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.

The Judicial Oversight Demonstration (JOD) was designed to test the feasibility and impact of a coordinated response to intimate partner violence (IPV) that involved the courts and justice agencies in a central role. The primary goals were to protect victim safety, hold offenders accountable, and reduce repeat offending. The two primary evaluation objectives were: (1) to test the impact of JOD interventions on victim safety, offender accountability, and recidivism, and (2) to learn from the experiences of well-qualified sites who were given resources and challenged to build a collaboration between the courts and community agencies to respond to intimate partner violence. Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Washtenaw County, Michigan, participated in a quasi-experimental evaluation of the impact of the program. IPV cases reaching disposition during the JOD were compared to similar cases reaching disposition in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Ingham County, Michigan. All IPV cases reaching disposition from approximately January 2003 to November 2004 (see Study Time Periods and Time Frames) were reviewed and included in the sample if appropriate. To be eligible for the sample, cases had to involve: (1) criminal IPV charges; (2) victims and offenders age 18 or older; and (3) victims and offenders who lived in the target jurisdiction at the time of case disposition. Cases that reached disposition more than a year after the incident were excluded to limit loss of data due to poor recall of the facts of the incident and police response. The evaluation design of JOD in Milwaukee differed from that of the other two sites. The evaluation in Milwaukee was based on a quasi-experimental comparison of offenders convicted of IPV and ordered to probation during JOD (January 1, 2001, to May 21, 2002) and before JOD (October 8, 1997, to December 21, 1999). This design was selected when early plans for an experimental design had to be abandoned and no comparable contemporaneous comparison group could be identified. Data for this evaluation were collected from court and prosecutors' records of case and defendant characteristics, probation files on offender supervision practices, and official records of rearrest, but do not include interviews with victims or offenders. This data collection has 20 data files containing 3,578 cases and 4,092 variables. The data files contain information related to each site's Batterer Intervention Programs (Parts 1, 8, and 15), court data (Parts 2, 12, 13, 14, 16, and 18), law enforcement (Parts 3, 11, and 17), and victim data (Parts 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 19). The Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Washtenaw County, Michigan, Impact Evaluation Data (Part 7) include baseline and follow-up information for the offender and the victim. The data file also contains Probation Supervision Performance Reports, Victim Services Logs, and Case Incident Fact Sheet information. The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Impact Evaluation Data (Part 20) include information related to the offender and the victim such as age, race, and sex, as well as arrest records including charges filed.

The Quincy, Massachusetts, District Court initiated an aggressive, pro-intervention strategy for dealing with domestic violence cases in 1986. This study was funded to examine the workings of this court and its impact on the lives of victims. The four main goals of the research were: (1) to describe the workings of the primary components of this model jurisdiction in its response to domestic violence, specifically (a) what the police actually did when called to a domestic violence incident, (b) decisions made by the prosecutor's office and the court in their handling of these incidents, (c) how many victims talked to a victim advocate, and (d) how many offenders received batterer treatment and/or were incarcerated, (2) to describe the types of incidents, victims, and offenders seen in a full enforcement jurisdiction to determine if the types of cases coming to attention in such a setting looked similar to cases reported in studies from other jurisdictions, (3) to interview victims to hear directly about their experiences with a model court, and (4) to examine how well this model jurisdiction worked in preventing revictimization. Data used in this study were based on domestic violence cases that resulted in an arrest and arraignment before the Quincy District Court (QDC) during a seven-month study period. Six types of data were collected for this study: (1) The offender's criminal history prior to the study and for one year subsequent to the study incident were provided by the QDC's Department of Probation from the Massachusetts Criminal Records System Board. (2) Civil restraining order data were provided by the Department of Probation from a statewide registry of civil restraining orders. (3) Data on prosecutorial charges for up to three domestic violence-related charges were provided by the Department of Probation. (4) Data on defendants who attended batterer treatment programs were provided by directors of two such programs that served the QDC. (5) Police incident reports from the seven departments served by the QDC were used to measure the officer's perspective and actions taken relating to each incident, what the call for service involved, characteristics of the incident, socio-demographics of the participants, their narrative descriptions of the incident, and their stated response. (6) Interviews with victims were conducted one year after the occurrence of the study incident. Variables from administrative records include date and location of incident, number of suspects, age and race of victims and offenders, use of weapons, injuries, witnesses, whether there was an existing restraining order and its characteristics, charges filed by police, number and gender of police officers responding to the incident, victim's state at the time of the incident, offender's criminal history, and whether the offender participated in batterer treatment. The victim survey collected data on the victim's education and employment status, current living arrangement, relationship with offender, how the victim responded to the incident, how afraid the victim was, victim's opinions of police and the prosecutor, victim's sense of control, satisfaction with the court, victim's past violent relationships and child sexual abuse, victim's opinions on what the criminal justice system could do to stop abuse, and whether the victim obtained a restraining order.

