Do no contact/protection orders help reduce recidivism among batterers - Research Paper Example

?Introduction Protective orders are an effective instrument to use in cases of domestic violence. The protective orders, in a nutshell, that the partners are not to have contact with one another. However, whether or not these protective orders actually are effective, in that they reduce recidivism, is a matter for debate. Some studies show that these protective orders are effective in reducing re-offending. For instance, Goldfarb (2008) cites study after study which show that violence is reduced after these orders are in place. That said, other studies show whether or not the offender recidivate depends upon the characteristics of the victim and the offender. Offenders who are of lower socioeconomic status, or are unemployed, uneducated and have prior criminal records are more likely to reoffend than offenders who do not have these characteristics. Women who are married or have children with the abuser are more likely to be re-abused than women who do not have children or who are not married to the abuser. At least one study shows that protective orders increase the likelihood of homicide for white individuals. This paper will focus on recidivation rates for individuals who are under protection orders, and the results are mixed. Discussion Goldfarb (2008) states the civil protection orders are the most common remedy for domestic violence. She states that, in most jurisdictions, protection orders operate as “stay away” orders, which means that the abuser and the abused are to have no contact with one another. That said, Goldfarb (2008) argues that, often, this kind of protective order is an affront to the autonomy of the abused, because the abused may wish to maintain the relationship, yet they also, naturally, want the violence to end. She states that, for these types of situations, there are modified protective orders which permit the parties to see one another at the discretion of the abused. Goldfarb (2008) argues that these are actually beneficial in many cases because women might seek any type of protective order if the order states that she cannot have any contact with her abuser. Goldfarb (2008) provides evidence that recidivism is reduced by no-contact orders. For instance, she states that, according to studies done by the state of Wisconsin and by the National Center for State Courts, no contact orders made 84% victims of domestic violence feel safer and the women who pursued these no-contact orders six months prior reported that their lives had gotten better since getting this order. Results were similar in Colorado, where 85% of victims stated that getting the no contact order had made them safer. Further, Goldfarb (2008) cites studies done by four states in which 72% victims of domestic violence stated that no-contact orders were either “somewhat effective” or “very effective” in preventing future abuse and violence. Goldfarb (2008) also reports that, according to a Seattle study, domestic violence decreased 70% among victims who got a protective order, verses victims who did not get a protective order. This echoed in Texas, according to Goldfarb (2008), where victims of domestic violence reported that those who got protection orders suffered less violence than those who did not. Meanwhile, another study done by The National Center for State Courts found that, after three months, 72% of victims who got a no-contact order reported “no problems” with their abuser, and this number was 65% after six months (Goldfarb, 2008). That said, Goldfarb (2008) also indicated that no-contact orders were not foolproof in ending abuse. She states that women who were reluctant to cease contact were more likely to be abused by their partner if that woman has a no-contact order. Goldfarb (2008) further states that the characteristics of the abuser and the abuse play a role in how well the no-contact order works. Abusers who have criminal records are more likely to violate the no-contact order than abusers without criminal records. Moreover, Goldfarb (2008) found that socioeconomics also play a role in recidivism in batterers who are arrested. Men who are employed and married are less likely to recidivate after being arrested for domestic violence than are men who are unemployed, poor, unmarried and lived in high-crime rate neighborhoods. Similarly, Goldfarb (2008) states that protective orders are unlikely to deter unemployed, poor, unmarried men from recidivating. Goldfarb (2008) also found that the level and severity of the abuse is highly predictive of who would violate the protective order, as was the level of resistance of the abuser at the protection order hearing. Goldfarb (2008) surmised that the risk factors are criminal history, low socioeconomic status, the level and severity of abuse, and the behavior of the abuser at the protection order hearing, therefore, if the offender has the risk factors there needs to be some type of heightened scrutiny after the protection order is awarded. Carlson et al. (1999) found very similar findings as Goldfarb (2008). They found that socioeconomic status was a predictor for recidivism among abusers who are under a protective order. The reasons, according to Carlson et al. (1999) for this is because women who are of lower socioeconomic status often rely upon their partner for financial support, which means that these women are more likely to return to the abusive relationship even if she does have a no-contact order in place. Second Carlson et al. (1999) state that economic pressure causes men of low socioeconomic status to use violence in the home. A third reason why low socioeconomic status predicts recidivism among men under a protective order is that men from a lower socioeconomic status are less deterred by legal sanctions than are men from a higher socioeconomic status. Carlson et al. (1999) studied court records gathered from Travis County Texas, and police records gathered from the city of Austin in Texas to determine the rate of recidivism among men who are under a no contact order from their