DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02858
title: Evaluation of a Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence in Alexandria, Virginia, 1990-1998
title: Archival Version

description: This study was undertaken to evaluate Alexandria,
Virginia's Domestic Violence Intervention Program (DVIP), which is a
coordinated community response to domestic violence. Specifically,
the goals of the study were (1) to determine the effectiveness of
DVIP, (2) to compare victims' perceptions of program satisfaction and
other program elements between the Alexandria Domestic Violence
Intervention Program and domestic violence victim support services in
Virginia Beach, Virginia, (3) to examine the factors related to
abusers who repeatedly abuse their victims, and (4) to report the
findings of attitudinal surveys of the Alexandria police department
regarding the mandatory arrest policy. Data were collected from four
sources. The first two sources of data were surveys conducted via
telephone interviews with females living in either Alexandria,
Virginia (Part 1), or Virginia Beach, Virginia (Part 2), who were
victims of domestic violence assault incidents in which the police had
been contacted. These surveys were designed to describe the services
that the women had received, their satisfaction with those services,
and their experience with subsequent abuse. For Part 3 (Alexandria
Repeat Offender Data), administrative records from the Alexandria
Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) were examined in order to
identify and examine the factors related to abusers who repeatedly
abused their victims. The fourth source of data was a survey
distributed to police officers in Alexandria (Part 4, Alexandria
Police Officer Survey Data) and was developed to assess police
officers' attitudes regarding the domestic violence arrest policy in
Alexandria. In four rounds of interviews for Part 1 and three rounds
of interviews for Part 2, victims answered questions regarding the
location where the domestic violence incident occurred and if the
police were involved, their perceptions of the helpfulness of the
police, prosecutor, domestic violence programs, hotlines, and
shelters, their relationship to the abuser, their living arrangements
at the time of each interview, and whether a protective order was
obtained. Also gathered was information on the types of abuse and
injuries sustained by the victim, whether she sought medical care for
the injuries, whether drugs or alcohol played a role in the
incident(s), whether the victim had been physically abused or
threatened, yelled at, had personal property destroyed, or was made to
feel unsafe by the abuser, if any other programs or persons provided
help to the victim and how helpful these additional services were, and
whether a judge ordered services for the victim or abuser. After the
initial interviews, in subsequent rounds victims were asked if they
had had any contact with the abuser since the last interview, if they
had experienced any major life changes, if their situation had
improved or gotten worse and if so how, and what types of assistance
or programs would have helped improve their situation. Demographic
variables for Part 3 include offenders' race, sex, age at first
criminal nondomestic violence charge, and age at first domestic
violence charge. Other variables include charge number, type,
initiator, disposition, and sentence of nondomestic violence charges,
as well as the conditions of the sentences, imposed days, months, and
years, effective days, months, and years, type of domestic violence
case, victim's relationship to offender, victim's age, sex, and race,
whether alcohol or drugs were involved, if children were present at
the domestic violence incident, the assault method used by the
offender, and the severity of the assault. For Part 4, police officers
were asked whether they knew what a domestic violent incident was,
whether arresting without a warrant was considered good policy,
whether they were in favor of domestic violence policy as a police
response, whether they thought domestic violence policy was an
effective deterrent, whether officers should have discretion to
arrest, and how much discretion was used to handle domestic violence
calls. The number and percent of domestic violence arrests made in the
previous year, percent of domestic violence calls that involved mutual
combat, and the number of years each respondent worked with the
Alexandria, Virginia, police department are included in the file.
Demographic variables for Part 4 include the age and gender of each
respondent.
description: The problem of violence against women,
particularly domestic violence and intimate partner violence, has
received increasing attention over the last few years. Previous
research has shown that arresting domestic violence offenders resulted
in fewer incidents of subsequent violence. These findings led to
widespread adoption of mandatory arrest policies by police departments.
Recent studies, however, have noted that the evaluations of the impact
of mandatory arrest policies had largely been conducted without
monitoring the domestic violence prosecution processes and their
outcomes. Furthermore, these studies showed that there was little or
no evidence that (1) arrest, in the absence of other sanctions,
reduced subsequent violence by the offender, and (2) court-mandated
treatment of domestic violence offenders was effective in reducing
recidivism rates. Research has also noted that police do not operate
independently of other elements of the criminal justice system.
