Officials in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, introduced two experiments designed to provide answers to questions of how to deal with victim reluctance in domestic violence cases. Two projects funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) evaluated these Milwaukee domestic violence experiments. The first project examined the effectiveness of a specialized domestic violence court that opened in September 1994. The primary intent of the specialized domestic violence court was to speed up the disposition of cases. The second project examined the impact of a change in the district attorney's (DA's) screening policy that admitted more cases into the special court, which became effective January 1, 1995. The liberalized prosecutorial policy was intended to determine whether arrests that the DA normally rejected for prosecution because victims failed to attend the prosecutor's charging conference could be prosecuted successfully none the less. The researchers collected data from three time periods: (1) prior to September 1994, (2) between September 1994 and January 1995, and (3) post-Janurary 1995. For the first experiment, several samples were selected from court and DA records to assess the impact of the introduction of the special domestic violence court and its impact after the change in the DA's charging policy. These samples of domestic violence cases (court samples) filed by the prosecutor included: (1) 237 cases from Summer 1994, (2) 190 cases from Fall 1994, and (3) 242 cases from Spring 1995. For the second experiment, three additional samples (complaint room samples) were collected of domestic cases declined by the prosecutor to determine how victim attendance at the charging conference and other factors affected the decision to prosecute: (1) 152 cases from Summer 1994, (2) 155 cases from Fall 1994, and (3) 152 cases from Spring 1995. Variables in this dataset include if the case was filed, type of charges, number of prior misdemeanors, number of prior felonies, number of misdemeanors after, number of felonies after, number of felony convictions, number of misdemeanor convictions, number of subpoenas, number of judicial body attachment orders, whether the victim was cooperative, if the victim testified, method of disposition, type of disposition, time to disposition, time to sentencing, sentencing conditions, if the defendant received jail or prison time, if the defendant received probation time, number of months incarcerated, number of months on probation, and several date variables. Additional variables provide the sex of the defendant, the relationship between the defendant and the victim, if the victim was injured, if the victim was intoxicated, and use of a weapon.

This study focused on the actuarial and situational correlates of domestic violence and the variables that differentiate those who batter their partners from those who are "generally" violent. The study defined violence as physical violence and excluded both psychological abuse and verbal threats. Domestic violence was defined as a man battering his spouse or partner, while extradomestic violence referred to the batterer's involvement in violence outside the home, as reported by the victim of the domestic incident. The data are victim reports concerning batterers collected through face-to-face interviews with 270 former clients of Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA)-funded family violence programs conducted approximately three months following final contact with the program. The data include demographic variables on both the LEAA-funded program client and her partner, variables detailing the partner's domestic and extradomestic violence, and variables on any services received by the client.

This study focused on an evaluation of EVOLVE, a newly developed 26-week, 52-session skill building, culturally competent, psycho-educational curriculum-based intervention for male domestic violence offenders with female victims. The curriculum was implemented in three large urban courts that have specialized domestic violence court sessions, judicial monitoring, specialized court staff throughout the judicial process, enhanced advocacy for victims, a collaborative team approach to case processing, and collaboration with networks of involved community service providers. The comparison site (called Explore), also a large urban court, had some specialized court staff and enhanced victim advocacy, as well. It was selected as the comparison because of these court features, the use of a more traditional 26-week intervention (that met just once each week), its high volume, and the high rate of involvement of men of color, which was similar to rates found at the EVOLVE sites at the time the evaluation was proposed. The data file contains 545 cases and 872 variables.

