Why This Matters

Nearly half of all women in the United States have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) during their lifetime. Abusive partner intervention programs—also called abuse intervention programs and batterer intervention programs are one of the most common court-mandated interventions for people charged with IPV. In recent years, these programs have evolved to hold those charged with committing IPV accountable while also addressing their trauma to reduce domestic violence. The Trauma-Informed Abusive Partner Intervention Program (TI-APIP) at the Urban Resource Institute was one example of this new approach. The TI-APIP was a 26-week intervention for people charged with IPV-related offenses in Manhattan, New York. This report presents findings from a process and outcome evaluation of the TI-APIP.

What We Found

Through our process evaluation, we found the following:

• The TI-APIP served predominantly Black and Brown (Hispanic) cisgender men.
• Over half of the participants experienced or witnessed trauma, such as childhood abuse, physical violence, and community violence.
• Participants spoke highly of certain group session topics—such as conflict resolution, anger management, self-accountability, identifying controlling behaviors, and self-improvement—and noted they learned to better think through violence.
• Several participants reported that the main benefit of the TI-APIP is the space it provides for men to talk to each other without judgment and lean on each other for peer support.
• Some participants reported operational and logistical challenges.

Our outcome evaluation sought to understand self-reported IPV attitudes and psychological well-being among participants after enrolling in the program. We found the following:

• Toward the end of the program (at week 25 of the mandated 26 weeks) participants mostly held attitudes toward IPV that demonstrated high understanding of IPV, its prevalence, and its causes.
• However, some participants maintained problematic views toward addressing gender norms and roles.

Our outcome evaluation also examined the differences in recidivism between IPV defendants who enrolled in the program and a similar group of people charged with IPV who did not enroll in the program. We found the following:

• TI-APIP participants were statistically less likely than comparison group participants to be arrested within 12 months after the intervention.
• No TI-APIP participants were convicted of possessing or using a dangerous weapon or engaging in criminal mischief within 12 months after the intervention.
• No TI-APIP participants received a new prison sentence within 12 months after the intervention.

While there is room to improve the TI-APIP and the evaluation has some noted limitations, ultimately, these results are promising for the program and the DV intervention field at large.

How We Did It

We used a mixed-methods approach to conduct this study. We conducted four focus groups with participants, collected administrative programmatic data, conducted 33 surveys of participants exiting the program, and reviewed criminal justice recidivism data from the District Attorney of New York and the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. The recidivism analysis used a quasi-experimental design where we matched treatment group participants with a comparison group of people who were similarly prosecuted for a family violence offense, but who did not receive the TI-APIP intervention. We matched participants in each group based on age at arrest, race (White, African American, Hispanic, Other), and criminal history variables (prior felony conviction, prior violent felony offense arrest, and prior prison sentence) to isolate the effects of the TI-APIP intervention on recidivism outcomes.