Author Note: When I began researching this topic, it was to be a broad and national review paper. However, to show the different views of what researchers thought were important in the successes of this program, I came across my own state's Batterer Intervention Program (BIP). The more I learned, the angrier I became. Although the state of Kansas really sticks out in this particular profit over protection, BIP -- the nation it's self uses funding for all sorts of so called BS.
The bottom line is simple. What all the organizations, all the same ole same, all the (fill in the blank) are doing, and the new - take their place fatherhood initiatives, and their by-organizations, are doing, is NOT working. It is time to stop profiting and start protecting. Until that time, if ever it comes, domestic violence will never end. As you can tell, it is only getting worst. No longer are their just "punches" and "slaps". We simply have "dead' and more dead. Women and her children, being murdered daily.
When will we finally say, "enough is enough?" Until that time, like that program below, profit over protection is all that victims can expect.
(hat tip to joel - for the term "Profit Over Protection")
-Claudine
Are Batterer Intervention Programs Reducing Domestic
Violence?
Courts often mandate that ‘convicted’ abusive partners
attend “batterer intervention programs” in
addition to serving a probation term. Throughout the past twenty years,
alternatives to battering programs and batter intervention programs receive
funding through local, state and federal agencies. The very name of these
programs implies that they reduce domestic violence.
It is the consensus
across the board with experts and scholars in the field of Intimate Partner
Violence, that these programs, by varying names, since their inception more
than twenty years ago, are not treatment modalities, they do not cure, and that battering is not a mental illness.
However, due to the lack of prosecutions and the lack of consequences to the
batterer or perpetrator, the increase in the use of ‘batterer intervention
programs” have been implemented by almost every State in an attempt to further
follow up with the perpetrator as part of his probation requirements in a
domestic violence conviction.
However, the
National consensus and final conclusions, from the large body of objective
data, research and studies, as per the National Institute of Justice, The
Department of Justice, The Office of Crime Victims and other Leading
organizations is that; “Batterer Intervention
Programs Do Not Change Offender Behavior.” The recent National Institute of
Justice report isa compilation of data and research over the past decade and as
a result, the report spurred a joint committee sponsored by National Institute
of Justice (NIJ) and the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) to have an
“Expert’s Round Table” meeting in December 2009. The resulting meeting
published in 2010 “Doing the Work and Measuring the Progress: Batterer
Intervention Meeting Report,” in which includes, executive order and further
recommendations.
One of the major
recurring themes in the research is that there exists a gap between “what
researchers emphasize when they evaluate batterer intervention programs” and
“what practitioners consider reflective of their program goals and
accomplishments.”
For example:
Oddly, or not,
during this research paper, there currently does not exist an audit report in
the State of Kansas on the Batterer Intervention Programs. In fact my research
shows that the Kansas States “Batterer Intervention Program” – adopted by the
Kansas Attorney General’s Office, as the ‘model’ for Domestic Violence
and Batterer Intervention (KS Attorney
General, Victims’ Rights)’ is one in the same as the “Kansas Family Peace
Initiatives” (FPI) founded entirely by one person with his private business
attached to it. The FPI claims an astonishing “81% success rate” in
their Batterer Intervention Program and they simply state: “our success rate has been verified by private sources retained by
FPI.”
Therefore, we are to take the ‘word’ of the Family Peace Initiative’s
own agenda, and platform. An individual, not a group, but a business, in that “they” claim is so successful, although
no objective data or empirical research can be found to verify this, even
though it would be the only Batterer
Intervention Program in the Nation, to claim an “81 percent success rate,” when the rest of the Nation shows none.
This gives rise to a whole other set of ethical issues and questions. In that, from the Family Peace Initiative
website, (www.FamilyPeaceInitiative.com) “they” now offer --“paid for” expert testimony, “paid for“ expert training, to which the
“husband and wife” team are currently
booking ‘training's’ throughout Kansas
and Texas at $300.00 per person with a thirty person cap per class. This, is in addition to the money earned not
only from Federal and State grants, funding for the program its self,but also
from the public and the clients/perpetrators who are court ordered to attend.
