-value 

Notes: a = Pearson Chi-Square 

Bolded percentages are statistic 

1987 DV %fzq 

69.6% 72.2% 

0.539 

.I.O?/o 45.1% 

0.463 

= GLM F-test; c=Kada 

Elder Abuse 

27.1% 37.70/ 1 0.029 

y different from each other at p-value <0.05 

DV Arrestee 

NOHOW Horn 

Visits Visits 

69 I( 

24.6% 22.2' 

0.7 IO 

0.33 0.3 

0.779 

163.9 158. 

0.955 

32 54 

42.7% 44.39 

0.826 

25.0% 29.6% 

0.644 

tleier Breslow Test; 

- 

0.001 

O.OO0 

0.001 

O.OO0 

0.013 

Visits Visits 

30.5% 35.8% 

0.08 1 

0.46 0.73 

0.000 

156.2 144.2 

0.032 

66.7% 

0.261 

35.1% 39.5% 

\ 

Vera Institute of Justice 30 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

Table 5. Rates of Officially Recorded Failures (3 study comparison) 

Prevalence (a) Time-to-Failure (b) Frequency (c) 

Model I. Direct Effects b s.e. P-value(Exp)b b s.e. P-value (Exp)b b s.e. P-value(Exp)b 

Relation* (not married) 

rvhried 0.21 0.17 0.216 1.23 0.14 0.13 0.285 1.15 0.06 0.18 0.740 1.06 

hassing -0.58 0.29 0.050 0.56 -0.41 0.25 0.W 0.67 -0.47 0.25 0.061 0.62 

Vichm Interview -0.21 0.16 0.187 0.81 0.04 0.13 0.756 1.04 -0.07 0.15 0.629 0.93 

Victim's Age 0.01 0.01 0.046 1.01 0.01 aoo a014 1.01 0.01 0.00 0.009 1.01 

*dY(1987Dv) 

Elda Abuse -0.9 a21 0.012 0.9 -0.38 0.16 0.022 0.69 -0.64 0.17 0.000 0.3 

DV Arrestee -0.49 0.24 0.042 0.62 -0.35 0.20 0.079 0.71 -0.76 0.24 0.001 0.47 

Assigned Treatment (No Home Visit Grp.) 

Receive Home Vits 0.26 0.14 0.065 1.29 0.24 0.U 0.036 l.27 0.47 0.W 0.O00 1.60 

cbnstant -138 0.27 0.O00 0.25 -0.90 0.28 0.001 0.41 

1.85 0.44 o.oO0 

0.21 0.54 0.702 

Model 11. Direct and Interaction Effects 

Study(1987Dv) 

Elder Abuse -0.54 0.21 

DV Arrestee -0.43 0.24 

Home Vits + 1987 DV 0.17 0.16 

Homevisits +ElderAbw 0.32 0.30 

Homevisits + DVArrestee -0.37 0.42 

Assigned Treatment (No Treatment Grp.) 

Time x Treahnent 

constant -1.38 0.27 

Alpha 

0.009 a58 -0.40 0.17 0.017 0.67 

0.078 0.65 -0.29 0.20 0.156 0.75 

0.282 1.19 0.52 a20 aou 1.68 

0.295 1.37 0.25 0.25 0.313 1.28 

0.382 0.69 -0.33 0.36 0.353 0.72 

-0.33 0.36 0.353 0.n 

am 

-0.58 0.24 0.015 0.56 

-0.38 0.38 0.326 0.69 

0.59 0.19 0.002 1.80 

-0.65 0.46 0.158 0.52 

-0.09 0.28 0.755 0.92 

-0.94 0.28 0.001 

1.88 0.44 0.m 

sigma 0.13 0.84 0.872 

Notes: a=bgstic Regession Model; b=Cox Sani-Pammetric Regession Model; FNegaIive Binominal Fkgression Model 

