Cost-Benefit Analysis - Domestic Violence pg 1

 I like to research thoroughly before responding to a tender, and a requirement came up that really challenged me. The client wants to know if their response to domestic violence represents value for money.  It's still early days for the service, but how it develops from here depends on the findings of the cost-effectiveness study, so we owe a really important duty of care for such a critical service.
For example: Which interventions work in reducing or preventing domestic violence? Is it enough to give women a place of safety, or does this just

leave the predatory man to go and find another victim? Will it work to lock the man up, or does that just pass the problem down the line? What about the debate raging in USA whether men really do commit more domestic violence than women, or the other way around?
The research took me in two directions:
·         What is domestic violence, and how prevalent is it?
·         What will cause people to change their behaviour?
I’ll look at the second in another posting,

What is Domestic Violence?
There are various definitions, and international agreement either on the words used or their definition is a long way off.
USA
In USA, Domestic Violence (DV) has been documented and studied for around 50 years[1], and USA has been running National Family Violence surveys since 1975[2] sparked a long-running debate about the gender differences in DV. This is important because any form of violence or psychological abuse can have direct victims and indirect victims (observers, unwilling accessories, for example children of the relationship and/or associated with either partner). The direct victims may seek healthcare, protection and social care. The indirect victims may also seek public support services and may progress to become abusers (or campaigners against abuse) themselves.
UK
BCS-IPV survey 2001 (the confidential supplement) indicates around 517,000 women suffer from some form of domestic violence (by the UK definition) every year. The BCS surveys people aged 16-59, and within this group there are 15.8million women, giving an estimate of 3.3% of women (1 in 30) affected within the last 12 months
1              intimate terrorism: what we would conventionally understand as ‘wife battering’ , the systematic coercive control of a partner by a variety of techniques usually in concert. Physical violence directed at the victim was probably a rare outcome in this type of DV but would be an ever-present threat and may be reinforced by acts of violence on the fabric of the house, furniture and pets/ children. This type of DV is probably the most damaging because its psychological impact would result in long-term repercussions. This is (according to Johnson) predominantly male on female in heterosexual relationships by a ratio of 9:1 (information on homosexual relationships has not been sought/ probably isn’t available)
2              violent resistance: in some cases (and not all) the battered wife (the vast bulk of Intimate Terrorism is man on woman) fights back, often planning for an opportunity when their assailant is less likely to fight back (eg when they are asleep) although sometimes they will try to fight back against a much stronger assailant anyway.
3              Situational couple violence: Johnson describes this as something completely different – when an argument gets out of control and one or both partners resort to physical action to make their point. He distinguishes it from the above because the violence is not part of a pattern of coercion techniques, even if the violence is frequent. Many of the examples of “husband battering” that are portrayed fall into this category
4              Mutual violent control: where both parties are using coercion to try to control the other. Johnson says it is rare and little understood. I couldn’t disagree.
Man on Woman or Both Sexes to Blame?
This could explain the feminist movement’s assertion that DV is man on woman, and the national survey’s results showing a more even distribution of violence.
The feminist movement studies on DV use information from women in shelter, in emergency rooms or seeking protection from their partner. Some will be escaping a strong and violent partner where the arguments get out of hand, but many will be terrorised and subject to a whole battery of coercion techniques. The bias in the sampling is acknowledged.
The national survey asks for self-reported outcomes. Johnson asserts that both perpetrators and victims of intimate terrorism will refuse to answer the survey, so the survey will only record situational couple violence.
It should be added that these types of violence are different (the one – losing control; the other – enforcing more control) and are likely to need different responses, for example violence from losing control is likely to be responsive to the price of alcohol·         Non-sexual violence including mild (slaps, holding down, punches, kicks), severe (choking or strangling, using a weapon), homicide, abuse, shouting and threats of violence
·         Non-penetrative sexual abuse
·         Penetrative sexual abuse (rape under the 2003 revised definition) including failed rape
Clearly whether they involve an intimate partner and/or are domestic depends on the circumstances, but it’s valuable to note that whilst non-sexual violence and sexual abuse are predominantly outside the home, by strangers, and are likely to be reported to police, rape is overwhelmingly (85%) by a person known to the abuser (54% intimate partner or ex intimate partner) and is likely to be under-reported by an estimated 7 times·         Dependent intimate terrorists
·         Antisocial intimate terrorists
Dependents can be characterised because their motivation is not to lose the partner and family. Their method is to control, and threats and violence form a part of that control, but they may recognise that they have a problem and seek help, for example from one of the perpetrator programmes (there are only two at time of writing, on opposite sides of the world, so select the nearest one

[1] First citation in Johnson’s 2008 “Typography” is to Snell et al 1964 “The Wifebeater’s Wife”(see  [2] “the Battered Husband” by Suzanne Steinmetz)