The ultimate purpose of the study was to test whether court-mandated counseling reduced the likelihood of repeat violence by men convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. Researchers also tested the underlying theory arising from the reanalyses of the Minneapolis experiment (MINNEAPOLIS INTERVENTION PROJECT, 1986-1987 [ICPSR 9808]) and Spouse Assault Replication Programs (SARPs). This theory proposes that having a stake in conformity predicts when an intervention (whether an arrest or court-mandated treatment) will be effective in reducing the likelihood of subsequent violence. The study used a classical experimental design to test whether courts can effect change in men convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence by mandating them to participate in a spouse abuse abatement program (SAAP). All men convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence in Broward County, Florida, between May 1 and September 30, 1997, were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. The only exceptions were for those couples in which either defendant or victim did not speak English or Spanish; either defendant or victim was under 18 years of age; the defendant was severely mentally ill; or the judge, at the time of sentencing, allowed the defendant to move to another jurisdiction and serve his probation through mail contact. Of the remaining 404 defendants, men in the control group were sentenced to 1 year's probation and men in the experimental group were sentenced to 1 year's probation and mandated into one of the five local SAAPs. In an effort to determine the true amount of change in individuals undergoing court-mandated counseling, the researchers included various measures from several sources. Each batterer was interviewed at time of adjudication and again six months after adjudication. The victim was also interviewed at adjudication and 6 and 12 months after adjudication. Standardized measures with known reliability were used when possible. Probation records and computer checks with the local police for all new arrests were used to track the defendants for one year after adjudication. The defendant interviews asked questions to assess the defendant's stake in conformity including those dealing with his relationship to the victim, his employment, his residential stability and his relationship to others. Included in these interviews were questions from an abbreviated version of the Crowne-Marlowe Social Desirability Scale, the Shortened Attitudes Towards Women Scale, the Inventory of Beliefs About Wife Beating (IBWB), and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale. The data file also includes questions dealing with offenders' perceptions of the fairness of the criminal justice process they had just been through, who they believed was responsible for the instant offense that brought them to court, and whether they felt coerced into the batterer's program. The victim interviews were similar to the defendants though most of the questions asked the victim to provide information about the offender and his relationship with her. The woman was also asked to provide information on her work history, who she regularly spent time with, whether she had spoken with family, friends, and neighbors about her relationship with the offender and, if she had, if they were critical of her or her partner's actions in the particular incident leading to this court case. Similar to the offender's interviews, victims were asked about the history of violence in their home of origin and the particular incident bringing the offender to court. The probation reports provided information on the offender's criminal history, behavior in the community for the year while under supervision, and compliance with the batterer program.

The purpose of the research project was to examine the extent to which the perception of procedural fairness by suspects arrested for spouse assault effectively inhibited their subsequent violence. The data for this study were collected for the MILWAUKEE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE EXPERIMENT, 1987-1989 (ICPSR 9966), which was conducted from April 1987 to August 1988. In this experiment, all cases of misdemeanor domestic battery where probable cause to arrest existed were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) warning with no arrest, (2) arrest with a brief detention period (average of 3 hours), and (3) arrest with a longer detention period (average of 11 hours). Variables include demographic and background information, as well as descriptive variables pertaining to the domestic violence incident.

The goal of this study was to identify factors that influence whether city misdemeanor domestic violence cases in which batterers are arrested by police result in dismissals, acquittals, or convictions in the courts, and how these cases are processed. The researchers sought to examine factors that influence court officials' decision-making in domestic violence cases, as well as factors that influence victim and witness reluctance in bringing batterers to successful adjudication. In Part 1 researchers merged pretrial services data with information from police and prosecutors' reports in the urban area under study to answer the following questions: (1) What is the rate of dismissals, acquittals, and convictions for misdemeanor court cases and what are the conditions of these sentences? (2) What factors in court cases are significantly related to whether the disposition is a dismissal, acquittal, or conviction, and how are these cases processed? In Part 2, judges, prosecutors, and public defenders were asked detailed questions about their level of knowledge about, attitudes toward, and self-reported behaviors regarding the processing of domestic violence cases to find out: (1) What roles do legal and extra-legal factors play in decision-makers' self-reported behaviors and attitudes? (2) How do decision-makers rate victim advocate and batterer treatment programs? (3) How do court professionals view the victim's role in the court process? and (4) To what degree do court professionals report victim-blaming attitudes and experiences? For Part 3 researchers used a stratified random sample to select court cases of misdemeanor domestic violence that would be transcribed and used for a content analysis to examine: (1) Who speaks in court and how? and (2) What is considered relevant by different court players? In Parts 4-103 victim surveys and interviews were administered to learn about battered women's experiences in both their personal lives and the criminal processing system. Researchers sought to answer the following questions: (1) How do victim/witnesses perceive their role in the prosecution of their abusers? (2) What factors inhibit them from pursuing prosecution? (3) What factors might help them pursue prosecution? and (4) How consistent are the victims'/witnesses' demographic and psychological profiles with existing research in this area? Domestic violence victims attending arraignment between January 1 and December 31 of 1997 were asked to complete surveys to identify their concerns about testifying against their partners and to evaluate the effectiveness of the court system in dealing with domestic violence cases (Part 4). The disposition of each case was subsequently determined by a research team member's examination of defendants' case files and/or court computer files. Upon case closure victims who had both completed a survey and indicated a willingness to be interviewed were contacted to participate in an interview (Parts 5-103). Variables in Part 1, Pretrial Services Data, include prior criminal history, current charges, case disposition, sentence, victim testimony, police testimony, victim's demeanor at trial, judge's conduct, type of abuse involved, weapons used, injuries sustained, and type of evidence available for trial. Demographic variables include age, sex, and race of defendants, victims, prosecutors, and judges. In Part 2, Professional Survey Data, respondents were asked about their tolerance for victims and offenders who appeared in court more than once, actions taken when substance abuse was involved, the importance of injuries in making a decision, attitudes toward battered women, the role of victim advocates and the police, views on restraining orders, and opinion on whether arrest is a deterrent. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, marital status, and years of professional experience. Variables in Part 3, Court Transcript Data, include number and type of charges, pleas, reasons for dismissals,