Moreover, in cases of domestic violence, community advocacy
organizations play an important role in service provision. There is
some evidence that coordinated responses to domestic violence were
effective in producing positive outcomes for victims. Thus,
communities have sought to develop coordinated responses to domestic
violence, involving police, prosecutors, judges, and community
advocates. These projects have typically developed pro-arrest
policies, prosecution and sentencing guidelines, and counseling and
education programs for court-mandated batterers. One popular method
for implementing comprehensive coordinated approaches has been the
formation of community intervention projects that are primarily
staffed by battered women's advocates. These programs usually have
several elements in common, such as the provision of services to
victims and batterers, including court-ordered treatment, and the
presence of active coordination between the local police department
and prosecutor's office. However, there has been relatively little
research on any of these coordinated programs. Generally, this study
sought to evaluate Alexandria, Virginia's Domestic Violence
Intervention Program (DVIP), which is a coordinated community response
to domestic violence. Specifically, the goals of this study were (1)
to determine the effectiveness of DVIP, (2) to compare program
satisfaction and other program elements between the Alexandria,
Virginia, Domestic Violence Intervention Program and domestic violence
victim support services in Virginia Beach, Virginia, (3) to examine
the factors related to abusers who repeatedly abuse their victims, and
(4) to report the findings of attitudinal surveys of the Alexandria
police department regarding the mandatory arrest policy.
description: Data were collected from four sources. The first
two sources of data were surveys conducted via telephone interviews
with females living in either Alexandria, Virginia (Part 1), or
Virginia Beach, Virginia (Part 2), who were victims of domestic
violence assault incidents in which the police had been contacted. The
surveys were designed to determine the services that the women had
received, their satisfaction with those services, and their experience
with subsequent abuse. Initial interviews of victims in Alexandria
began in May 1996, with three rounds of subsequent interviews
conducted. On average, the first round of (initial) interviews was
conducted about two months after the incident. Round 2 was conducted
about one month after Round 1, Round 3 about three months after Round
2, and Round 4 about nine months after Round 3. The initial interviews
of Virginia Beach victims began in March 1997 with two rounds of
subsequent interviews conducted. On average, the first round of
initial interviews began about one month after the incident. Round 2
was conducted about one month after Round 1, and Round 3 about two to
three months after Round 2. The time interval between Rounds 1 and 2
was comparable to the interval in Alexandria. However, the interval
between Rounds 2 and 3 was, approximately, 23 days longer in
Alexandria than in Virginia Beach. Due to differences concerning the
way in which researchers were allowed access to potential
participants, recruitment procedures were different in the two
localities. In Alexandria, a letter was prepared by the research team
under the signature of the Coordinator of the Office on Women's
Domestic Violence Program. The letter introduced the study and
indicated that the women would be contacted by a research
team. Volunteers from the Alexandria Domestic Violence Intervention
Program (DVIP) gave the letters to female domestic violence victims at
the time their cases were heard in court. Once the women's court
hearings were completed, DVIP volunteers returned the incident reports
to the Office on Women's Domestic Violence Program. These reports were
copied every few weeks, depending on the caseload for that particular
time period. These forms were then used by the interviewers to contact
the victims to inquire about participation in the study. Once contact
was established, the interviewers read from a script that explained
the purpose of the study and requested the victim's participation for
the first interview. The procedures followed in Virginia Beach, which
was used as a comparison site, were different from those followed in
Alexandria for two reasons. First, the researchers were not allowed to
contact victims directly to solicit their participation in the study
because the City Attorney's office felt that releasing the names and
phone numbers of the victims would violate their privacy. Secondly,
the length of time between abusive incidents and the victim's court
appearance was much longer in Virginia Beach than in Alexandria, and
there was no systematic volunteer court accompaniment program in
Virginia Beach. Thus, there was no way to inform potential
participants that the study was proceeding. Since detectives from the
Virginia Beach Police Department's domestic violence unit regularly
contacted all domestic violence victims who had called police, the
research team decided that these officers would introduce the study to
victims and solicit their participation. A script was prepared for the
detectives to read to the victims. If the victim agreed to participate
in the study, the detective recorded the victim's name and phone
number on a list of potential study participants. These forms were
faxed to the interviewers, who then contacted the victims. The initial
interview for both sites was an abbreviated one, which was conducted
at the time the victims agreed to participate in the study. Subsequent
interviews for both sites were all conducted using the same, more
detailed questionnaire. There was only one major difference between
the interview forms used for the two localities. Since there was no
domestic violence program in Virginia Beach that could easily be
identified, the women there were asked about the helpfulness of the
police department's domestic violence unit, rather than the domestic
violence program. For Part 3 (Alexandria Repeat Offender Data)
administrative records from the Alexandria Criminal Justice
Information System (CJIS) were examined in order to identify and
examine the factors related to abusers who repeatedly abused their
victims. In 1993 the tracking of domestic violence cases was
incorporated into the CJIS. Alexandria's CJIS is an offender-based
system used by the courts to track defendants. Once domestic violence
cases are identified by the victim-witness office, they are entered
into the system with a code indicating that they are domestic violence
cases. The study staff met with the Victim Services Coordinator and
the CJIS administrator to determine the cases and variables needed for
the purposes of the study. The city then enlisted the consultants who
program the CJIS database to pull cases with the required data
elements and place them into files that could be used by the project
staff for analysis. Researchers examined the following: (1) domestic
violence incidents occurring during the time period from January 1993
to June 1996, (2) offenses other than domestic violence, committed by
domestic violence defendants from January 1, 1990, through June of
1996, and (3) the characteristics of one-time and repeat offenders.
