Description & Citation--Study No. 3013

• Bibliographic Description
• Scope of Study
• Methodology
• Access and Availability

Bibliographic Description

03013

Reconsidering Domestic Violence Recidivism: Individual and Contextual Effects of Court Dispositions and Stake in Conformity in Hamilton County, Ohio, 1993-1998

Wooldredge, John, University of Cincinnati

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (95-IJ-CX-0102)

Wooldredge, John. Reconsidering Domestic Violence Recidivism: Individual and Contextual Effects of Court Dispositions and Stake in Conformity in Hamilton County, Ohio, 1993-1998 . ICPSR03013-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000. doi:10.3886/ICPSR03013.v1

Scope of Study

This study examined empirical relationships between various court dispositions and the prevalence, incidence, and delay of domestic violence recidivism. It built on past research by examining the possible effects of formal and informal social controls at the individual level, as well as the contextual effects of community characteristics on individual behavior. The researchers collected information on 3,662 suspects arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence (specifically, assault against an intimate) in Hamilton County, Ohio, during August 1, 1993, to October 31, 1993, and January 1, 1995, to December 31, 1996. All arrestees in the sample were tracked until June 1998. The dataset includes information pertaining to demographic and background characteristics of suspects (e.g., race, age, means of support, education, employment, marital status, residential stability, number of children the suspect had, and if the suspect lived with a spouse and/or children at arrest), their criminal histories (prior convictions for misdemeanors and felonies, prior incarceration, alcohol/drug addiction, and pending charges), how their cases were disposed (e.g., no charges filed, charges dropped, acquitted at trial, sentenced to an offender program, probation, or jail), rearrests for domestic violence that occurred between the initial arrest and May 31, 1998, and the number of months that elapsed between case disposition and rearrest.

arrest records, communities, criminal histories, disposition (legal), domestic violence, offenders, recidivism

Ohio, United States

• 1993--1998

• 1995--1998

Individuals.

Persons arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence in Hamilton County, Ohio.

administrative records data, census/enumeration data, event/transaction data, survey data

Methodology

Mandatory arrest policies in cases of misdemeanor domestic violence were implemented in many jurisdictions across the United States during the 1980s. However, the true success of arrest alone in preventing or delaying recidivism remains unknown. Furthermore, the effectiveness of arrest might hinge on whether arrestees are actually prosecuted and convicted, and whether they are placed on probation and/or serve a jail sentence. This study examined empirical relationships between various court dispositions and the prevalence, incidence, and delay of domestic violence recidivism. It built on past research by examining the possible effects of formal and informal social controls at the individual level, as well as the contextual effects of community characteristics on individual behavior. Aggregate-level census measures (proportion of college-educated individuals, proportion of employed individuals, proportion of financially independent residents, etc.) were included to determine the extent that these neighborhood characteristics correlate to an individual's propensity to recidivate and/or conditioned relationships between formal controls and recidivism.

To study empirical relationships between court dispositions and the prevalence, incidence, and delay of recidivism for domestic violence, the researchers collected information on 3,662 suspects arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence in Hamilton County, Ohio, during August 1, 1993, to October 31, 1993, and January 1, 1995, to December 31, 1996. All arrestees in the sample were tracked until June 1998. The individual-level data were compiled from arrest reports, intake interview forms, and court records. Intake interview data provided the demographic and legal characteristics of suspects and information on their initial arrests, court records provided disposition information, and arrest reports provided the dates and types of all rearrests until May 31, 1998. The census tract data were obtained from the 1990 United States Census of Population and Housing.

The sample consists of all persons arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence (specifically, assault against an intimate) in Hamilton County, Ohio, during two time periods: August 1-October 31, 1993, and January 1, 1995-December 31, 1996.

arrest reports, intake interview forms, court records, and the 1990 United States Census of Population and Housing

The dataset includes information pertaining to demographic and background characteristics of suspects (e.g., race, age, means of support, education, employment, marital status, residential stability, number of children the suspect had, and if the suspect lived with a spouse and/or children at arrest), their criminal histories (prior convictions for misdemeanors and felonies, prior incarceration, alcohol/drug addiction, and pending charges), how their cases were disposed (e.g., no charges filed, charges dropped, acquitted at trial, sentenced to an offender program, probation, or jail), rearrests for domestic violence that occurred between the initial arrests and May 31, 1998, and the number of months that elapsed between case disposition and rearrest.

Not applicable.

All archived data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. The archive also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, the archive performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

• Standardized missing values.
• Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Access and Availability

Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.

2000-10-05