The purposes of this study were (1) to examine factors associated with New York City Family Courts' visitation decisions and conformity to the provisions of the Model Code of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges when there was a history of abuse of the mother by the father, (2) to compare the different visitation conditions in regard to reabuse -- both psychological and physical, and (3) to examine children's psychological well-being as measured by maternal report on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), given their exposure to abuse. Two hundred forty-two participants were recruited from the Family Courts and supervised visitation centers in the five counties in New York City. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. There were two interviews with the mother, with an average interval of six months between interviews. Baseline interviews were conducted in person, at the court, or visitation center from 2002 to 2004. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 168 of the participants from 2003 to 2005 and were conducted over the phone, except on the rare occasions when a participant requested an in-person interview. Information in the the baseline interview included demographic information on the participant as well as on the father of the child(ren), information on the level of physical violence and the children's exposure, how often particular acts of violence took place, threats and coercion, an injury index, information regarding court orders, information regarding custody petitions, information regarding visitation orders, and visitation experience. The follow-up interview asked about abuse since the previous interview and included updates, changes, and modifications to the information provided in the baseline interview.

The specific goals of this project were (1) to assess the selection criteria used to determine the domestic violence cases for intensive intervention: what criteria are used, and what differentiates how cases are handled, (2) to track the outcomes through Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD), Mecklenburg domestic violence court, and the Mecklenburg jail for the different methods of dealing with the cases, and (3) to provide an assessment of the relative effectiveness of a specialized domestic violence unit vis-a-vis normal patrol unit responses in terms of repeat calls, court processing, victim harm, and repeat arrests. The population from which the sample was selected consisted of all police complaint numbers for cases involving domestic violence (DV) in 2003. The unit of analysis was therefore the domestic violence incident. Cases were selected using a randomized stratified sample (stratifying by month) that also triple-sampled DV Unit cases, which generated 255 DV Unit cases for inclusion. The final sample therefore consists of 891 domestic violence cases, each involving one victim and one suspect. Within this final sample of cases, 25 percent were processed by the DV Unit. The data file contains data from multiple sources. Included from the police department's computerized database (KBCOPS) are variables pertaining to the nature of the crime, victim information and suspect information such as suspect and victim demographic data, victim/offender relationship, highest offense category, weapon usage, victim injury, and case disposition status. From police narratives come such variables as victim/offender relationship, weapon use (more refined than what is included in KBCOPS data), victim injury (also a more refined measure), and evidence collected. Variables from tracking data include information regarding the nature of the offense, the level/type of harm inflicted, and if the assault involved the same victim in the sample. Variables such as amount of jail time a suspect may have had, information pertaining to the court charges (as opposed to the charges at arrest) and case disposition status are included from court and jail data.