The focus of this research and evaluation endeavor was on direct service programs in Ohio, particularly advocacy services for female victims of violence, receiving funding through the Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors (STOP) formula grants under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994. The objectives of this project were (1) to describe and compare existing advocacy services in Ohio, (2) to compare victim advocacy typologies and identify key variables in the delivery of services, (3) to develop a better understanding of how victim advocacy services are defined and delivered, and (4) to assess the effectiveness of those services. For Part 1, Service Agencies Data, comprehensive information about 13 VAWA-funded programs providing direct services in urban Ohio was gathered through a mailback questionnaire and phone interviews. Detailed information was collected on organizational structure, clients served, and agency services. Focus groups were also used to collect data from clients (Parts 3-11) and staff (Parts 12-23) about their definitions of advocacy, types of services needed by victims, services provided to victims, and important outcomes for service providers. Part 2, Police Officer Data, focused on police officers' attitudes toward domestic violence and on evaluating service outcomes in one particular agency. The agency selected was a prosecutor's office that planned to improve services to victims by changing how the police and prosecutors responded to domestic violence cases. The prosecutor's office selected one police district as the site for implementing the new program, which included training police officers and placing a prosecutor in the district office to work directly with the police on domestic violence cases. The evaluation of this program was designed to assess the effectiveness of the police officers' training and officers' increased access to information from the prosecutor on the outcome of the case. Police officers from the selected district were administered surveys. Also surveyed were officers from another district that handled a similar number of domestic violence cases and had a comparable number of officers employed in the district. Variables in Part 1 include number of staff, budget, funding sources, number and type of victims served, target population, number of victims served speaking languages other than English, number of juveniles and adults served, number of victims with special needs served, collaboration with other organizations, benefits of VAWA funding, and direct and referral services provided by the agency. Variables in Part 2 cover police officers' views on whether it was a waste of time to prosecute domestic violence cases, if these cases were likely to result in a conviction, whether they felt sympathetic toward the victim or blamed the victim, how the prosecution should proceed with domestic violence cases, how the prosecution and police worked together on such cases, whether domestic violence was a private matter, and how they felt about the new program implemented under VAWA.

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the level of domestic violence prosecution throughout the United States and to promote effective prosecution approaches through dissemination of information. The project sought to identify and connect local attorneys' needs for information with the best knowledge available on the most effective prosecution methods. In order to appraise domestic violence prosecution in the United States, the researchers mailed a survey to a nationally-representative sample of prosecutors to assess prosecution strategies in domestic violence cases (Part 1, Prosecutors' Survey Data). Smaller jurisdictions had such a low response rate to the initial survey that a modified follow-up survey (Part 2, Prosecutors' Follow-Up Data) was administered to those jurisdictions. From these surveys, the researchers identified three sites with pioneering specialized domestic violence prosecution programs: Duluth, Minnesota, King County, Washington, and San Francisco, California. In these three sites, the researchers then conducted a case file analysis of a random sample of domestic violence cases (Part 3, Case File Data). A survey of a random sample of female victims was also undertaken in King County and San Francisco (Part 4, Victim Interview Data). In addition, the researchers conducted on-site evaluations of these three specialized programs in which they interviewed staff about the scope of the domestic violence problem, domestic violence support personnel, the impact of the program on the domestic violence problem, and recommendations for the future. The qualitative data collected from these evaluations are provided only in the codebook for this collection. Parts 1 and 2, the Prosecutors' Surveys, contain variables about case management, case screening and charging, pretrial release policies, post-charge diversion, trial, sentencing options, victim support programs, and office and jurisdiction demographics. Questions cover the volume of domestic violence prosecutions, formal protocols for domestic violence prosecution, ways to deal with uncooperative victims, pro-arrest and no-drop policies, protection orders, types of evidence used, and collaboration with other organizations to prosecute domestic violence cases. In addition, Part 1 includes variables on diversion programs, victim noncompliance, substance abuse problems, victim support programs, and plea negotiations. Variables in Part 3, Case File Data, deal with reporting, initial and final charges, injuries sustained, weapons used, evidence available, protection orders issued, victim cooperation, police testimony, disposition, sentence, costs, and restitution for each domestic violence case. Part 4, Victim Interview Data, includes variables concerning victims' employment history, number of children, and substance abuse, opinions about the charges against the defendant, decision-making in the case, and prosecution strategies, and victims' participation in the case, amount of support from and contact with criminal justice agencies, safety concerns, and performance evaluations of various levels of the criminal justice system.

