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Description & Citation--Study No. 4307 | |
Bibliographic Description | |
| ICPSR Study No.: | 4307 |
|---|---|
| Persistent URL: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04307 |
| Title: | Domestic Violence Experiment in King's County (Brooklyn), New York, 1995-1997 |
| Principal Investigator(s): | Robert C. Davis, Vera Institute of Justice |
| Bruce G. Taylor, United States Department of Justice. National Institute of Justice | |
| Christopher D. Maxwell, Michigan State University | |
| Funding Agency: | United States Department of Justice. National Institute of Justice |
| Grant Number: | 94-IJ-CX-0047 |
| Bibliographic Citation: | Davis, Robert C., Bruce G. Taylor, and Christopher D. Maxwell. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE EXPERIMENT IN KING'S COUNTY (BROOKLYN), NEW YORK, 1995-1997 [Computer file]. ICPSR04307-v1. New York, NY: Vera Institute of Justice [producer], 2000. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-08-01. doi:10.3886/ICPSR04307 |
Scope of Study | |
| Summary: | The researchers sought to add to the incipient literature on randomized studies of batterer treatment, by conducting an experimental study that compared batterers assigned to treatment to batterers assigned to a community service program irrelevant to the problem of violence. The study was conducted using a true experimental design and consisted of 376 spousal assault cases drawn from the Kings County (New York) Criminal Court which were adjudicated between February 19, 1995, and March 1, 1996. Batterers were mandated to attend a 40-hour batterer treatment program or to complete 40 hours of community service. The random assignment was made at sentencing, after all parties (judge, prosecutor, and defense) had agreed that batterer treatment was appropriate, the defendant agreed to treatment and was accepted by the Alternatives to Violence (ATV) program, and the program was available based on the random assignment process. Interviews were also conducted with both the batterer and the victim at sentencing as well as 6 months post-sentence and 12 months post-sentence. These interviews collected data in areas regarding demographics (first interview only), recidivism, beliefs about domestic violence, conflict management strategies, locus of control, and for victims, self esteem. Administrative records were also used to obtain data regarding any new crimes committed. |
| Subject Term(s): | domestic assault, domestic violence, offenders, recidivism, treatment, treatment outcome, violence against women |
| Smallest Geographic Unit: | precinct |
| Geographic Coverage: | Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Time Period: | February 1995 - September 1997 |
| Date(s) of Collection: | February 1995 - September 1997 |
| Unit of Observation: | individual |
| Universe: | Defendants under the jurisdiction of the Kings County (New York) Criminal Court for domestic assault charges from February 19, 1995, to March 1, 1996. |
| Data Type: | survey data, event/transaction data, and administrative records data |
Methodology | |
| Sample: | The sampling frame consisted of spousal assault cases in Kings County (New York) Criminal Court which were adjudicated between February 19, 1995, and March 1, 1996. Batterers were only eligible for inclusion in the experiment if all parties (prosecutor, defense, and judge) agreed that batterer treatment was appropriate. Such agreement was not forthcoming in a small percentage of cases, most often because the defense refused to agree to treatment. Additionally, all defendants had to agree to batterer treatment, be accepted to the Alternatives to Violence (ATV) program, and the program needed to be available to them based on the random assignment process. Since all defendants had to agree to treatment, the study did not include cases where batterers were unmotivated. However, all participants were court-mandated -- they did not volunteer for treatment on their own volition. Still, it was common knowledge in the Kings County (New York) Criminal Court that misdemeanor batterer defendants were not facing jail time, and participants in treatment certainly knew from counsel that they were choosing the program over another alternative to incarceration. In 28 percent of the control cases, judges overrode the random assignment to deny batterer treatment and instead mandated the ATV program for defendants who had been assigned to community service. There were no judicial overrides of cases randomly assigned to the ATV program. |
| Weight: | none |
| Data Source: | Data for this study were gathered through both face-to-face and telephone interviews with the defendant and telephone interviews with the victim. Computerized information was also collected from records of the Criminal Justice Agency (CJA) and the New York City Police Department (NYPD). |
| Mode of Data Collection: | face-to-face interview |
| telephone interview | |
| record abstracts | |
| Response Rates: | The response rate with victims was 50 percent for the first interview, 46 percent for the second interview, and 50 percent for the third interview. First interviews with batterers were obtained with 95 percent of the sample because defendants were present at intake in court for the treatment program. Subsequent completion rates were 40 percent for the second interview and 24 percent for the third interview. |
| Presence of Common Scales: | Harrell's adaptation of the Straus Conflict Tactics Scale, a scale based on the Inventory of Beliefs about Wife Beating Scale, Conflict Resolution Skills Scale, 12 items from the Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale, the Life Satisfaction Scale (Index B), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. |
| Extent of Processing: | ICPSR checked for undocumented codes, standardized missing data codes, produced a codebook and frequencies, and generated SAS, SPSS, and Stata setup files. ICPSR also reformatted both the data and documentation. |
Access and Availability | |
| Note: | A list of the data formats available for this study can be found in the summary of holdings. Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest. |
| Restrictions: | The data are restricted from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Data Transfer Agreement Form and specify the reasons for the request. A copy of the Data Transfer Agreement Form can be requested by calling 800-999-0960. The Data Transfer Agreement Form is also available as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file from the NACJD Web site (link). Completed forms should be returned to: Director, National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Institute for Social Research, P.O. Box 1248, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, or by fax: 734-647-8200. |
| Original ICPSR Release: | 2006-08-01 |
| Dataset(s): |
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