A Meta-Analysis of the Extant Literature Examining the Capacity of Domestic Violence Courts to Reduce Recidivism – Searching for a ‘Best Practice’ App

Despite substantial investment in its prevention, domestic violence (‘DV’) continues to be a systemic issue in the Australian community (Vandenbroak, 2014, p. 3; ABS, 2017; ALRC, 2012, 9. 7). Its effects in Australia are widespread; 20% of women are victims of sexual violence (ABS, 2017), 25% of women are victims of emotional abuse, and once a week a woman is murdered; all by intimate partners (Bryant & Bricknall, 2017). The extant literature demonstrates that victims of DV participate less in the community, suffer from increased mental illness, and are socio-economically disadvantaged when compared with control groups (Admas & Beeble, 2018; Macdonald, 2012, p. 3; Corrie & McGuire, 2013; Warren, Marchact, Schulze & Chung, 2019, p. 2). Moreover, DV is the leading cause of homelessness for women and their children, while DV has been estimated to cost the Australian economy $22 Billion per annum in enforcement costs, lost productivity, and publicly funded social services (KPMG, 2016). Accordingly, as recommended by Mazerolle et al. (2018), this research paper will examine domestic violence courts (‘DVCs’) as a potential policy response to minimise the negative effects of DV within the Australian community.

The History of DVCs

Beginning in the 1970s feminist advocates for battered women and victims of DV petitioned legislators to criminalise and pursue violence within the ‘private’ sphere of the familiar home, which was previously considered beyond the purview of state intervention (Labriola et al. 2013 p. 2). Pressure during the mid-1990s reached a boiling point as social justice advocates demanded that governments squarely confront DV and provide proactive policy responses to minimise its effects and prevalence (Guiterrez, Blais & Bourgon, 2016). In Australia, for example, this advocacy led to wide-spread policy and legislative reform (see for example the Domestic Violence and Family Protection Act 2012 (QLD)) (Bond et al., 2017). This, when combined with increased DV prosecution and arrest, heightened awareness of available recourse and services for victims, and proactive policing responses has opened the floodgates of DV cases processed within the justice system (Bond et al., 2017; Mazerolle et al., 2018, Quan, 2007). This onslaught of DV cases required governments to implement innovative systems, procedures, and policies to efficiently process the growing number of matters (Pinchevsky, 2017). Accordingly, a substantial number of DVCs have been established with varying degrees of success. Proponents of DVCs argue that they provide substantial benefits to the community, victims, offenders, and the administration of justice (Labriola et al. 2013). While DVCs do provide substantial benefits to victims and the administration of justice, as will be explored below, their outcomes for offenders are less conclusive (Cissner et al., 2015)

DVCs emerged contemporaneously with the ‘problem-solving justice’ movement (Wolf, 2007). This movement spawned from innovations in policing which sought to focus resources on identifying patterns of criminality, then engaging and consulting with the community to ameliorate the root cause of antisocial and criminal behaviour (Porter, Rempel, & Mansky, 2010). These notions of consultation, treatment, and investigation into causation reverberated throughout the justice system, thus giving rise to innovative community courts (Labriola et al., 2013). Instead of a singular zealous focus on retribution and punishment, these courts recognised the need for crime prevention, utilisation of the scientific method, community consultation, and problem-solving (Belenko, 1999). Underpinning these, at their time revolutionary ideas, was the collective realisation that it was not sufficient to process, prosecute and, imprison offenders (Wexler and Winick, 1996). Rather, it was recognised that the justice system should seek to understand perpetrators and the underlying causes of crime, thereby reducing recidivism while simultaneously increasing the publics’ confidence in the administration of justice (Rottman and Casey, 1999).

