DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03795.v1
title: National Evaluation of the Arrest Policies Program Under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), 1996-2000
title: Version 1

description: This study was undertaken to evaluate the impact of the
 Arrest Policies Program, funded by the Violence Against Women Office
 (VAWO), on criminal justice system changes and offender accountability,
 and victim safety and well-being. Through convenience sampling, six
 project sites were chosen to participate in the study. Part 1, Case
 Tracking Data, contains quantitative data collected from criminal
 justice agencies on arrests, prosecution filings, criminal case
 disposition, convictions, and sentences imposed for intimate partner
 violence cases involving a male offender and female offender. Data for
 Part 2, Victim Interview Data, were collected from in-depth personal
 interviews with domestic violence victims/survivors (1) to learn more
 about victim experiences with and perceptions of the criminal justice
 response, and (2) to obtain victim perceptions about how the arrest
 and/or prosecution of their batterers affected their safety and
 well-being. The survey instrument covered a wide range of topics
 including severity and history of domestic violence, social support
 networks, perceptions of police response, satisfaction with the
 criminal justice process and the sentence, experiences in court, and
 satisfaction with prosecutors, victim services provider advocates, and
probation officers.
description: The Institute for Law and Justice (ILJ), through
 a grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and funding from
 the Violence Against Women Office (VAWO), conducted a national
 evaluation of the Grants to Encourage Arrest Policies Program (more
 recently known as the Grants to Encourage Arrest Policies and
 Enforcement of Protection Orders Program), which was funded under the
 Violence Against Women Act of 1994. Under this act and its
 reauthorization in 2000, the VAWO provided grants for the purpose of
 establishing or enforcing policies favoring arrest and prosecution of
 persons committing domestic violence. Development of this program was
 based on testimony at congressional hearings about the pervasiveness
 and seriousness of domestic violence, and on research showing that
 arrest of batterers can deter future domestic violence by
 defendants. This study sought to evaluate the impact of the Arrest
 Policies Program on criminal justice system changes and offender
accountability, as well as victim safety and well-being.
description: At the time this evaluation began, VAWO had
 awarded 130 Arrest Policies Program grants. With guidance from a
 national advisory board, ILJ developed site selection criteria and
 selected 20 projects/sites to participate in a program process
 evaluation. Six projects were later selected from among the 20 to be
 included in a more intensive evaluation of the Arrest Policies Program
 on criminal justice system changes and offender accountability (Part
 1), and victim safety and well-being (Part 2). With respect to
 criminal justice system change and offender accountability, the
 evaluation plan called for collection of quantitative data on arrests,
 prosecution filings, criminal case disposition, convictions, and
 sentences imposed for intimate partner violence cases involving a male
 offender and female offender. While the methodology was intended to
 gather comprehensive and comparable statistics from all sites, data
 availability and reliability varied. For example, only one site could
 provide arrest statistics on domestic violence for years prior to
 1996. Since most grantees began operations in 1997, this offered just
 one year of pre-grant data across all sites, although most projects
 were able to provide data for the years 1996 through 1999. Cross-site
 comparisons were also hampered by missing data in some records and the
 lack of automation at all sites As a result, researchers were not able
 to make valid cross-site comparisons from available statistics on the
 various measures of interest. To address the problem of inconsistent
 official data across sites, ILJ selected samples of cases from two
 time periods at all six sites. The sampling plan called for random
 selection at each site from 100 misdemeanor cases during a specified
 time period in 1996 (pre-grant), and 100 cases during the same time
 period in 1999 (post-grant). The cases were to be identified from
 police arrest reports and were restricted to intimate partner violence
 cases involving a male offender and female victim, the most common
 form of domestic violence. Because not all six sites had specific
 provisions in the law for designating domestic violence as felonies
 distinct from other felonies, only misdemeanors were included in the
 sample. The selection process also required that each offender be
 included only once. Although all six sites followed the data
 collection protocols to the extent possible, circumstances at the
 individual sites led to variations at three sites in how cases were
 selected. In one city, the small number of cases annually required a
 change in the number of cases sampled to 50 for each year. At two
 other sites, police arrest information was not available, and cases
 had to be selected from prosecutor files. After the samples were
 selected, the local coordinators, who were experienced researchers and
 had received training specific to this project from ILJ research
 staff, reviewed criminal justice agency case files to determine the
 case status at each stage of criminal justice processing. A research
 protocol was provided to guide the local coordinators in supervising
 the collection of agency data. ILJ staff closely monitored the work
 of the local coordinators through site visits as well as regular
 contact via e-mail, phone, fax, and mail. The data collection forms
 were adjusted to allow for site variations in charging codes, as well
 as disposition and sentencing options. While there were minor
 variations in each of the sites' data reflecting these local
 differences, a core set of data elements was captured. Information
 collected included incident date, offender and victim demographics,
 use of drugs, alcohol, or weapons by either party, primary arrest and
 filing charges, level of charges, disposition of case and date of
 disposition, sentencing for those convicted, and probation
 violations. Cases in Part 1 were weighted at each site based on the
 ratio of the sample to the universe for the time period of the
 sample. For example, in one county, all of the cases were selected
 into the sample, resulting in a weight of 1 for each case. In another
 county, every third case was selected in the specified time period, so
 each case received a weight of 3. Part 1 is comprised of 1,185
 cases. The weights range from 1 to 5. The weighting procedures give a
 weighted total of 2,552 cases. Data for Part 2 were collected from
 in-depth personal interviews with domestic violence victims/survivors
 (1) to learn more about victim experiences with and perceptions of the
 criminal justice response, and (2) to obtain victim perceptions about
