Managing recidivism amongst high risk violent men

The prediction and management of recidivism has become increasingly important in the field of domestic violence. It is well recognised that recidivism is high amongst domestic violence perpetrators and there is a cohort of perpetrators who are resistant to intervention or treatment (Gondolf 2002). Provocative research from the Winnipeg Family Violence Courts in Canada found that from 1992 to 2002, the thirty most frequent offenders appeared in the court 2263 times, accumulated 1843 charges, were responsible for 862 police incidents, were subject to 551 court cases and had 319 court convictions (Ursel 2011). They were generally being incarcerated for short periods of time and the average time between release from jail and reoffending was less than two months. Most frequently, this cohort was being convicted for breaches of protection orders rather than for the assault of their partners, who were too frightened to testify in relation to domestic violence. As a result, these men were attracting a ‘medium risk’ classification in the criminal justice system despite a history of chronic violence and recidivism.