The rise in therapeutic community engagement and the scientific method as a means of tackling criminality led to the creation of other problem-solving courts dealing with issues like drug crime, mental health, and indigenous criminal matters (Mazerolle et al 2018). Like DVCs, these courts were established as a mechanism to handle the enormous caseload entering the criminal justice system from the ‘tough on crime’ approach gaining traction in the ‘90s (Labriola et al. 2009). Moreover, regulators desired to develop a unified, specialist and, research-based response to specific rising issues and sub-groups of criminal behaviour (Mazur & Aldrich, 2003; Shelton, 2007). Despite each distinct problem-solving court possessing different goals, structures and policies, the models are guided by a thematic focus on substantive outcomes like reduced reoffending, positive stakeholder experiences and, tailored sentencing, rather than exclusively the legal process (Cissner et al, 2015).

Study Context

Under these guidelines of therapeutic jurisprudence (‘TJ’), DVCs rose to prominence in the ‘90s (Labriola et al., 2009). Proponents of TJ posit that the justice system, and particularly the judiciary, can be utilised to enhance psychosocial outcomes for key stakeholders (Labriola et al., 2013). Critical to the TJ model is the notion that offending can be treated through consequences that extend beyond criminal justice responses by adhering to procedural fairness, listening and engaging with offenders, and utilising mandated treatment programs (Halder and Jaishankar, 2017). Evidence suggests that as a citizenry our perceived experience of being treated with procedural fairness increases the likelihood that we will abide by the law (Labriola et al, 2013, p. 16-20). Moreover, defendants in DV cases are more likely to obey the law in the future if they believe they were treated fairly (Paternoster et al., 1997). Similarly, studies of mediations show that parties who believe they were treated fairly are far more likely to accept an arbiter’s decision and comply with terms (Lind et al., 1993). Thus, DVCs employ three key TJ techniques to manage offenders: specialist staff, treatment programs like batterer intervention programs (‘BIPS’) and, upholding procedural fairness to ensure that the defendants’ are heard, treated with dignity, and that a fair outcome is reached (Labriola et al., 2013).

Despite DVCs emerging at the same time as, and largely being considered a part of, the problem-solving court movement, DVCs are not a mirror for the movement’s core principles, procedures, and policies (Pinchevsky, 2017). This is because, unlike most other problem-solving courts, cases heard in DVCs involve a victim. Accordingly, many in the DV field criticise the use of TJ as a theoretical justification for establishing DVCs as it places too much emphasis on the offender rather than the victim (Berman and Feinblatt, 2001; Pinchevsky, 2017). As a result, a concurrent underpinning theory implemented in DVCs is deterrence. Focusing on a paradigm of accountability and more severe sanctions (Lupovici, 2010), deterrence theorists envision offenders as rational actors who weigh-up the gains against the consequences of their actions before committing a crime (Agnew, 2001). They posit that if the potential consequences exceed the perceived gains of a criminogenic behaviour, then the populace will refrain from that behaviour, but, conversely, if the perceived gains outweigh the consequences, the behaviour will increase/continue (Agnew, 1995). Deterrence theory is split between general and specific deterrence. General deterrence theory proffers the notion that increasing the likelihood of punishing an offense reduces the likelihood that others will commit that offense (Agnew, 2001). Specific deterrence theory proposes that punishing a specific individual will reduce the likelihood that they reoffend (Matthews and Agnew, 2008). Studies have shown mixed results for deterrence as a mechanism for reducing crime. While some theorists propose substantial benefits and studies have shown that increased punishment will reduce reoffending, arguably, the purpose of deterrence theory in DVCs is offender accountability and retribution for the victim. (Labriola et al., 2013).

While on their face deterrence theory and TJ seem ideologically opposed, these theories are not mutually exclusive in the context of DVCs (Mazerolle et al, 2018). The literature shows that a range of deterrence and TJ models are utilised concurrently within DVCs, and while each has different aims (Labriola et al.,2013), a common goal between the theories is to reduce recidivism in offenders. This combination of theoretical basis’ and goals results in substantial diversity between courts which label themselves as DVCs (Pinchecsky, 2017). DVCs may be established under a deterrence model, TJ model, or a multi-theory approach. Labriola et al. (2009) found that key stakeholders reported a wide array of justifications for DVCs inception including increased case-processing efficiency, offender accountability, increasing victim safety, improving confidence in the administration of justice, and reducing recidivism. The study showed that there was a clear consensus on goals like victim safety and offender accountability. However, treating offenders, reducing recidivism, and efficient case processing were less agreed upon. This creates substantial issues for researchers and studies which seek to examine the overall effectiveness of DVCs, as one model may vary significantly to another, creating issues of generalisability and study significance (Guiterrez, Blais, & Bourgon, 2016).