 how the arrest and/or prosecution of their batterers affected their
 safety and well-being. The evaluation design called for completion of
 30 interviews with victims/survivors at each site. Fifteen of these 30
 women were to be selected to participate in a "long version" of the
 interview. This group of women experienced the arrest and prosecution
 of their batterers. The remaining 15 women were to be selected for a
 "short version" of the interview. In these cases, the batterer was
 arrested, but the case was either declined for prosecution or
 initially dismissed by the prosecutor. With the level of
 prosecutorial effort as the primary difference between the two groups,
 the researchers sought to explore the effect of the prosecution on the
 victims' safety and well-being. Therefore, data used in Part 2 are the
 responses of those victims/survivors who were administered the "long
 version" of the interview. The recruitment of victims/survivors for
 interviews was challenging at all sites. The key variable, prosecution
 effort, required that victims/survivors be first identified from
 prosecutors' files. In addition, the cases selected had to be closed
 to assure prosecutors that the interviews would not interfere with any
 criminal cases. With assistance from victim witness staff, local
 research coordinators used a variety of techniques to recruit
 victims/survivors. Across sites, the greatest difficulty was
 locating, contacting, and recruiting victims whose cases had not been
 fully prosecuted. Furthermore, attempts to locate correct addresses or
 phone numbers were not always successful. Because of these problems,
 local coordinators were not always able to obtain the desired number
 of victims for interviews. Despite recruitment difficulties, a total
 of 62 interviews were conducted across the six sites. Each interview,
 lasting approximately 90 minutes, was conducted using a structured
 questionnaire that included both closed- and open-ended items,
 administered by trained ILJ research staff. The multi-item questions
 covered a wide range of topics, including (1) severity and history of
 domestic violence, (2) social support networks, (3) perceptions of
 police response, (4) satisfaction with the criminal justice process
 and the sentence imposed, (5) experiences in court, and (6)
 satisfaction with prosecutors, victim services providers, advocates,
and probation officers.
description: Variables in Part 1 include year of incident, type
 of weapon used, whether children were present, primary arrest and
 filing charges, any prior domestic violence arrests, whether the
 offender or victim was injured, days to disposition, type of plea,
 disposition outcome, whether there was a reduction of charges, and
 whether the offender was sentenced to jail, probation, batterer
 intervention, drug/alcohol treatment, or to pay a fine. Demographic
 variables for Part 1 include the race and age of both the offender and
 victim. Demographic variables for Part 2 include the race/ethnicity,
 age, and occupation of the victim and offender. Other variables
 include domestic violence history (e.g., whether victim was pushed,
 grabbed, slapped, bit, kicked, burned, stabbed, shot, or beat up),
 whether the domestic violence incident resulted in bruises, burns,
 bites, black eyes, scarring or permanent, whether anyone knew about
 the violence and provided support to the victim (e.g., a relative,
 friend, neighbor, religious leader, doctor/nurse, prosecuting
 attorney, therapist, or the police), whether the victim wanted the
 abuser arrested, the number of officers involved, what sorts of
 actions the police took (e.g., gave written information about the
 legal system, took photos of injuries, helped victim leave premises),
 whether there were any witnesses to the incident, reasons why the
 victim may have wanted charges dropped, the victim's interaction with
 individuals from the prosecutor's office, the victim's involvement
 with the offender's hearing/trial, the victim's level of satisfaction
 with various aspects of the criminal justice system, and the victim's
 experience with victim advocates, judges, counseling services, and
probation officers.
description: Response Rates: Part 1: Not applicable. Part 2: Not available.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Several Likert-type scales were used in Part 2.
description: Through convenience sampling, six project sites were
 chosen by the ILJ to participate in the study. Researchers believed
 that the six sites would allow for inclusion of different types of
 projects and project environments. They also determined that six was
 the maximum number of sites that could be examined in depth within the
 evaluation budget. The six sites were chosen from 20 sites which were
 already participating in a process evaluation of the Arrest Policies
 Program. Criteria had been established earlier in the project to
 assess each of the 20 projects/sites in terms of data availability and
 access to victims/survivors. Other factors were also considered: type
 of project leadership (e.g., police, prosecutor), focus of the
 grant-funded efforts, jurisdiction size, geographic representation,
 and access to samples of domestic violence victims who were members of
 racial and ethnic minorities. The final selection of sites was made by
 the ILJ research staff in consultation with members of the national
 advisory board, the federal technical assistance providers, the
 National Institute of Justice, and the Violence Against Women
 Office. For Part 1, a random selection of 100 misdemeanor cases from a
 specified time period in 1996 (pre-grant), and 100 cases from the same
 time period in 1999 (post-grant) was chosen. The cases were to be
 identified from police arrest reports and were restricted to intimate
 partner violence cases involving a male offender and female victim.
 Because not all six sites had specific provisions in the law for
 designating domestic violence as felonies distinct from other
 felonies, only misdemeanors were included in the sample. The selection
 process also required that each offender be included only once. For
 Part 2, the research design called for 15 women from each of the six
 sites to be chosen to complete a "long version" of the interview.
 These women experienced the arrest and prosecution of their
batterers.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Case Tracking Data
DS2: Victim Interview Data
description: Part 1: Intimate partner violence cases involving a male
 offender and female victim from any of the six pre-selected study
 sites. Part 2: Female victims/survivors of an intimate partner
 violence incident (from any of six pre-selected study sites) where the
 victims/survivors experienced the arrest and prosecution of their
batterers. Smallest Geographic Unit: none
description: The user guide, codebook, and data collection
 instrument are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF)
 files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated
 and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe
 Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat
Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.