In 1996 the Institute for Law and Justice (ILJ) began an evaluation of the law enforcement and prosecution components of the "STOP Violence Against Women" grant program authorized by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. This data collection constitutes one component of the evaluation. The researchers chose to evaluate two specialized units and two multi-agency team projects in order to study the local impact of STOP on victim safety and offender accountability. The two specialized units reflected typical STOP funding, with money being used for the addition of one or two dedicated professionals in each community. The Dane County, Wisconsin, Sheriff's Office used STOP funds to support the salaries of two domestic violence detectives. This project was evaluated through surveys of domestic violence victims served by the Dane County Sheriff's Office (Part 1). In Stark County, Ohio, the Office of the Prosecutor used STOP funds to support the salary of a designated felony domestic violence prosecutor. The Stark County project was evaluated by tracking domestic violence cases filed with the prosecutor's office. The case tracking system included only cases involving intimate partner violence, with a male offender and female victim. All domestic violence felons from 1996 were tracked from arrest to disposition and sentence (Part 2). This pre-grant group of felons was compared with a sample of cases from 1999 (Part 3). In Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, a comprehensive evaluation strategy was used to assess the impact of the use of STOP funds on domestic violence cases. First, a sample of 1996 pre-grant and 1999 post-grant domestic violence cases was tracked from arrest to disposition for both regular domestic violence cases (Part 4) and also for dual arrest cases (Part 5). Second, a content analysis of police incident reports from pre- and post-grant periods was carried out to gauge any changes in report writing (Part 6). Finally, interviews were conducted with victims to document their experiences with the criminal justice system, and to better understand the factors that contribute to victim safety and well-being (Part 7). In Jackson County, Missouri, evaluation methods included reviews of prosecutor case files and tracking all sex crimes referred to the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office over both pre-grant and post-grant periods (Part 8). The evaluation also included personal interviews with female victims (Part 9). Variables in Part 1 (Dane County Victim Survey Data) describe the relationship of the victim and offender, injuries sustained, who called the police and when, how the police responded to the victim and the situation, how the detective contacted the victim, and services provided by the detective. Part 2 (1996 Stark County Case Tracking Data), Part 3 (1999 Stark County Case Tracking Data), Part 4 (Hillsborough County Regular Case Tracking Data), Part 5 (Hillsborough County Dual Arrest Case Tracking Data), and Part 8 (Jackson County Case Tracking Data) include variables on substance abuse by victim and offender, use of weapons, law enforcement response, primary arrest offense, whether children were present, injuries sustained, indictment charge, pre-sentence investigation, victim impact statement, arrest and trial dates, disposition, sentence, and court costs. Demographic variables include the age, sex, and ethnicity of the victim and the offender. Variables in Part 6 (Hillsborough County Police Report Data) provide information on whether there was an existing protective order, whether the victim was interviewed separately, severity of injuries, seizure of weapons, witnesses present, involvement of children, and demeanor of suspect and victim. In Part 7 (Hillsborough County Victim Interview Data) variables focus on whether victims had prior experience with the court, type of physical abuse experienced, injuries from abuse, support from relatives, friends, neighbors, doctor, religious community, or police, assistance

The Metro-Dade project replicated an earlier study of domestic violence, the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment (SPECIFIC DETERRENT EFFECTS OF ARREST FOR DOMESTIC ASSAULT: MINNEAPOLIS, 1981-1982 [ICPSR 8250]), which was conducted by the Police Foundation with a grant from the National Institute of Justice. The Metro-Dade study employed a research design that tested the relative effectiveness of various combinations of treatments that were randomly assigned in two stages. Initially, eligible spouse battery cases were assigned to either an arrest or a nonarrest condition. Later, cases were assigned either to receive or not to receive a follow-up investigation and victim counseling from a detective working with the Safe Streets Unit (SSU), a unit that deals specifically with domestic violence. Given the various treatment conditions employed, three types of dependent variables were examined: (1) prevalence--the proportion of suspects who engaged in repeat incidents, (2) incidence--the frequency with which repeat incidents occurred, and (3) "time to failure"--the interval between the presenting incident and subsequent incidents. Initial interviews were conducted with victims soon after the presenting incident, and follow-up interviews were attempted six months later. The interviews were conducted in either English or Spanish. The interview questions requested detailed background information about the suspect, victim, and any family members living with the victim at the time of the interview, including age, gender, and marital and employment status. Parallel sets of employment and education questions were asked about the victim and the suspect. Additionally, the interview questionnaire was designed to collect information on (1) the history of the victim's relationship with the suspect, (2) the nature of the presenting incident, including physical violence, property damage, and threats, (3) causes of the presenting incident, including the use of alcohol and drugs by both the victim and the offender, (4) actions taken by the police when they arrived on the scene, (5) the victim's evaluation of the services rendered by the police on the scene, (6) the nature of the follow-up contact by a detective from the Safe Street Unit and an evaluation of the services provided, (7) the victim's history of abuse by the offender, and (8) the nature of subsequent abuse since the presenting incident. Data for Parts 1 and 2 are self-reported data, obtained from interviews with victims. Part 4 consists of data recorded on Domestic Violence Continuation Report forms, indicating subsequent assaults or domestic disputes, and Part 5 contains criminal history data on suspects from arrest reports, indicating a subsequent arrest. The police report of the incident and information on the type of randomized treatment assigned to each case is given in Part 6.