partners. They found that, prior to no contact orders being put into place, 68% of women in the study had suffered abuse. However, after the no-contact order was put into place, only 23% of women in the study had suffered re-abuse. That said, although women across the board experienced significantly less abuse after getting the no contact orders than before they got these orders, there were risk factors cited by Carlson et al. (1999) for which offenders were more likely to abuse. They found that the lower the socioeconomic status, the more likely that the offender re-abused. They also found that the length of the relationship was a predictor, in that individuals in longer relationships reported less abuse after a no-contact order than those in shorter relationships. They also found that black women were at more risk for re-abuse than were white or Hispanic women. They also state that women with children were more likely to report re-abuse than women without children. They state that the reason for this is because women with children are more likely to have contact with their abusers. Moreover, custody and visitation issues are stressful and this might precipitate the abuse. Another reason is that the women with children might desire for their children to have a relationship with their father, so they are more likely to have contact with their abusers. Frantzen et al. (2011) also studied the matter of protective orders and recidivism. They, like Carlson et al. (1999), studied abusers in Texas. They were interested in finding out how many cases, in which the victim receives a protective order, did the abuser get convicted of an assault or other type of criminal charge, compared to how many times did the abuser get the case dismissed. They were also interested in finding out the outcomes of each of these situations. They found that in instances where the victim received a protection order against the defendant, the defendant was just as likely to be convicted of a criminal charge as were defendants who were not under a protection order. They also found that if the defendant had at least one prior arrest for for assault that the defendant was more likely to be convicted of assault. They also found, contrary to Carlson et al. (1999) and the studies cited by Goldfarb (2008) that the presence of a protective order had no bearing on whether or not the defendant recidivated. However, while their studies diverged overall from the other studies, they did find, similar to Goldfarb and Carlson, that prior arrests was a positive predictor for no-contact violations and recidivism, stating that one prior arrest increased the chances of a violation of the no-contact order and re-abuse by 34%. They also found, similar to Goldfarb (2008) that the degree of violence was a positive predictor for re-arrests after no-contact orders – in general, if the violence was such that there were physical injuries, such as bruises or broken bones, the offender was more likely to recidivate than if the violence was such that there was not evidence of physical injury. Jordan et al. (2010) states that victims typically have experienced substantial abuse before seeking a protective order, stating that 81% of the women who seek protection orders indicated that the abuse which prompted the order was not the first instance of abuse in the relationship. They further found that the median time that women had experienced abuse before getting a protective order was 2.4 years. They also found that abusers typically had been arrested prior to the obtaining of the protective order, and that these arrests were for a variety of offenses, ranging from assault to drug violations to property offenses. They cited one study which indicated that 73.3% of abusers who are the subject of protective orders had a prior misdemeanor arrest and that 79% of these abusers had a prior felony arrest. Another study cited by Jordan et al. (2010) indicated that 65% of defendants with a protective order against them had a history of perpetrating some kind of violent crime. Their study of Kentucky court records show that recidivism after a protective order decreases over time, up until 18 months after the protective order being put into place. At the point of 18 months and beyond, the recidivism rate begins to rise once more. This suggests to Jordan et al. (2010) that, after 18 months, the effects of the protective order begin to decrease. They also found that younger defendants were more likely to reoffend than were older defendants, and that non-white men were more likely to reoffend than were white men. Logan et al. (2009) conducted a study in Kentucky regarding protective orders which addressed the issue of recidivism. They found that there were barriers to the reporting of recidivism. One of these barriers is that the victim may not report the recidivism or violations of the no-contact order. The reason for this is that the victim may not want to call the police for every violation. Another reason why abusers violate no contact orders, according to Logan et al. (2009) is that the victims allow the contact or even initiate the contact. The victim service representatives, who are tasked with assessing the barriers to no contact orders, determined that the victims themselves were the largest barriers to enforcing the no contact orders and were the largest factor in the violation of these orders. Logan et al. (2009) also found that police attitudes also effected the reporting of recidivism, which would affect if the recidivist was subjected to arrest. The Logan et al. (2009) study found that the police often have attitudes which are not conducive to recidivism being reported. Among these attitudes are that the women are as bad as the men, and that many women call the police because they are desperate for attention. Also, Logan et al. (2009) state that limited resources are a barrier to arresting individuals who might violate no-contact orders, in that police may not have the resources to follow up on victim calls and complaints. McFarlane et al. (2004) studied no contact provisions regarding black, Hispanic