An examination of the literature presents the following goals and motives, often competing and implement sporadically, for creating DVCs:

·        Correct application of the relevant law;

·        Expeditious case processing;

·        Specialist problem-solving and decision making;

·        Provide a coordinated community response where the DVC engages with police, other justice agencies, and offender treatment program providers to improve outcomes;

·        Ensure the safety of victims and the availability of support services;

·        Recidivism reduction; and

·        Offender accountability.

Despite calls from researchers to establish a best-practice approach to DVCs, the competing theoretical, political, and economic justifications for doing so have thus far prevented homogenous implementation (Bond et al, 2017, Mazerolle et al. 2018; Arguably, due to these competing goals, theoretical basis’, and policies, which are intermittently implemented, DVCs present the largest challenge of all problem-solving courts for researchers to examine treatment effect (Cissner et al., 2015). Accordingly, there is a pressing need to firstly establish what aspects of DVCs effectively reduce recidivism and then secondly develop guidelines for reliable scalable implementation. (Mazerolle et al., 2018).

The diverse nature of DVCs has produced a plethora of methodological issues in the existing studies of DVCs (Labriola et al., 2013; Cissner et al., 2015). Moreover, numerous studies have asserted broad impacts of DVCs without utilising a control group, using pre/post analysis, or comparing only two sites which present substantial generalisability issues (Guiterrez, Blais & Bourgon, 2016). While all studies utilised in this paper examine the level of recidivism reduction produced by a DVC, few specify or parse out the specific policies and procedures which cause a reduction in offending or the theoretical underpinnings of the court. Additionally, many of the policies, specifically those focusing on victim services, are not aimed at reducing recidivism (King and Batagol, 2010). Thus, though studies have shown that certain DVCs have treatment effects, it is yet inconclusive that they, in and of themselves are the causative factor (Labriola et al., 2013).

Aim:

Instead of seeking to ascertain a best-practice approach to DVCs, which, in the opinion of the author is not capable of being substantiated from the extant literature, this study will seek to examine the methodological rigour of past studies and compare this with their purported treatment effect. Concurrently, this paper will seek to examine the use of theory and analysis of specific DVC policies within the sample when compared with recidivism reduction. From the results of this information, this paper will recommend policies and procedures for improving the generalisability of future studies as well as attempt to isolate aspects of DVCs which reduce recidivism.

Limiting scope

While DV is perpetrated by men, women, and non-binary individuals, the overwhelming majority of DV, especially physical, sexual, and economic violence, is committed by men (Holder and Daly, 2018). Moreover, DV committed by men is not limited to violence against women. Studies have also shown that violence against male and non-binary victims is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men (Jaffe et al., 2015). Therefore, limiting the scope of this study to only male offenders will have a more substantial contribution to reducing overall DV offending in Australia. Additionally, studies and data on women as offenders processed within DVCs are presently too limited for this paper.

The Extant literature on DVCs has shown that they provide substantial benefits for most key stakeholders in the processing of DV cases. DVCs are more cost-efficient than traditional courts due to their specialist expertise (Cissner et al, 2015). Moreover, studies have shown that DVCs provide substantially improved qualitative outcomes for victims by providing increased security, accountability of perpetrators, victims’ services, the right to be heard, and a process which minimises risks of retraumatisation through an efficient multi-jurisdictional approach (Bond et al., 2017). Despite these clear benefits for the administration of justice and victims, the extant literature on outcomes for offenders is substantially less conclusive (Cissner, 2015; Labriola et al., 2013). Accordingly, as identified by Bond et al. (2017), this study will analyse offender treatment effects to fill key gaps in the literature surrounding DVCs.

