t crime; drug abuse; long-term unemployment; and parenthood at a young age.
Several other risk factors emerge from research:
Recently, there is much discussion among police about the link between pet abuse and domestic violence. Although some overlap is likely, particularly under the theory that many batterers are generally violent, not enough is known because of the types of studies undertaken. Some small surveys of domestic violence shelter residents suggest that some women might have left their abuser sooner but they worried about their pet’s safety.
Finally, although alcohol and drug use do not cause intimate partner battering, the risk of victim injury increases if a batterer is using alcohol or drugs.
Notwithstanding its decline over the last decade, domestic violence stubbornly remains a frequent call for police, and efforts to further reduce it require general and specific information about the nature of the problem. You must combine the basic facts with a more specific understanding of your local problem. Analyzing the local problem carefully will help you design a more effective response strategy.
In addition to criminal justice agencies, the following groups have an interest in the domestic violence problem and ought to be considered for the contribution they might make to gathering information about the problem and responding to it:
The following are some critical questions you should ask in analyzing your community’s domestic violence problem, even if the answers are not always readily available. Your answers to these and other questions will help you choose the most appropriate set of responses later on.
Aggregate data is an important source for analyzing your domestic violence problem, but it is useful only if domestic violence incidents are properly investigated and documented. It is important for investigating officers to understand the context and history of domestic assaults to determine if the incident is part of a series of abuse the victim has sustained and if it’s likely to recur or escalate to more serious violence. For instance, in assessing individual incidents it is important to find out how long the abuse has been occurring, the frequency of the abuse, if the abuse is escalating, specific threats (even threats of suicide), whether threats can be carried out or there is an indication that they will be carried out, and whether victimization also involves other criminal behavior (i.e., harassing phone calls, vandalism, theft, burglary). You should analyze a variety of data sources such as calls for police service relating to domestic disputes, offense/incident reports of domestic violence, and databases from domestic abuse social service agencies.
† Initial call takers may not have sufficient information to accurately determine whether or not domestic violence occurred. Consequently, call for service data will likely not be adequate to distinguish violent from non-violent domestic disputes. Police may need to refine call disposition codes to distinguish between different types of domestic disputes.
† When assessing repeat victimization levels it is recommended that police use a rolling 12-month period (nothing less), which means looking for victimizations of the same person for the preceding 12 months, as opposed to simply looking for victimizations of the same person by calendar year (Bridgeman and Hobbs, 1997). Also, be alert to name changes among victims that might conceal a repeat victimization pattern. For further guidance, see Problem-Solving Tools Guide No. 4, Analyzing Repeat Victimization.
† You should review one year’s worth of domestic violence cases from two years prior. For instance, if the current calendar year is 2006, review the results of domestic assault cases from the calendar year 2004. The two-year gap allows agencies to follow offenders from arrest to sentencing and even the participation in and completion of treatment.
Measurement allows you to determine to what degree your efforts have succeeded, and suggests how you might modify your responses if they are not producing th