Process Evaluation of a Domestic Abuse Reduction Team in Clinton County, New York, 1998-2000 (ICPSR 3423)

Version Date: Apr 3, 2003

Principal Investigator(s):
Lynda Ames, Plattsburgh State University

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03423.v1

Version V1

These data are unavailable indefinitely from ICPSR.

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Summary

This study was a process evaluation of a criminal justice program responding to intimate partner violence. The program consisted of an effort by the probation office, the district attorney's office, and local advocates for battered women to coordinate prosecution of offenders and then to effectively supervise them under probation. The Domestic Abuse Reduction Team (DART), as the program was called, was formed in 1996 and consisted of a domestic violence case coordinator in the district attorney's office, a probation officer dedicated to a domestic violence caseload, a legal advocate from the STOP Domestic Violence program, and a domestic violence task force coordinator housed in probation. This study documented the achievements of and difficulties encountered by the interagency team in a largely rural county in upstate New York. Such programs are relatively new in the United States, and very new to rural areas. The focus of this process evaluation was how the program functioned and the issues it addressed, rather than outcome measures such as recidivism after intervention. Data were collected from domestic incident reports (DIRs) and the district attorney's mainframe database. The DIRs were mandatory reports filed by police for each domestic violence incident to which they responded. The district attorney's database contained information about cases that were prosecuted, such as the name of the court, the initial charges, and the sentences. Data were gathered from these case files to describe the demographic characteristics of victims and offenders and to describe offenses. Part 1 contains data for all cases in Clinton County that stemmed from a DIR from 1998 to 2000. Part 2 contains a subset of these DIR cases for which there was an identified male offender and a female intimate partner as a victim that could be matched to the district attorney's database. This subset allowed the principal investigators to pinpoint the official domestic violence cases that were prosecuted. Variables in Parts 1 and 2 consist of the police agency filing the report, the date of the incident, whether there was an arrest, the sex, race, and birth date of both the victim and the offender, the relationship of the victim to the offender, the charges filed, the court in which the case was heard, the pleas offered, and the sentence given.

Citation

Ames, Lynda. Process Evaluation of a Domestic Abuse Reduction Team in Clinton County, New York, 1998-2000    . [distributor], 2003-04-03. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03423.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (99-WE-VX-K010)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

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 or 734-647-5000. The Data Transfer Agreement Form is also available as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file from the NACJD Web site at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/Private/private.pdf. 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.

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Time Period(s)

1998 -- 2000

Date of Collection

1999 -- 2000

Data Collection Notes

  1. The user guide, codebook, and data collection instruments are provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. 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.

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Study Purpose

This study was a process evaluation of a criminal justice program responding to intimate partner violence. The program consisted of an effort by the probation office, the district attorney's office, and local advocates for battered women to coordinate prosecution of offenders and then to effectively supervise them under probation. The Domestic Abuse Reduction Team (DART), as the program was called, was formed in 1996 and consisted of a domestic violence case coordinator in the district attorney's office, a probation officer dedicated to a domestic violence caseload, a legal advocate from the STOP Domestic Violence program, and a domestic violence task force coordinator housed in probation. This study documented the achievements of and difficulties encountered by the interagency team in a largely rural county in upstate New York. Such programs are relatively new in the United States, and very new to rural areas. The focus of this process evaluation was how the program functioned and the issues it addressed, rather than outcome measures such as recidivism after intervention.

Study Design

Data were collected from domestic incident reports (DIRs) and the district attorney's mainframe database. The DIRs were mandatory reports filed by police for each domestic violence incident to which they responded. The district attorney's database contained information about cases that were prosecuted, such as the name of the court, the initial charges, and the sentences. Data were gathered from these case files to describe the demographic characteristics of victims and offenders and to describe offenses. Part 1 contains data for all cases in Clinton County that stemmed from a DIR from 1998 to 2000. Part 2 contains a subset of these DIR cases for which there was an identified male offender and a female intimate partner as a victim that could be matched to the district attorney's database. This subset allowed the principal investigators to pinpoint the official domestic violence cases that were prosecuted.

Sample

Not applicable.

Universe

All domestic violence cases in Clinton County, New York, between 1998 and 2000.

Unit(s) of Observation

Domestic violence incidents.

Data Source

domestic incident reports filed by police and data from the district attorney's mainframe database.

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

Variables in Parts 1 and 2 consist of the police agency filing the report, the date of the incident, whether there was an arrest, the sex, race, and birth date of both the victim and the offender, the relationship of the victim to the offender, the charges filed, the court in which the case was heard, the pleas offered, and the sentence given.

Response Rates

Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales

None.

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Original Release Date

2003-04-03

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Ames, Lynda. PROCESS EVALUATION OF A DOMESTIC ABUSE REDUCTION TEAM IN CLINTON COUNTY, NEW YORK, 1998-2000. ICPSR version. Plattsburgh, NY: Plattsburgh State University [producer], 2002. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2003. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03423.v1

2003-04-03 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR 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, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

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