For nearly 10 years now, some domestic violence offenders in Rhode Island have been under closer watch than ever before by the probation officers who work in the state's specialized domestic violence supervision unit. While POs there have always felt like the program makes a difference in the lives of the offenders and their victims, a recent evaluation of the unit proves that it has, indeed, been a success.

Modeled after a similar program that was started in Quincy, Massachusetts, Rhode Island's specialized domestic violence unit was created in 1994.  POs who work in the unit have deeper connections with domestic violence treatment providers in the community, more time to focus on each offender and more contact with the victims than officers with mixed caseloads.

"We know our people better," said Micheline Lombardi, supervisor of the domestic violence unit. 

According to Lombardi, in order to be assigned to the specialized unit, the offenders must be male and in an intimate relationship with their victims.  The program targets offenders who are placed on probation for domestic violence crimes in the Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, Cranston and Newport areas of the state.

Evaluating the Unit

Because it does not cover the entire state, meaning that some domestic violence offenders remain on mixed probation caseloads, the situation in Rhode Island was perfect for this type of research project said Andy Klein, a senior research analyst at BOTEC Analysis Corporation, the company, which conducted the evaluation.

"It created for us an ideal quasi-experimental site," said Klein, who was the Principal Investigator of the evaluation.  "It gave us an excellent opportunity to see if this specialized probation worked for domestic violence [offenders]," he added.  "That is sort-of the newest wave in domestic violence, so this was the first large-scale test to see if it made any difference."

BOTEC, along with the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the state's Adult Probation and Parole Department, teamed up with the American Probation and Parole Association, which was awarded a grant by the National Institute of Corrections to conduct an evaluation of the effectiveness of the specialized unit. 

According to Klein, to determine what impact, if any, the domestic violence unit actually has on both offenders and victims, BOTEC and APPA examined about 552 cases over a one-year period; 370 of them were on the specialized caseload, while 182 were on the comparison caseload.

The probationers who are on the specialized caseload receive more focused attention from the POs, who only deal with domestic violence offenders, said Sisan Smallman, Assistant Probation and Parole Administrator for the R.I. Department of Corrections.

"One [difference] is working with the batterers' intervention program because the probation officers who have mixed caseloads have people with a wide variety of needs and they have to be in contact with a variety of [treatment providers]," Smallman said. 

Because the POs in the domestic violence unit work so closely with the batterers program, which offenders are required to attend, they are able to stay more on top of what is really going on with their probationers, she said.

"The POs are able to really develop an ongoing, working relationship with the providers," Smallman said.  "They exchange information very regularly.  It makes it much harder for somebody to fall through the cracks or for misinformation to play into decision-making when the providers and the POs are in regular contact with each other."

A Focus on Victims

Another unique feature of the domestic violence unit is the interaction the probation officers have with the victims.  According to Lombardi, the POs send out letters to the victims, inviting them to contact them, which is different from POs supervising mixed caseloads, who may have contact with some victims, but are not required to reach out to them.

"We, at least, extend ourselves and say, 'we're here if you want to talk or you need any help,'" Lombardi said. 

According to Smallman, attempting to make contact with the victims can be reassuring for them, but it can also be helpful to the POs in their mission to supervise the offenders.

"That provides a regular source of information to either confirm or refute what the offender is actually telling the PO," said Smallman.

According to the evaluation, because the POs working with the domestic violence caseload make themselves so available to the victims, the specialized unit scored high marks with the women.

"The victims were very appreciative of the contact," said Klein, noting that a representative sample of victims were interviewed.  "We found out that the victims of the caseload that was being supervised by the specialized POs were much more likely to report a no contact violation, maybe because they felt more empowered because the PO talked to them or maybe because the PO said, 'listen, if he's back in your house again you have to call the police.'"

According to Smallman, tending to the victims needs and concerns is an important part of what the POs in the specialized unit do.

"It's the victims that we are in this business for - they are the important customers," Smallman said.

But Klein also pointed out that the victims interviewed for this study were more wary that they would be abused again in the future.  He said it is possible that, through talking with the POs, they became more realistic about their situation.

Better Results

While the evaluation included victims, it focused more directly on the offenders and how the program is affecting them.

"The good news is it made a difference," Klein said.  "The recidivism for both domestic violence and general crimes was lower for the specialized supervision probationers," he said.  "But there was only a statistically significant difference for those domestic violence probationers who were not high risk."

According to Klein, the high risk offenders, which he defined as those who had already been on probation before and failed, and those who had a prior history of domestic violence proved to be impacted less by the specialized probation than low risk offenders.

"What we're saying is, for the high risk offenders, it doesn't seem to make any difference," Klein said.  "The ones who do it again do it again fairly quickly, so probation doesn't even have a chance to have much of a dosage effect."

But Klein also pointed out that, in Rhode Island, the domestic violence caseload is comprised of 48 percent high risk offenders and 52 percent low risk.

"The specialized probation makes a difference for your lower risk probationers [and] that is significant because the majority of the domestic violence probationers in Rhode Island were the lower risk," said Klein.

While the final report documenting the results of the evaluation is due in coming months, the probation officers working on the specialized unit, like Lombardi, who has been with the program for eight years, don't need hard data to confirm for them that the program is making a difference.

"I know it helps," said Lombardi.  "We have had more and more stories of victims that, had we not been involved, would have gotten seriously hurt."

Resources:
 
Smallman (401) 462-1619

Klein (781) 647-1779 or andyrklein@aol.com