From June 2018 to December 2020, we conducted a systemwide assessment of the response of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, to intimate partner violence with an eye toward solutions that can bring individual agencies together. Working with local partners, we identified three priority areas for the future: (1) encouraging county leaders to prioritize intimate partner violence for a defined period, (2) shifting the focus to the experiences of people involved, not only case outcomes or resolutions, and (3) reinstituting and sustaining fatality or near-fatality reviews. Further, partners can establish a specialized intimate partner violence unit in the Allegheny County Public Defender office, develop consistency in recording intimate partner violence rather than domestic violence, and finally, continue promoting treatment and interventions instead of punishment.
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