Date of Award

Fall 2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Sociology & Criminal Justice

Program/Concentration

Applied Sociology

Committee Director

Randy Gainey

Committee Member

Dianne C. Carmody

Committee Member

Ruth Triplett

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.S62 D73 2014

Abstract

The criminal justice response to perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) is often a rehabilitative group treatment called Batterers Intervention Programs (Bl). This thesis assesses the effects of motivational interviewing (Ml) on clients ordered to local probation for IPV. Records were collected on IPV offenders enrolled in BI, within a small city in the Southeast Criminal Justice Agency. The pre-MI data were gathered from 2006, and post-MI data from 2007-2008 after the implementation of Ml. This thesis focuses on the use of MI as an intervention to enhance clients' motivation to change. This research is guided by questions that involve IPV perpetrators and MI to assess: 1) Are clients who receive motivational interviewing from their probation officers more likely to complete the Batterers Intervention treatment programs than those who do not receive motivational interviewing? 2) Does Motivational Interviewing reduce the occurrence of recidivism, especially violent recidivism, compared to the standard probation? Binary logistic regressions are used to explore the relationships between motivational interviewing, BI program completion and recidivism. Model 1 examined the effect of MI on the successful completion of BI; MI was not found to be a significant predictor of the outcome of Bl. Model 2 attempted to determine if MI reduces the occurrence of recidivism in the eight months following the completion of the court ordered Batterers Intervention program. In this model, MI was found to be a statistically significant predictor of recidivism, and explained 11 % of the variance. Model 3 tested the effect of MI on the odds of being arrested for a violent charge eight months following Bl. This model was also statistically significant and explained 8.9% of the variance in violent recidivism among those who received Ml.

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DOI

10.25777/w5ws-8n08

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