and white women over 18 months. They specifically compared women who obtained a two-year protective order against their abusers with women who did not obtain such an order. As noted, their study ranged 18 months, and they found that there was not a difference in the level of violence between the two groups at 3 months, 6 months, one year and 18 months. They also found that 44% of the women who obtained a protective order reported partner violence during the 18 month study, and that half of these women reported the violation to the police. They found, overall, that if a victim seeks assistance through the criminal justice system that violence was significantly less likely to reoccur in that relationship, regardless of whether a protection order is issued or not. McFarlane et al. (2004) state that the reason why contact with the justice system, whether or not a protective order is issued, results in lower violence is because the violence is no longer kept private at this time. Other people are involved, and this means that the violence is less likely to reoccur because of this factor. In other words, as long as the violence is kept private, then it is likely to continue. At the point where the violence is no longer private, however, it is less likely to continue. They also state that the very act by the victim of pursuing a protective order acts as a deterrent because it puts the abuser on notice that the victim would no longer take the abuse, and this kind of empowerment results in the lessening of the abuse. Holt et al. (2002) also studied protection orders and the risk of reoffending, and their study was focused upon civil protection orders, as opposed to criminal protection orders. Their study was focused in Seattle, Washington. They found, in a nutshell, that permanent protection orders resulted in less violence than did temporary protection orders. In their study they looked at victims who went through the justice system but did not get any type of protective orders; victims who went through the justice system and only obtained temporary protective orders; and victims who went through the justice system and obtained permanent protective orders. They found that the victims who did not obtain protective orders were significantly more likely to have used drugs or abused alcohol than those who did obtain at least some type of protective order, and their abusers also were more likely to abuse drugs and or alcohol than abusers whose partners did not get a protective order. These women were also more likely than the women who did obtain a protective order to not be married to their partners. They found that in the six month follow up that 17% of women who did not obtain a contact order reported recidivism, compared to 14% for women who obtained temporary restraining orders and 5% for women who obtained permanent restraining orders. Dugan et al. (2003) studied the effect of seeking protective orders with regards to whether or not the abuser kills the victim in retaliation. They state that seeking protective orders, in some cases, increases the stress in the relationship to the point where this degree of violence might become more likely. The increased stress in the relationship is coupled with the ineffectiveness of the no contact order, so victim exposure is not lessened. Alternatively, they state that seeking a protective order or other domestic violence remedies might result in an amelioration of violence because of the fact that the partners do not have contact with one another, or, at the very least, have less contact with one another. Dugan et al. (2003) state that, with regards to the first hypothesis, that seeking a protection order might result in an increased likelihood that the abuser would kill the victim, the reason why this might be so is that the abuser is so angered by the no contact order that he loses control. Moreover, no contact orders often result in the victim seeking refuge or shelter, either from a battered woman’s shelter or by staying with family or friends. This might also result in homicide, as the abuser senses that he is losing his control over the victim. Their study found that increases in the prosecutors’ offices to take protection orders and have them issued was positively correlated with the increase in homicide in married and unmarried white women, and in African-American males (the African-American females are more likely to kill the African-American males when a protection order is in place). Cho and Wilke (2010) studied pro-arrest policies with regard to recidivism, which might have a bearing on whether or not protective orders reduce or increase recidivism, as arrests are a consequence of this behavior, just as protective orders are. Moreover, previous studies indicate that the public scorning effect of seeking a no-contact order might be enough to deter future violence, and arrests are also a kind of public scorning. Therefore, the results of this study are pertinent to the overall questions of whether or not protective orders decrease or increase recidivism. Cho and Wilke (2010) cite a longitudinal Minneapolis study which suggests that arresting the batterer is more likely to reduce violence than other options which included not arresting the batterer, but forcing the couple to part for eight hours; and not arresting the batterer, nor forcing the couple to part, but giving the couple information regarding domestic violence. Six months after the three different actions were taken, 10% of the abusers who were arrested reoffended, compared to 19% of the abusers who were given information regarding domestic abuse and 24% of the abusers who were forced to separate from their partner for eight hours. They found that minority abusers were more likely to reoffend than were white abusers, and that the degree of educational attainment was negative correlated with revictimization (the higher the level of education, the less likely that there would be revictimization). They found that, overall, in their study that the arrest of the abuser decreased the likelihood of re-abuse by 42%. They also found that older victims were less likely to experience revictimization than younger victims, and that divorced and separated women were more likely to be revictimized than married women. Further, they found that the degree of injury did not have a bearing on whether or not the abuser reoffended, which is contrary to some of the other studies cited above. Bocko et al. (2004) studied the effect of protective orders and other types of domestic abuse measures on recidivism. They found that, with regards to the demographics of individuals who violate restraining orders, these individuals were substantially more likely than the general population to be male, living in poverty, and having a substance abuse problem – 86% of these individuals have a substance abuse problem, which is compared to 8% of the general population. 