Date of Conferral

2019

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Stephen Hampe

Abstract

Batterer intervention programs (BIPs) were developed to address high recidivism rates and low treatment completion rates in domestic violence offenders. Segregation between these offenders and their victims has been traditional in BIPs, but there has been no research exploring if this separation is related to treatment outcome. This research explored the relation between offender contact with their children or victims and outcomes including recidivism and treatment completion. Most domestic violence interventions are psychoeducational in nature and are based on the cognitive behavioral theory premise that if an individual'€™s thinking process can be changed, a change in actions can result. This was a quasi-experimental study using archived data including 213 individuals who participated in a BIP in Oregon between 2010 and 2012. Nonparametric analyses were used to investigate the relations between categorical variables. There were no significant associations between victim-partner contact and/or child contact and treatment outcomes. There was also no statistically significant association between victim-partner and/or child contact and the treatment outcomes of general recidivism, person-on-person recidivism, or treatment completion. The null hypothesis was retained for all of the research questions, as there was no apparent relation between victim family contact and any of the dependent variables. The findings may be used to guide social change in that they may help inspire future research on the topic and may also be used to help BIPs re-examine policies of segregating domestic violence perpetrators from their victim families.

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