ssault||Accurate victimization and offending information is needed to select the most appropriate level of response|
|Specific Responses to Domestic Violence|
|#||Response||How It Works||Works Best If…||Considerations|
|4||Educating potential victims and offenders||Encourages victim reporting, de-motivates potential offenders, or raises the consciousness of potential witnesses to abuse||…efforts are highly targeted and focused on a geographic area or certain high-risk groups||If evaluation mechanisms are not put in place, the campaign, which can be costly, will remain of unknown value|
|5||Encouraging victims and witnesses to call the police||Deters potential and actual offenders||…at-risk populations and their peers and neighbors believe that calling the police will be effective||Hard core batterers are not likely to be deterred just by calling, so more must be done|
|6||Encouraging other professionals to screen for domestic violence victimization and make appropriate referrals||Increases likelihood of effective intervention in abusive relationships||…doctors have adequate training||Requires active participation of community’s medical profession|
|7||Providing victims with emergency protection and services after an assault||Provides safe place for victims; improves information sharing between police and victim service providers; informs police about high-risk victims and offenders; links victims with other essential services||…there is a belief that each service provider, including the police, has a common interest in ensuring victim safety and de-motivating the offender||May require extensive discussions by parties to define roles, responsibilities, and limits of partnership; collaboration requires agreement about confidentiality issues|
|8||Assessing the threat of repeat victimization||Determines need for immediate protection ofvictim and apprehension ofoffender||…officers/collaborators trained to assess revictimization threats||Requires training and timely and accurate intelligence information|
|9||Arresting offenders||Incapacitates offender during high-risk periods and deters potential and actual offenders||…a graded response to battering is adopted depending on the likelihood of rebattering; used with situational crime prevention opportunity blocking framework||Under some conditions arrest may increase risk of revictimization; some offenders undeterred by arrest|
|10||Issuing and enforcing restraining orders||Removes excuses for offender and victim to come into contact with one another||…police recognize that defiance of a restraining order may be an indicator of future risk to the victim||Police see violation of a restraining order as the need for a victim safety plan, and the adoption of a graded response to both victim and offender depending on the circumstances|
|11||Aggressively pursuing criminal prosecution ofsevere domestic violence cases and publicizing convictions||Incapacitates offender and deters potential and actual offenders||…police and prosecutors can agree beforehand what constitutes chronic and severe offenders; used as part of pulling levers/focused deterrence approach or other graded responses to batterers||Requires proper evidence collection; should also include coordination and prosecutor participation around victim safety|
|12||Establishing special domestic violence courts||Enhances judges’ knowledge ofparticular victims and offenders and ability to monitor compliance with court orders||…courts participate in an evaluation to improve knowledge about recidivism reduction; courts can discern between batterers who can be deterred and those who can’t||May require extra court resources|
|13||Providing treatment for batterers||Reduces batterers’ propensity for violence||…treatment is court-ordered; treatment has proven effectiveness and is tailored to a specific type ofbatterer||Requires up-todate knowledge ofeffectiveness of different treatment approaches|
|Responses With Limited Effectiveness|
|#||Response||How It Works||Works Best If…||Considerations|
|14||Arresting both parties in a domestic vio