?he models with the interaction tams also contain all of the direct effects, but they are not reported here because they are already 

reported m the direct effects model. Bolded coefficients are statkticallysignifimt at pvalue ~0.05 

Vera Institute of Justice 31 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

Table 6. Prevalence of Victimization (3 study comparison) 

Prevalence (a) 

Model I. Direct Effects b s.e. P-value (Exp)b 

Relationship (not married) 

Married 0.26 0.19 0.170 1.29 

Missing -0.14 0.48 0.772 0.87 

Victim's Age -0.01 0.01 0.293 0.99 

Study (1987 DV) 

Elder Abuse -0.16 0.24 0.501 0.85 

DV Arrestee -0.80 0.27 0.004 0.45 

Assigned Treatment (No Home Visit Grp.) 

Receive Home Visits 0.25 0.16 0.136 1.28 

Constant -0.39 0.36 0.270 0.68 

Model 11. Direct and Interaction Effects 

Study (1987 DV) 

Elder Abuse -0.16 0.24 0.492 0.85 

DV Arrestee -0.80 0.28 0.005 0.45 

Assigned Treatment (No Treatment Grp.) 

Home Visits + 1987 DV 0.24 0.21 0.244 1.27 

Home Visits + Elder Abuse 0.06 0.35 0.860 1.06 

Home Visits + DV Arrestee -0.01 0.56 0.991 0.99 

Con st ant -0.39 0.36 0.271 0.675 

Notes: a= Logistic Regression Model 

The models with the interaction terms also contain all of the direct effects, but they 

are not reported here because they are already reported in the direct effects model. 

Bolded coefficients are statistically significant at p-value < 0.05 

Vera Institute of Justice 32 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 7. Quantity of Services Received by the Victim by Study and Treatment Groups 

1987DV EkAhF? DVAnestee 

HorreVisits PublicEEcrahon HmVits PubkEduorion HOREVI 

0 4.8 5.4 52 5.1 5.1 565 51.7 54.5 53.3 53.9 12511.1 11.6 

I 388 35.5 387 35.4 37.1 29.8 25.2 26.9 n.7 n.3 40.6 n.8 326 

2 23.1 229 24.5 21.5 23.0 9.7 13.6 11.2 124 11.8 25.0 35.2 31.4 

3 14.3 15.1 123 17.1 14.7 24 6.8 45 5.1 4.8 15.6 14.8 15.1 

4 8.8 9.0 8.4 9.5 8.9 1.6 27 3.0 1.5 22 3.1 7.4 5.8 

5 5.4 6.0 6.5 5.1 5.8 3.1 0.0 3.5 

6 4.1 4.2 4.5 3.8 4.2 

7 1.8 1.8 1.0 

8 

9 0.7 0.7 0.3 

NSavices %NO %Ye %NO %Ys %Total %NO %Ys %NO %Ys %Total %NO %Ya %Total 

N 147 166 155 158 313 124 147 134 137 271 32 54 86 

-. 4.16 6.17 4.77 0.89 238 

P-Value 0.84 0.63 0.31 0.93 0.80 

Mal 221 231 217 235 226 0.63 0.84 0.75 0.74 0.74 1.66 1.91 1.81 

StdDw. 1.59 1.64 1.53 1.69 1.61 0.88 1.07 1.02 0.96 0.99 1.18 1.23 1.21 

Vera Institute of Justice 33 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
DRAFT 

Table 8. Quantity of Service Received by the Victim 

Three Studies (a) Two Studies (a) 

Model I. Direct Effects b s.e. P-value b s.e. P-value 

Relationship (not married) 

Married 0.11 0.08 0.148 0.10 0.08 0.224 

Victim's Age 0.00 0.00 0.490 0.00 0.00 0.453 

Study (1987 DV) 

Missing -0.07 0.20 0.728 -0.06 0.21 0.774 

Elder Abuse -1.u 0.10 0.000 -1.14 0.11 0.000 

DV Arrestee -0.28 0.12 0.023 

Assigned Treatment (No Home Visit Grp.) 

