ent, Inc.).
(that is, some reduction in the number of battering incidents for those attending a 26-week treatment program rather than the same program condensed into an eight-week schedule). In neither case were batterers’ attitudes toward domestic abuse changed. Even these evaluation results are not fully reliable because both studies experienced data collection challenges as a result of a high drop-out rate by offenders, difficulty finding relocated victims for follow-up interviews, and inadequate offender attitude assessment tools. In addition, judges sometimes overrode random assignment of batterers, thereby tainting the makeup of the different groups studied. Evaluations of other types of treatment programs, including cognitive-behavior therapy (another widely used approach), have also suffered from similar methodological flaws.
Several experts suggest that greater refinement in assigning batterers to appropriate programs could improve results. The most chronic batterers should receive the most intensive treatment. A “one-size fits-all” approach to batterer intervention cannot accommodate the diverse population of batterers entering the criminal justice system.” The different types of batterers—family-only, one who is generally violent even to others, dysphoric (mood-disordered)/borderline—may require tailored treatment.
Experts recommend that treatment programs be designed around explicit theories. In other words, each intervention proposed should have a specific underlying theory. Outcomes expected from each of the interventions should be clearly defined and then evaluated for short-and long-term impact. Designing treatment programs that fit this model requires close collaboration between service providers and researchers.  In addition, the timing of treatment may be an important element to success.
“Counseling ideally would begin almost immediately after a violent episode, when the offender feels most remorseful, most frightened of the criminal justice system, and most receptive to demands for change.”
† For a good discussion of “dual arrest” research and the complexities within the primary aggressor issue, see Buzawa and Buzawa (2003).
The table below summarizes the responses to Domestic Violence, the mechanism by which they are intended to work, the conditions under which they ought to work best, and some factors you should consider before implementing a particular response. It is critical that you tailor responses to local circumstances, and that you can justify each response based on reliable analysis. In most cases, an effective strategy will involve implementing several different responses. Law enforcement responses alone are seldom effective in reducing or solving the problem.
|General Considerations for an Effective Response Strategy|
|#||Response||How It Works||Works Best If…||Considerations|
|1||Implementing a comprehensive and collabo rative response strategy||Addresses both victimization and offending; identifies gaps in strategies, resources, and response protocols||… the collaborative does an appraisal ofthe community’s response to domestic violence to identify what is and isn’t working and gaps||Group should be educated about what works in reducing domestic violence victimization and revictimization and the limitations of some approaches; group commits to ongoing evaluation of efforts; collaboration with a university researcher may be useful; will probably require a champion who pursues a collaborative response strategy|
|2||Educating collaborative partners||Increases likelihood of adoption ofproven effective responses||…collaborative partners commit to relying on facts and research, rather than anecdotes||Requires high level of coordination|
|3||Tailoring the police response on the basis of offender and victim risk||Applies the most appropriate type and level of response to the particular victim and offender||…offender is told about the measures police put in place; graded responses are applied quickly because the highest risk period for further assault is within the first four weeks of the last a