Denise Paquette Boots
Associate Professor of Criminology, University of Texas at Dallas
Key Findings
- Batterer intervention and prevention programs (BIPPs) were shown to be more effective than jail or regular dismissal in reducing the likelihood of future arrests.
- BIPPs were not shown to reduce the likelihood of plea deferred adjudications or conditional dismissals.
- Going to jail for an intimate partner violence (IPV) offense increased the odds of future arrests by 243%.
- Having an IPV case regularly dismissed increased the odds of a future arrest by 95%.
- The results were in favor of the some treatment in intimate partner violence situations rather than jail time alone.
Description
In the study, “Comparison of the Batterer Intervention and Prevention Program with Alternative Court Dispositions On a 12-month Recidivism,” Boots and her co-authors examined the effect batterer intervention and prevention programs (BIPPs) had on an reoffending intimate partner cases in family misdemeanor court. To conduct the study, researchers collected information from Dallas County Court 10 over 1 year and analyzed data from a 20-week long, court approved BIPP treatment. The study used 2,815 original IPV cases with 423 of the cases being repeat offenses and only included once for the data set. The researchers also used criminal history and charges of domestic violence as measures for this study. The results showed that BIPPs did have an impact in reducing the likelihood of future arrests when compared to jail time or regular dismissal. The BIPPs did not however reduce the likelihood of plea deferred adjudications or conditional dismissals. The researchers also found that going to jail for intimate partner violence increased the odds of a future charge by 243%. Additionally, having an IPV case regularly dismissed increased the chance of a future offence by 95%. Overall, the results showed that some type of treatment in IPV cases were more effective than jail time alone.