Coding Procedure and data collection

Published studies were identified for this paper utilising the QUT Library and associated subscribed databases like ProQuest. Moreover, searches of Google and Bing yielded further Government reports not found within these sources. The following key search terms were utilised: domestic violence court, domestic violence, recid*, reoffen*, therapeutic jurisprudence, deter*, offend*, violence, and sentence*.

These investigations yielded a significant number of studies relating to DV generally and other information relating to DVCs. Thus, to be included in the study the papers were required to meet three basic criteria. Firstly, the report needed to examine a DVC focusing on intimate partner violence, rather than a general family violence court which deals with other forms of violence beyond the scope of this study (e.g. elder abuse, child custody matters). Secondly, the study must have specifically reported recidivism as an outcome variable, rather than analyse other aspects of DVCs. Thirdly, the study must have focused on men as offenders and women as victims on DV.

Variables selected for coding were firstly based on two key factors: Firstly, to examine a study’s quality the follow-up period, assignment method, comparison group, use of victim reports, and qualitative outcomes for offenders were all selected. The first three variables were chosen as they have a direct impact on the generalisability of the study (Cissner et al., 2015), while the final two were chosen due to identified gaps in the literature; Secondly, the theoretical underpinnings of each study were coded for by analysing if the court analysed a particular policy or treatment as well as whether the court used a deterrence, TJ or mixed-theory model. Notably, the second variable here was largely estimated by the author because, as will be shown below, theory was rarely discussed in the sample.

Results

As of 12 June 2020, these searches and criteria yielded a total of 30 eligible studies which reported on 38 unique samples (see Table 1). Most of the samples were drawn from non-peer-reviewed sources (e.g. government reports, dissertations) and originated in the United States and Canada. The completion dates of the studies ranged from 1996 to 2019. Notably an overwhelming majority of the studies were finalised post-2003 (92.1%).

Table 1: Studies Included in the Meta-analysis.

Note: Some studies included multiple samples.

Table 2: Findings from the Studies Included in the Meta-analysis.

Study Quality Findings

Only 10.54% of studies utilised a multi-site sample when drawing their conclusions. Most studies were either conducted utilising no comparison group (23.68%), a pre/post evaluation (31.58%), or a comparison between two DVCs (18.42%). Studies with no comparison group, or those which utilised a pre-post evaluation, reported a substantially higher mean recidivism reduction (8.6% and 5.6% respectively) than those which compared multi-sites or two distinct DVCs (1.5% and 1.8% respectively). Studies identified as having no comparison group utilised average recidivism figures across courts, but often failed to distinguish between general violent reoffending and DV recidivism. Of the studies which compared multiple sites, all were conducted in a single jurisdiction. Of the offenders processed none were randomly assigned to the court. Instead, all were either court-mandated (55.36%) or volunteers (33.47%); noting that two studies did not report on this area. Most follow-up periods were a year or less (60.52%). Notably, only 15.76% of studies provided a follow-up period of greater than 3 years. As expected, reports with less than a year follow-up period reported a substantially higher mean recidivism reduction (9.6%) than those which followed up after 3+ years (2.9%). None of the studies in the sample utilised victim reporting for calculating reoffending and no studies examined qualitative outcomes for offenders.

Theoretical Underpinnings and Court Focus Findings

It was found that 28.95% of DVCs in the sample focused on a deterrence-based model, 18.42% applied a TJ lens, and 52.63% applied a mixed-theory approach. Notably, the mixed approach resulted in a greater mean treatment effect (7.40%) than both deterrence (4.90%) and therapeutic models (4.60%). The small difference between deterrence and therapeutic models (0.30%) is unlikely to approach statistical significance. Only 18.42% of studies provided a theoretical framework and analysed a specific policy within the court (i.e. judicial monitoring or BIPS).

Discussion

30 studies and 38 unique data points contributed to the findings presented above for this study. Based on the sample, the mean recidivism reduction of all examined courts was 5.7%, seemingly indicating a positive treatment effect of implementing DVCs. However, it must be noted that the studies included in the sample were of varying methodological quality.