However, since
the Judiciary and Criminal Justice system have failed and continues to fail
victims of domestic violence, the Batterers Intervention Program is all that
‘victims’ receive in the way of any type of validation and nothing remotely
close to justice. It is also another way to keep ‘eyes on’ the batterer, in
alleged protections of the victim, for those very failures. Imagine what should
be a prosecution and incarceration of a severe person crime, that now has moved
to “treating the batterers” and not the victim.
In conclusion,
with the overwhelming research readily available nationally, it is more than
clear that Batterer Intervention Programs have had ‘minimal at best’ to
‘absolutely no effect’ at all, on reducing violence against women. It is clear
from reviewing other perpetrator/victim crimes that prosecution alone is the
single strongest deterrent in reducing violence against women. So this begs the
question, “Why are we funding yet another wasted program where we “think” we
should “treat” a perpetrator versus “prosecute”? And, further harms incurred by
sending out a false sense of security from the Judges, to the public, and the
victims - by what is essentially, further silencing victims of domestic
violence by “treating” the criminal as if it were a disease.
Batter Intervention
Programs do not decrease domestic violence. Yet there
continues to be an increase in the use of ‘batterer intervention programs”. I
believe this program needs to be tabled and other sources sought out and
implemented to decrease domestic violence.
Further reading:
Works Cited
Babcock, J.C., C.E. Green, and C. Robie.“Does
Batterers' Treatment Work? A Meta-Analytic
Review of Domestic Violence Treatment.”Clinical Psychology Review 23 (2004): 1023-1053.
Edleson, Jeffery, L,.“GROUPWORK WITH MEN WHO BATTER: WHAT THE
RESEARCH LITERATURE INDICATES”, National
Resource Center on Violence Against Women, February 2012.
Feder, L., and D.B. Wilson. “A Meta-Analytic Review of
Court-Mandated Batterer Intervention Programs: Can Courts Affect Abusers'
Behavior?” Journal of Experimental
Criminology 1 (2005): 239–262.
Gondolf, Edward, W,. “IMPLEMENTING MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT FOR
BATTERER PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS: IINTERAGENCY BREAKDOWNS AND UNDERLYING ISSUES”, Violence Against Women (volume 15 [6],
pages 638-655), Sage Pub June 2009.
Gondolf, Edward, W,. “THE FUTURE OF BATTERER PROGRAMS ~
REASSESSING EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE” National
Coalition Domestic Violence Sexual Assault, April 2012
Hench, David,. “IS ANGER MANAGEMENT A REMEDY FOR BATTERERS? A
FEDERAL BAN ON USING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE GRANTS TO FUND THE PROGRAMS RAISES SOME
QUESTIONS” Portland Press Herald, October 10, 2004. Web.
J, S., L. Feder, D.R. Forde, R.C. Davis, C.D. Maxwell, and B.G.
Taylor. “Batterer Research Report”, U.S.
Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, June 2003, NCJ
195079.
Johnson, Carolyn, Y., “MOST MEN RE-OFFEND, SAYS STUDY OF
BATTERING – LONGEST LOOK TO DATE PAINTS A DARKER PICTURE” The New York Times, Web. November 9, 2006
National Institute of Justice. “Batterer Intervention Programs
Often Do Not Change Offender Behavior” Interventions:
Batterer Programs, Web. Research Report 2009
Pamela C. Alexander,. “Stages of Change and the Group Treatment
of Batterers” Final Report to National
Institute of Justice, March 31, 2007
Perotta, Tom, MANY IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE COMMUNITY QUESTION
BATTERER INTERVENTION PROGRAMS, New York
Law Journal Online, February 23, 2006.
Travis, Alan, “OFFENDERS’ ANGER CONTROL CLASSES HELP MAKE SOME
MORE DANGEROUS; COURSES AXED AS RESULT OF MONCKTON MURDER INQUIRY ~ KILLER'S
TRAINING HELPED HIM WIN RELEASE”, The
Guardian, Web. Manchester, UK: April 24, 2006.
Zorza, Joan. “VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN – VICTIMS AND ABUSERS –
LEGAL ISSUES – INTERVENTIONS AND TREATMENT”, Civic Research Institute, Inc.,
2006
