Evaluation of a Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence in Alexandria, Virginia, 1990-1998 Orchowsky, Stan J. arrest procedures battered women domestic violence intervention police departments program evaluation recidivists victim services victims ICPSR.XVII.E NACJD.VII NACJD.XIII 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. 2006-07-13 Parts 1, 2 and 4: survey data. Part 3: administrative records data 2858 10.3886/ICPSR02858.v2 Alexandria United States Virginia 1990--1998 ICPSR metadata records are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/).