Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY. Beginning in the 1980s, many individual states actively addressed domestic violence through various legal reforms, which eventually led to federal legislation, the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA). It was designed to improve interstate criminal justice enforcement and provide adequate funding for criminal justice interventions and social services for victims. The VAWA is expected to have effectively facilitated and strengthened state policies through grants, education and training programs, and pro-arrest policies. This study assessed the effectiveness of the VAWA by examining whether, and how, the VAWA has affected responses of victims and the police using the National Crime Victimization from 1992 to 2003.

METHOD. The NCVS annually gathers detailed crime data from a nationally representative sample of 50,000 households with 100,000 individuals. The target population of the study is the domestic violence victim age 18 and over. Effect of the VAWA was examined by interrupted time series analysis using the ARIMA model. Four time series were calculated based on the NCVS; domestic violence incidence rates, rates of reporting to the police, arrest rates, and rates of contact with other authorities than the police (e.g., prosecutor). The intervention was defined as when the VAWA was enacted, or September 1994. Each time series was examined to see if there was change in the trend before and after the intervention, or the enactment of the VAWA.

RESULTS. First, overall trends of four time series were examined. From 1992 to 2003, incidence rates fell from 7.7 to 3.7 per 1,000 women. Also, rates of reporting to the police (from 54% to 61%), arrest rates (from 23% to 51%), and rates of contact with other authorities (from 11% to 19%) have increased at the same period. All of the four time series were well identified with ARIMA (1, 0, 1) model. For all time series, a small change in the overall trend was demonstrated. However, a significant finding was only seen for rates of contact with other authorities (β = .06, p = .02).

IMPLICATIONS. The study results showed that the VAWA has a positive effect on victims' contact with authorities, such as a prosecutor and court official, but it has no unique impact on the incidence rates, rates of reporting to the police, and arrest rates. However, it is encouraging that all time series in this study showed desirable trends over time. This indicates that the variety of efforts to address domestic violence, including the VAWA, state legislation, and criminal justice interventions, have reinforced each other to have positively affected domestic violence. It is necessary for future research to further investigate how federal and state legislations have interacted to influence responses of victims and the police. Also, prosecutor's offices and court need to be encouraged to continue to actively intervene in domestic violence. Finally, social work practice needs to improve and strengthen cooperation with the criminal justice system to provide victims with broad legal options available.