This study evaluated advocacy services offered to battered women in Detroit, Michigan, and examined other aspects of coordinated community responses to domestic violence by focusing on women named as victims in police reports. Advocacy was defined as those services provided to support victims during the legal process or to enhance their safety. For the Preliminary Complaint Reports Data (Part 1), a random sample of preliminary complaint reports (PCRs), completed by police officers after they responded to domestic violence calls, were gathered, resulting in a sample of 1,057 incidents and victims. For Victim Advocacy Contact Data (Part 2), researchers obtained data from advocates' files about the services they provided to the 1,057 victims. For Case Disposition Data (Part 3), researchers conducted a computer search to determine the outcomes of the cases. They looked up each perpetrator from the list of 1,057 incidents, and determined whether there was a warrant for the focal incident, whether it turned into a prosecution, and the outcome. The Initial Victim Interview (Part 4) and Follow-Up Victim Interview Data (Part 5) were conducted from April 1998 to July 1999. During the same period that researchers were completing the second interviews, they also interviewed 23 women (Victim Comparison Group Interview Data, Part 6) from the list of 1,057 whom they had been unable to reach during the first interviews. They compared these 23 women to the 63 who had second interviews to determine if there were any differences in use of services, or views toward or participation in prosecution. Variables in Part 1 focus on whether alcohol and abuse were involved, previous incidents, the suspect's psychological aggressions and physical assaults, if a weapon was used, if the victim was hurt, if property was damaged, if the victim sought medical attention, and the severity of physical abuse or injury. Variables in Part 2 provide information on the role of the advocate, methods of contact, types of referrals made, and services provided. Variables in Part 3 include the type of charge, outcome of resolved case, why the case was dismissed, if applicable, and if the suspect was sentenced to probation, costs, confinement, no contact with the victim, a batterer program, or community service. The initial, follow-up, and comparison group interviews (Parts 4-6) all collected similar information. Variables about the incident include how well the respondent remembered the incident, if police arrived promptly, if the respondent was advised to file charges, if police told the respondent that a counselor was available, and if the respondent's partner had been in jail since the incident. Variables concerning advocacy include whether the victim contacted advocates, and if advocates provided legal help and referrals. Legal system variables include whether the respondent felt pressured by anyone to drop charges or pursue charges, if the respondent received help for preliminary examination or trial, and if contact with the legal system helped the respondent. Variables about services include whether the respondent received assistance in temporary shelter, food/money resources, child care, employment, education, a lawyer for divorce/custody, support or self-help group, or a substance abuse treatment program. Variables concerning what happened in the previous six months cover the number of times the respondent had called police because of danger, left home because of a violent incident, partner had been arrested because of violence, and partner physically abused respondent. Variables about events that occurred while the respondent and abuser were separated include how often the partner harassed the respondent on the phone, wrote threatening letters, violated legal restrictions, refused to leave the respondent's home, failed to pay child support, and threatened to take the children. Demographic variables include respondent's race or ethnic background, education, marital

The study set out to test the question of whether more efficacious outcomes would be gained the closer that a second response by police officers occurs to an actual domestic violence event. Researchers conducted a randomized experiment in which households that reported a domestic incident to the police were assigned to one of three experimental conditions: (a) second responders were dispatched to the crime scene within 24 hours, (b) second responders visited victims' homes one week after the call for service, or (c) no second response occurred. Beginning January 1, 2005, and continuing through December 3, 2005, incidents reported to the Redlands Police Department were reviewed each morning by a research assistant to determine whether the incidents involved intimate partners. Cases were determined to be eligible if the incident was coded as a misdemeanor or felony battery of a spouse or intimate partner. Eighty-two percent of the victims were females. For designated incidents, a team of officers, including a trained female domestic violence detective, visited households within either twenty-four hours or seven days of a domestic complaint. A written protocol guided the officer or officers making home visits. Officers also asked the victim a series of questions about her relationship with the abuser, history of abuse, and the presence of children and weapons in the home. In Part 1 (Home Visit Data), six months after the reporting date of the last incident in the study, Redlands Police crime analysis officers wrote a software program to search their database to determine if any new incidents had been reported. For Part 2 (New Incident Data), the search returned any cases associated with the same victim in the trigger incident. For any new incidents identified, information was collected on the date, charge, and identity of the perpetrator. Six months following the trigger incident, research staff attempted to interview victims about any new incidents of abuse that might have occurred. These interview attempts were made by telephone. In cases where the victim could not be reached by phone, an incentive letter was sent to the victim's home, offering a $50 stipend to call the research offices. Part 1 (Home Visit Data) contains 345 cases while Part 2 (New Incident Data) contains 344 cases. The discrepancy in the final number across the two parts is due to cases randomized into the sample that turned out to be ineligible or had been assigned previously from another incident. Part 1 (Home Visit Data) contains 63 variables including basic administrative variables such as date(s) of contact and group assignment. There are also variables related to the victim and the perpetrator such as their relationship, whether the perpetrator was arrested during the incident, and whether the perpetrator was present during the interview. Victims were also asked a series of questions as to whether the perpetrator did such things as hit, push, or threatened the victim. Part 2 (New Incident Data) contains 68 variables including dates and charges of previous incidents as well as basic administrative and demographic variables.

