No abstract

The authors report the results of an evaluation of services provided by 54 Illinois domestic violence agencies. In collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago evaluation team, domestic violence advocates identified services to be evaluated, specified desired outcomes of those services, and participated in developing measures of those outcomes in both English and Spanish. With in the limitations of the study, outcomes were positive in all four program areas: hotline, counseling, advocacy, and shelter. The authors then discuss implications for evaluation of domestic violence programs that maintain victim safety as a guiding principle.

This article describes the roles of gender, power, and relationship in peer sexual harassment for 342 urban high school students. Overall, 87% of girls and 79% of boys report experiencing peer sexual harassment, whereas 77% of girls and 72% of boys report sexually harassing their peers during the school year. Girls experience the more overtly sexual forms of harassment more often than boys and boys perpetrate sexual harassing behaviors more often than girls. Hypotheses of a relationship between power, gender, and the perpetration of peer sexual harassment are supported.

Objective: The authors examine the effects of batterer intervention program (BIP) completion on domestic violence re-arrest in an urban system of 30 BIPs with a common set of state standards, common program completion criteria, and centralized criminal justice supervision. Method: 899 men arrested for domestic violence were assessed and completed 1 of 30 BIPs. At 2.4 years after intake, the authors reviewed arrest records and modeled domestic violence re-arrest using instrumental variable estimation and logistic regression. Results: There were 14.3% of completers and 34.7% of noncompleters re-arrested for domestic violence. Completing a BIP reduces the odds of re-arrest 39% to 61%. Conclusions: This study supports efforts to engage and retain men in gender-specific BIPs, as well as the value of examining larger systems of BIPs.

In a sample of 463 high school students, 43% reported being the victim of either sexual violence or severe physical violence by peers in the past year. Perpetrators were more likely to be known rather than unknown to the victim, or to be dating/ex-dating partners, and 70% of those who experienced violence by peers were girls. Findings support a view of high school peer violence that encompasses relationship, gender, effects on the victim, and beliefs about both male role power and personal power.