Receive Home Visits 0.12 0.07 0.087 0.11 0.08 0.150 

Assigned Treatment (No Public Education) 

Receive Public Education 0.05 0.07 0.498 

Constant 0.64 0.13 0.000 0.61 0.14 0.000 

Alpha 0.06 0.04 0.177 0.08 0.05 0.097 

Model 11. Direct and Interaction Effects 

Study (1987 DV) 

Elder Abuse -1.27 0.15 0.000 -1.14 0.11 0.000 

DV Arrestee -0.36 0.20 0.073 

Assigned Treatment (No Treatment Grp.) 

Homevisits + 1987DV 0.05 0.09 0.538 

Home Visits + Elder Abuse 0.13 0.25 0.597 

Home Visits + DV Arrestee 0.24 0.16 0.134 

Home Visits Only 0.10 0.11 0.352 

Public Education Only 0.04 0.11 0.718 

Home Visits + Public Ed. 0.02 0.15 0.895 

Constant 0.14 0.39 0.719 0.61 0.14 0.000 

Alpha 0.05 0.04 0.201 0.08 0.05 0.097 

Notes: a=Negative Binominal Regression Model 

The models with the interaction terms also contain all of the direct effects, but they are not 

reported because they are redundant to the direct effects model. Bolded coefficients are statistically 

significant at p-value <0.05 

Assigned Treatment (No Treatment Grp.) 

Vera Institute of Justice 34 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 9. Recidivism Among Households Assigned to Home Visit Condition 

According to Whether Contact Was Made or Literature Left 

Elder abuse study 

mitoe - Prevalence: reports to interviewers 

Freauencvheveritv: reoorts to interviewers 

Contact Literature 

Made Left 

0.69 0.80 

41% 36% 

7.03 9.34 

pp 

1987 DV study 

Frequency: reports to police 

Prevalence: reports to interviewers 

Freauencv/severitv: reoorts to interviewers 

\ 

0.81 1.25 

35% 48% 

3.55 7.05 

Vera institute of Justice 35 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
METHOD APENDIX 

In this appendix, we provide details on sampling, case assignment process, and 

interview techniques for the three samples. 

1987 Domestic Violence Study 

Sampling Frame Sixty-four public housing projects (total population 93,000) 

were matched in pairs for size and demographic characteristics (projects ranged in size 

from 100 households to more than 2,000 households). The projects were all within the 

bounds of Manhattan's 23rd, 25'h, and 32"d precincts. One member of each pair was 

randomly assigned to receive the public Education intervention and the other served as a 

control. 

Four hundred thirty six households that reported incidents of domestic violence 

within the designated public housing projects were randomly assigned either to receive 

follow-up home visits or to a control condition. The 436 cases were fairly equally 

divided among romantic intimates (40%), children abusing parents (35%), and others 

(25%). (The last category consisted primarily of siblings abusing other siblings.) In 21% 

of the cases, the perpetrator had been arrested. The remaining 79% of the cases were 

incidents of family violence and/or disturbances in which no arrests were made. Victims 

were overwhelmingly female (87%), while perpetrators were predominantly male (79%). 

Assignment Process and Case Intake During the sampling period, all 

family violence reports received through 91 1 were assigned to one of the two levels of the 

home visit intervention according to a log sheet that was pre-numbered with sequential ID 

numbers and a corresponding treatment group designation for each number. The 

treatments were pre-assigned using a table of random numbers. When the DVIEP team 

reviewed incident reports each day, one member of the team placed a call to the research 

department. For each incident, the DVIEP staff member gave the incident number, which 

a researcher entered on the next available line on the assignment sheet. The researcher 

then gave the DVIEP staff member the treatment designation corresponding to that line 

on the assignment sheet. This procedure was designed to protect against overrides of 

assignments by DVIEP staff, who might have been concerned that certain cases receive 

home visits regardless of the outcome of the case assignment process. 