This study involved the evaluation of the Second Responders Program in Richmond, Virginia as well as a process evaluation of the researcher/practitioner partnership formed between the Police Foundation, the Richmond Police Department, and the Richmond Department of Social Services. Findings were based on two waves of victim interviews with women who received Second Responder intervention and women who received only police intervention. Field researchers contacted eligible subjects and attempted to interview them within 1 week of the domestic violence incident to which police were called. The second interview took place 6 months later. Interviews took place between April, 1999 and December, 2000. The Part 1 (Wave 1 Data) file contains 158 cases and 318 variables. The Part 2 (Wave 2 Data) file contains 120 cases and 691 variables.

This study sought to examine (1) the occurrence of revictimization, (2) the impact of case processing in Quincy District Court (QDC) on the disclosure of revictimization, and (3) victim satisfaction with various components of the criminal justice system. This study was undertaken as part of a secondary analysis of data originally collected for a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) sponsored evaluation of a "model" domestic violence program located in Quincy, Massachusetts (RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN THE QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS, DISTRICT COURT, 1995-1997 [ICPSR 3076]). Administrative records data were collected from the Quincy District Court's Department of Probation, two batterer treatment programs servicing offenders, and police incident reports, as well as survey data administered to victims. Included are criminal history data, records of civil restraining orders, probation department data on prosecutorial charges, case disposition and risk assessment information, data on offender treatment program participation, police incident reports, and self-report victim survey data. These data were collected with three primary goals: (1) to obtain the victim's point of view about what she wanted from the criminal justice system, and how the criminal justice system responded to the domestic violence incident in which she was involved, (2) to get details about the study incidents and the context of the victim-offender relationship that are not typically available in official statistics, and (3) to hear directly from victims about the defendant's reoffending behavior.

The purpose of this evaluation was to assess whether the STOP (Services/Training/Officers/Prosecution) Violence Against Women Formula Grants Program's financial support for direct victim services offered through private nonprofit victim service agencies helped victims of domestic violence and sexual assault improve their safety and well-being, and work successfully with the legal system and other relevant agencies. Researchers selected eight states whose state STOP agency had different levels of emphasis on creating collaborative structures in local service networks to help victims. Researchers collected information, as of November 15, 1999, about 201 nonprofit victim service agencies receiving STOP funding to deliver direct services, their services, and their community linkages. A Program Survey, Part 1 (Victim Impact Program Survey -- Fax to Subgrantees Data) and Part 2 (Victim Impact Program Survey -- Telephone Interview with Subgrantees Data) completed in spring 2000 used telephone interviews with the person most knowledgeable about STOP-funded activities to obtain this information. The sample included 201 nonprofit victim service agencies that were nationally representative of all private nonprofit victim service agencies receiving STOP funds for direct services. Among the purposes of the Program Survey data was selecting the communities in the eight focal states to include in the final stage of the study design -- the Help Seeker and the Community sample (Parts 3 and 4, respectively). The Help Seeker (Part 3) sample consisted of 958 women recruited from nonprofit victim service and legal system agencies who had contacted those agencies for assistance related to experiences of domestic violence and/or sexual assault. They were interviewed between June and October 2001. The Community sample (Part 4) was a random sample of 673 women in their communities who were 18 to 35 years of age. The sample was selected using random digit dialing (RDD), screening for women aged 18 to 35 in the victim service program catchment area from which researchers drew the Help Seeker sample. The women in the Community sample were interviewed between November 2001 and February 2002. The women's data were then linked to Program Survey data from their own community. Across the 4 data files there are 2,947 variables. Part 1 (Victim Impact Program Survey -- Fax to Subgrantees Data) contains information related to the role of the agency which received STOP funding, the characteristics of employees and volunteers of the agency, and the characteristics of victims the agency served. The data also include how many victims of domestic violence the agency assisted with obtaining protective/restraining orders and the number of victims helped through criminal justice advocacy activities. The agency approximated how many referrals they received from other sources and how many referrals they made to other agencies/organizations. There were also questions related to the STOP grant(s) received by the agencies and the agencies were asked about their data collection and evaluation efforts and in what form this information was maintained. Part 2 (Victim Impact Program Survey -- Telephone Interview with Subgrantees Data) contains background information regarding the agency and the respondent answering questions on behalf of the agency. Respondents were also asked whether their agency conducted needs assessments to identify community needs with respect to violence against women, to identify service solutions to meet those needs, and to summarize their STOP project goals and activities. The data file also includes questions about referrals and how their agency's STOP project related to other activities of the agency. Additionally, the respondent answered questions related to the coordination and communication between their agency, law enforcement, prosecution, and victim service agencies. There were also general community questions, and the respondent provided outreach