Impacts of Study Quality

When evaluating the purported benefits of a program advanced by a study, it is important to consider its methodological quality and rigour (Andrews and Bonta, 2010a). Without adjusting for this, the data contained within this meta-analysis would be subject to potential biases making is less valuable for future researchers (Guiterrez, Blais & Bourgon, 2016). To account for this bias, various measures of study quality were examined and reported upon in Table 2, revealing that, the sample showed a low level of methodological rigour. The failure to randomly assign offenders to DVCs, lack of multi-site and multi-jurisdictional examinations, short-follow up periods, and lack of victim survey data usage were all identified as inhibiting methodological issues within the extant literature.

These methodological limitations contribute to wider problems within the sample literature, like biases between courts, low generalisability, and artificially inflated results (Borenstein et al., 2009). Because these inhibiting factors are present, any observed treatment effects within the studies must be approached with scepticism, as the sample predominantly did not utilise sufficient sample sizes or methods of assignment of participants to render the findings of the study generalisable to other courts and/or jurisdictions (Guiterrez, Blais & Bourgon, 2016). However, from a practical perspective, it is readily understood that the random assignment of offenders in DV matters is sometimes not possible due to ethical and logistical restraints (Bond et al., 2017). While conducting multi-site examinations of DVCs may present challenges due to financial and time-constraints for researchers, increasing their number and scope beyond a single jurisdiction would substantially improve the generalisability of the extant literature and provide more scientifically rigorous views of the treatment effects which DVCs provide (Labriola et al., 2013). A potential means of combating these issues would be collaboration between international governments, the courts, and researchers to make a larger scope of DVCs available for study. If, due to ethical concerns, random assignment of offenders is impossible, reporting recidivism figures on an intention-to-treat basis would present a reasonable solution, where all offenders who could have potentially been assigned to a DVC are compared and contrasted, thus reducing biases of only including offenders who participated in the studied treatment program (CODC, 2007a, 2007b). Moreover, as identified by Cissner et al. (2015) all future studies should utilise a follow-up period of 3+ years, as shorter follow up periods overestimate treatment effect due to the sporadic nature of DV offending.

All studies included within this meta-analysis failed to utilise victim survey data as a means of assessing whether reoffending had occurred. Instead they utilised official records, which may have resulted in an overestimated treatment effect. While official data presents advantages (victims do not need to participate), official data likely does not present correct recidivism figures as victims often do not report abuse to the authorities (Pinchevsky, 2017). Accordingly, future studies should seek to include victim-reports and compare them to official data to observe any influence on the reported treatment effect of DVCs.

Examined through the lens of study quality, there is a clear indication that the methodological rigour employed by a study had a material impact on the reported treatment effect of the DVC. More specifically, studies which utilised smaller comparison groups and shorter follow up periods presented a substantially greater purported treatment effect size than comparatively higher-quality studies. This result is by no means surprising, as the studies with lower methodological rigour often were biased towards presenting a treatment effect. Examining studies that utilised a multi-site approach with a 3+ year follow up period found a statistically insignificant treatment effect of 1.57%, indicating that the best research available suggests DVCs have no substantial impact on recidivism. However, due to the small sample size, lack of random assignment, and use of victim survey data, it is not possible to conclusively determine that DVCs provide no treatment effect (Cissner et al. 2015). As no studies in the meta-analysis utilised qualitative analysis of offender outcomes, future research may benefit from assessing how the defendant perceived their treatment throughout the case. This, according to the TJ model, may yield suggestions and discussion about treatments, policies and, procedures which would have a more appreciable treatment effect within DVCs (Pinchevksy, 2017).

Theoretical Basis and Treatment Focus Findings

The extant literature demonstrates that although DVCs follow the basic problem-solving court model (i.e divert DV offenders to a specialised initiative), they vary greatly in their structure, policies, and procedures for processing offenders. This lack of clarity of model demonstrated further challenges for researchers, as even methodologically superior studies likely compared DVCs implementing different styles of treatment, which does not assist replication of positive treatment effects, as, if a particular policy is not identified as the causative factor a positive treatment effect will not be readily replicable at scale (Pinchevsky, 2017).

