Note
Author(s) affiliated with: RAND Corporation; Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University; Administration of Justice, George Mason University; Police Executive Research Forum.
Summary
"This paper reports the results of a systematic review of the effects of second responder programs on repeat incidents of family violence. An exhaustive search yielded ten studies (including three that were unpublished) that met our criteria that included: (a) following a report of a family violence incident to the police, a second response that included a home visit, (b) a comparison group, and (c) at least one measure of repeat family violence. Fixed and random effects metaanalysis indicated that the second response intervention did not affect the likelihood of new abuse as reported on victim surveys, but did slightly increase the odds of a new report made to the police. We interpret these results to mean that the intervention does not affect the continuation or cessation of family violence, but does somewhat increase victims’ willingness to report incidents to the authorities when they occur."--Page 4.