Joint Law Enforcement-Social Services Approach in New York City
Life periods served
Country of application
Description

This is a joint approach program between police and social protection services to reduce the recurrence of domestic violence.
Families who reported domestic incidents in two public housing areas in New York were randomly assigned to receive or not an initial follow-up response by patrol (the follow-up visit was conducted by a police officer and a social worker).
In addition, households in the same area were randomly assigned to receive or not public education on domestic violence.

Impact evaluations

An impact assessment showed that none of the treatments produced a reduction in domestic violence. However, families in residential areas that received public education and families that received follow-up visits were both more likely to report new violence to the police than families that did not receive the treatments. The results suggest that the interventions increased citizens’ confidence in the police’s ability to deal with situations of domestic violence [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Davis, R. C., & Taylor, B. G. (1997). A proactive response to family violence: The results of a randomized experiment. Criminology, 35(2), 307-333. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1997.tb0087…