62% of these individuals are making less than $10,000 per year, compared to 4% of the general population. They were also substantially more likely than the general population to have less than high school education – 58% of these individuals have less than a high school education, compared to 14% of the general population. Conclusion The studies above show that whether or not an abuser is likely to recidivate after the partner gets a protective order depends upon a lot of factors. Some of these factors focus on the victim. Married victims are more likely to re-abused than are victims who are not married, and victims who have children with the offender are also more likely to re-abused. This is because these women often are forced to keep having contact with the offender, whether it is because the married victims have to seek divorce procedures or the women with children have custody issues or feel that they should stay with the man because he is the child’s father. Other studies show that many victims voluntarily have contact with their abusers, and this complicates the effectiveness of restraining orders as well. Other factors focus upon the characteristics of the abuser. Study after study indicates that certain offenders are more likely to reoffend than other offenders. In particular, low socioeconomic status, a history of criminality of any type and marital status are all factors which come into play with regards to who will reoffend and who will not. Abusers who have been with their partner for a long period of time are less likely to reoffend than abusers who have not been with their partner for as long a period of time. Abusers who have had prior contact with the criminal courts are more likely to reoffend than abusers who have not have this prior contact, and the hypothesis is the reason for this is that these men have less to lose than men who have not been previously arrested. Alternatively, these men do not have the same respect for the courts and laws than men who have not been arrested, so this factors in to the analysis of whether these individuals are at risk for reoffending. Men who are in the lower run of the socioeconomic ladder are more likely to reoffend than those who are higher on the socioeconomic ladder, for the same reason why men with prior criminal records are likely to reoffend – the men who are on the higher end of the socioeconomic ladder have more to lose if they reoffend than men who are not high up on the socioeconomic ladder. Moreover, the socioeconomic factor also comes into play with regards to the victim – if the couple is poor, then the woman is more likely to rely upon the man for financial assistance. Therefore, the woman has fewer options for leaving when the couple is on the low end of the socioeconomic ladder. While most of the studies indicate that protection orders are at least somewhat effective in reducing abuse across the board, McFarlane (2004) suggests that contact with the justice system, in and of itself, is effective for reducing abuse. To this end, they found that there was not a difference between individuals who sought protective orders and did not get them and those who got protective orders in court. Across the board, violence was reduced, even if the protective orders were not issued. This suggests that the defendants in McFarlane’s study were chastened by the mere act of going to court and being arrested. They hypothesize that keeping violence private is what leads to more violence, and that, once the violence is made public through the justice system that violence was less likely to reoccur. Indeed, Cho and Wilke (2010) who specifically studied the effects of arrest on abusers showed that arrest is also a deterrent to future violence, which suggests, just as McFarlane stated, that the mere act of making the abuse public is enough to lessen the violence in the relationship. Of course, these studies did not necessarily take victim and offender characteristics into account – other studies cited showed that the characteristics of the defender, and, to a lesser extent, the victim, influence heavily whether there is recidivation, so it would be interesting to note if Cho and Wilke and McFarlane took these into account whether they would have come up with the same conclusion. Goldfarb, S. (2008) “Reconceiving protection orders for domestic violence.” Cardozo Law Review, 29.4: pp. 1487-1550. Carlson, M., Harris, S. & Holden, G. (1999) “Protective orders and domestic violence.” Journal of Family Violence 14.2: pp. 205-224. Jordan, C., Pritchard, A., Duckett, D., Charnigo, R. (2010) “Criminal reoffending among respondents to protective orders.” Violence Against Women, pp. 1-16. Cho, H. & Wilke, D. (2010) “Does police intervention in intimate partner violence work?” Advances in Social Work, 11.2, pp. 283-302. Holt, V. (2002) “Civil protection orders and risk of subsequent police-reported violence.” JAMA, 22.5, pp. 589-594. Dugan, L. (2003) “Exposure reduction or retaliation?” Law and Society Review, 37.1, pp. 169-195. McFarlane, J. (2004) “Protection orders and intimate partner violence.” American Journal of Public Health 94.4, pp. 613-618. Logan, K. (2009) “The Kentucky civil protection order study.” Available at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228350.pdf Read More