The sample demonstrated that DVCs implement both TJ models and deterrence models when constituting and operating the court. As deterrence and TJ are seemingly ideologically opposed, this was a surprising result. However, as suggested in the literature (eg. Cissner et al., 2015; Bond et al., 2017), this is likely because the therapeutic aims of problem-solving courts and the existence of a victim cause competing goals for stakeholders which are not prevalent in other problem-solving courts (Labriola et al., 2013). Notably, DVCs which adopted this multi-theory approach reported a substantially higher treatment effect than those which exclusively focused on a single theory. However, there was no indication within the literature of why this is the case. Accordingly, as there is scarce literature investigating the theoretical underpinnings of DVCs, it would be prudent for future research to examine the higher treatment effect of a mixed-theory approach and parse out what is causing the reduction in recidivism (Cissner et al., 2015). Accordingly, further research into best-practice guidelines for DVCs should provide clear comparative analyses of DVCs implementing either a mixed-theory, deterrence, or TJ based models and specifically identify and control for each aspect of the court. Once the policies, procedures, and methods which cause a reduction in recidivism are identified, researchers can begin to construct a best-practice model that is capable of replication at scale (Bond et al., 2017). Nevertheless, although the results of this meta-analysis point to the superiority of a mixed-theory method, this should be approached with scepticism in future research due to the small sample size and overall quality of studies under investigation.

In support of previous literature on the matter (Labriola et al., 2013), there was a clear lack of consensus of model between DVCs in the sample. Despite the above finding that a mixed-theory approach supported a higher treatment effect, it should be noted that findings on the theoretical underpinnings of the court were largely estimated from the policies, procedures, and treatment methods of the court. Only a small minority of studies classified the DVCs under investigation. Of all the studies which did examine theory, each identified a specific policy or procedure and investigated their treatment effect. Notably, the studies which underwent this due diligence largely presented with substantial methodological issues, specifically a predominantly pre/post design or singular comparison group. Accordingly, to contribute to establishing a best-practice replicable approach to DVCs, future research should seek to utilise improved methodologies, as suggested above, along with specific analysis of policies and procedures which produce a demonstrable treatment effect (Mazerolle et al, 2019). It is noted that recent studies have found that expedited case processing, BIPs, and judicial monitoring are key processes that had an appreciable treatment effect (Collins, Bouffard & Wilkes, 2019; Tutty and Babines-Wagener, 2019). Although these studies to suffer from methodological issues, they may present a platform for future, more rigorous research into a best-practice approach for DVCs.

Limitations

A key issue when engaging with meta-analyses is that studies that present substantial treatment effects are more likely to be published, and, thus included in the sample (Rosenthal, 1979). Notably, as most of the sample included departmental research papers and non-peer review studies, this limitation was not an issue. The most substantial limitation of this study is the extremely small sample size, especially those studies with multi-site examinations and longer follow up times. Accordingly, any findings from this study cannot safely be generalised to the population, rather they merely represent findings for the sample (Guiterrez, Blais & Bourgon, 2016). The author was also limited in their knowledge of advanced statistical analysis techniques, which, if utilised may have improved the findings of this study.

What is the Impact of Theory on DVCs and do They Reduce Recidivism?

This meta-analysis shows that the best available research does not demonstrate an appreciable treatment effect of DVCs. However, the sample size is presently too limited for a conclusive determination on the matter. While the sample suggests that DVCs which employ a mixed methodology have a more appreciable treatment effect, methodological issues within the literature prevent generalisability of any findings to other DVCs. Therefore, further studies that employ high levels of methodological rigour and examine theory are required to begin to establish a best-practice approach to establishing and managing DVCs. Nevertheless, in its current state, the extant literature on DVCs does not provide sufficient insight into their treatment effect to conclusively determine whether they work to reduce offending or a best-practice approach.

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