Michigan communities have or are in the process of developing domestic violence coordinated community response efforts. The resulting changes in domestic violence arrest laws and prosecution of offenses have increased the number of court mandated referrals to batterer intervention programs. There has not been, however, a general consensus about whether these programs work nor a sense that the levels of domestic violence are declining. One explanation is that the increase in referrals has led to more programs offering court mandated services, which has increased competition between programs and led to declining standards in quality of services. One response has been to establish minimum standards for batterer intervention programs. However, this explanation makes the popular presupposition that levels of domestic violence at the community level are directly affected by batterer intervention program effectiveness. This paper responds by presenting a system dynamics model and simulation of the problem where the number of court mandated referrals to batterer intervention programs increases while the level of domestic violence remains constant. The results indicate that (1) batterer intervention program effectiveness has a minimal impact on the levels of domestic violence at the community level and (2) a better explanation is the priority on arresting and prosecuting less violent offenders.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
Keywords: Simulation, Domestic Violence
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Michigan Department of Community Health
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.