Six months after the trigger incident, efforts were 

made to interview victims by telephone. If telephone contact was unsuccessful, multiple 

written invitations to participate were mailed. If no response was received, up to three 

visits were made to the victim's home to conduct a face-to-face interview. Victims were 

paid $15 to complete the 30-minute questionnaire. 

Survey Methodology 

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1 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
These procedures resulted in an interview rate of 72%. Six percent of the 436 

victims refixed to be interviewed. For the remaining 22% of the sample not interviewed, 

no contact with the victim was ever made. Comparisons of victims who were 

interviewed and those not interviewed revealed no significant differences in terms of 

victim or perpetrator age, victim or perpetrator gender, nature of relationship, type of 

incident (complaint versus arrest), or whether victim and perpetrator shared a domicile. 

Further, completing a victim interview was not significantly associated with assignment 

to wither public education or home visit treatments. 

Outcome Measures Collected from Criminal Justice Records Each sampled 

case was entered into a personal computer system database. The database was used to 

track additional incidents that originated from the same addresses as those in the sample 

over a six month period. 

Elder Abuse Study 

Sampling Frame The study incorporated dual sampling frames to assess the effects 

of the public education and follow-up home visit interventions. Sixty public housing 

projects in the borough of Manhattan located within three Police Service Areas (PSAs) 

comprised the sampling frame for the public education intervention. A public housing 

PSA is a police administrative area similar to a precinct. PSA 4 covers all of lower 

Manhattan; PSA 5 covers mid-town to 125th Street; and PSA 6 covers 125th Street to the 

Northern tip of Manhattan. 

The sampling frame for the follow-up home visit included residents of the sixty 

housing projects 55 years or older Eligible cases consisted of those classified by police 

as domestic incidents involving persons 55 years and older, who reported an incident of 

elder abuse to the police between 1/1/96 and 10/30/96. During that time, 439 cases were 

taken into the sample, an average of 1.3 cases per day. Thirty-four of these cases were 

dropped because they did not meet the study’s requirements. The majority of the cases 

dropped were child custody disagreements (1 1) or cases classified as unfounded (8). 

Other reasons for dropping cases were language barriers, incorrect documentation of age, 

incorrect documentation of address, and errors in the police report. 

grandchildren, 16% were romantic intimates (either spouses or boyhends/girlfriends), 

and the remainder were other relatives. Most perpetrators (66%) were male, while the 

overwhelming majority of victims were female. 

of the others were classified by the police as family disputes (1 5%) and misdemeanor 

offenses (9%). Just a few incidents were serious enough to deserve their initial 

Fifty-three percent of the perpetrators were children of the victims, 19% were 

A plurality (49%) of the trigger incidents involved only verbal arguments. Most 

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2 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
classification as felony offenses (3%) or the arrest of the offender (6%). Physical injuries 

were reported by the police in 4% of incidents and hospitalization of the victim in just 

3%. 

Assignment Process and Case Intake Housing projects in each PSA were 

sorted into pairs matched for demographic similarities. Then, using a random number 

scheme, one member of each of the 30 resulting pairs was assigned to receive the public 

education treatment and the other was assigned to the control condition. 

Department (HPD) in the three participating PSAs. Domestic violence counselors 

screened police files daily for victims over 55 years of age. Cases were randomly 

assigned to the treatment group based on the Domestic Incident Report (DIR) number 

assigned by the police. Odd numbered DIRs were assigned to receive follow-up home 

visits, while even numbered DIRs were assigned to the control group. Cases were then 

entered into a case log which was used to trigger home visits by the DVIEP team and 

interviews by a research assistant. 