The fourth source of data was a survey distributed to police officers
in Alexandria (Part 4, Alexandria Police Officer Survey Data). The
survey was developed to assess police officers' attitudes regarding
the domestic violence arrest policy in Alexandria. The survey was
administered during roll calls in the fall of 1996 by the sergeant in
charge of the domestic violence unit. A total of 133 officers and
detectives completed the survey.
description: In four rounds of interviews for Part 1 and three
rounds of interviews for Part 2, victims answered questions regarding
the location where the domestic violence incident occurred and if the
police were involved, their perceptions of the helpfulness of the
police, prosecutor, domestic violence programs, hotlines, and
shelters, their relationship to the abuser, their living arrangements
at the time of each interview, and whether a protective order was
obtained. Also gathered was information on the types of abuse and
injuries sustained by the victim, whether she sought medical care for
the injuries, whether drugs or alcohol played a role in the
incident(s), whether the victim had been physically abused or
threatened, yelled at, had personal property destroyed, or was made to
feel unsafe by the abuser, if any other programs or persons provided
help to the victim and how helpful these additional services were, and
whether a judge ordered services for the victim or abuser. After the
initial interviews, in subsequent rounds victims were asked if they
had had any contact with the abuser since the last interview, if they
had experienced any major life changes, if their situation had
improved or gotten worse and if so how, and what types of assistance
or programs would have helped improve their situation. Demographic
variables for Part 3 include offenders' race, sex, age at first
criminal nondomestic violence charge, and age at first domestic
violence charge. Other variables include charge number, type,
initiator, disposition, and sentence of nondomestic violence charges,
as well as the conditions of the sentences, imposed days, months, and
years, effective days, months, and years, type of domestic violence
case, victim's relationship to offender, victim's age, sex, and race,
whether alcohol or drugs were involved, if children were present at
the domestic violence incident, the assault method used by the
offender, and the severity of the assault. For Part 4, police officers
were asked whether they knew what a domestic violent incident was,
whether arresting without a warrant was considered good policy,
whether they were in favor of domestic violence policy as a police
response, whether they thought domestic violence policy was an
effective deterrent, whether officers should have discretion to
arrest, and how much discretion was used to handle domestic violence
calls. The number and percent of domestic violence arrests made in the
previous year, percent of domestic violence calls that involved mutual
combat, and the number of years each respondent worked with the
Alexandria, Virginia, police department are included in the
file. Demographic variables for Part 4 include the age and gender of
each respondent.
description: Response Rates: The response rates for the initial interviews
for Parts 1 and 2 were approximately 64 percent and 63 percent,
respectively. Part 3: Not applicable. The response rate is unknown
for Part 4.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Several Likert-type scales were used in Parts 1, 2, and
4.
description: Not applicable.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Alexandria Victim Interview Data
DS2: Virginia Beach Victim Interview Data
DS3: Alexandria Repeat Offender Data
DS4: Alexandria Police Officer Survey Data
description: Part 1: Females living in Alexandria, Virginia, who were
victims of a male-female domestic violence assault incident in which
the police had been contacted. Part 2: Females living in Virginia
Beach, Virginia, who were victims of a male-female domestic violence
assault incident in which the police had been contacted. Part 3:
Domestic violence cases in Alexandria, Virginia, involving males
abusing females with any of the following relationship dynamics:
married, divorced, separated, living together, boyfriend-girlfriend,
former boyfriend-girlfriend, and child in common. Part 4: Police
officers and detectives in Alexandria, Virginia, working in the
domestic violence unit.
description: record abstracts; self-enumerated questionnaire; telephone interview