Police–Advocacy Partnerships in Response to Domestic Violence

Abstract

Police–social service second responder programs like the Domestic Violence Home Visit Intervention (DVHVI; Berkman, Stover, & Marans, 2006) have been developed in multiple cities around the country in an attempt to reduce recidivism following an initial report of intimate partner violence to police. Although data do not support impact of these programs on repeat violence, they do serve important functions. Surveys with victims in this study of the DVHVI reveal that victims feel safer and have increased comfort with police and result in more accurate reporting of repeat violence to police when incidents do occur. Victims feel the police and other service providers in the community are concerned about their well-being and are available to assist them. This kind of coordinated second responder outreach is particularly helpful for Hispanic, Spanish-speaking victims when they are served by Spanish-speaking second responder teams. How to build on these findings and enhance second responder programs is an important area of future work.

KEYWORDS:

• Police
• domestic violence
• advocacy
• recidivism

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Funding was provided for this research by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration as part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and the Ethel F. Donaghue Women's Health Research at Yale. The author would like to thank Dr. Steven Marans for his leadership in the development of the DVHVI. Dina Filguera-Gómez, Paula Schaeffer, Billie Ann Starks, and Sarah Beckwith for their work making this study possible.