In randomized experiments, the application of treatments is often imperfect. In 

this experiment, three cases designated as controls by the random assignment process 

received home visits when a DVIEP supervisors overrode the intended designation. In 

these three cases, supervisors were concerned about possible harm to the victim if the 

intervention was withheld. More common were cases assigned to receive home visits in 

which victims were not at home during either of the two attempts that were scheduled for 

each household. Only 49.8% of the victims assigned to the home visit group received the 

full intervention. Nevertheless, in an additional 22.5% of the cases, our records document 

some level of interaction between the home visit group and the family unit, mostly 

through phone conversations with the victim or personal contacts with some of the family 

members during the attempts to reach the victim. 

Cases were drawn from complaints of elder abuse made to the Housing Police 

Survey Methodology Six months from the date of the trigger incident, we 

began attempts to interview victims. The principal means of conducting interviews was 

by phone. We received assistance from NYCHA in locating victims who had moved. 

We sent teams of interviewers to victims’ homes if telephone attempts failed. If the home 

interviews attempts also failed, we mailed letters offering first $25 and then $50 for 

completion of an interview. 

The completion rate was 69%. Fourteen percent of the sample rehsed to be 

interviewed. We lost 3% of our sample to out of town moves and 2% to death and 

illness. The remainder of those not interviewed could not be contacted by phone or visits 

to their homes. Interview non-completion varied significantly by treatment group: 27% 

of the home visit group did not complete the survey compared to 35% of the control 

3 

3 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
group (p=O.O8). We ran a model to predict non-completion of the interviews using age, 

race and ethnicity of the perpetrator, type of relationship, seriousness of the triggering 

incident, and the interventions as the covariates. Only being in the home visit group was a 

significant predictor of not completion of the survey. 

Outcome Measures Collected from Criminal Justice Records The DVIEP 

databases maintained on households at each of the three participating PSAs were 

searched to determine if new incidents of abuse were reported for households in our 

sample within, six-months following the trigger incident. When new cases were found, 

we recorded complaint date, type of abuse reported, charge, whether an arrest was made, 

use of weapons, and injury. 

Domestic Violence Arrestee Study 

Sampling Frame This study involved only the follow-up home visit 

intervention. There was no public education component to the study. The sampling 

frame consisted of all family violence arrests by the police in Manhattan’s PSA2 Housing 

Police district between 10/20/95 and 6/2/96. 

Twenty-two percent of the 197 cases involved felony charges and 78% 

misdemeanor or violation charges. The most common charge was third degree assault. 

One in five victims reported some form of injury. A large percentage (69%) of the cases 

involved intimate partners, and the overwhelming majority (88%) of victims were 

women. The average age of the victims was 32 years. 

victim age, victim education, prior complaints to the police, nature of victidoffender 

relationship, or charge class. 

There were no significant differences between home visit and control groups on 

Assignment Process and Case Intake During the sampling period, all 

PSA2 family violence arrests were assigned to receive a home visit or to the control 

group. The assignment was made using a log sheet that assigned each line to one or the 

other treatments. Treatment designations on the sheet were generated from a table of 

random numbers. Once each day, a DVIEP staff member called the research office to 

receive group assignments for each new arrest case. Each case enumerated by the DVIEP 

staff member was entered by a researcher on the next available line of the assignment 

sheet. The researcher informed the DVIEP staff member of the treatment designation for 

the case. 

4 

4 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Survey Methodology Six months after the trigger incident, attempts to interview 

victims by telephone were begun. Up to five attempts were made to contact victims, 

dispersed between daytime and evening hours. Because the study was conducted without 

grant funds, no resources were available to send letters offering monetary incentives or to 

conduct visits to victims’ homes for those victims not reached by phone. The success rate 

for victim interviews was 44%. 

Outcome Measures Collected from Criminal Justice Records Six months 

following the trigger incident, the PSA2 domestic violence database was searched to 

determine if new incidents of abuse were reported for sampled households. For any new 

incidents recorded, we recorded date of incident, type of abuse reported, charge, whether 

an arrest was made, and type of foice used (e.g., punching, use of weapon, threats, etc.). 

5 

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5 

view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. 

This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of 

official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.