Making the Case for Domestic Violence Prevention Through the Lens of Cost-Benefit
A Manual for Domestic Violence Prevention Practitioners
(and the State and Local Policy-Makers They Present to)
Why Is Primary Prevention A "Systemic" Process?
To reduce violence, it is necessary first to understand the underlying causes and major risk factors that contribute to violence. Violence emerges from multiple and complex personal, social, and economic causes, and violence reduction therefore necessitates multifaceted efforts. An effective response requires the marshalling of resources at both national and local levels. The health of a community is a composite of physical, psychological, social, and economic variables. Consequently, the responsibility for overall community health resides in a number of systems, including the family, education, health, work, criminal justice, and social services. As a health crisis, violence requires the continuity of a public health approach, that is to say, a comprehensive, community-oriented approach that attacks underlying causes and risk factors with leadership facilitated by public health practitioners.
Larry Cohen and Susan Swift,
A Public Health Approach to the Violence Epidemic in the United States,
Environment and Urbanization. Vol. 5, No.2, pp. 50-66.
London, United Kingdom, 1993.
When making the case for domestic violence prevention programs, a systemic perspective can be quite useful. How is a program part of a larger, general, community effort to prevent violence? How does this prevention program work with other efforts to prevent domestic violence? These questions are in themselves tools to better understanding the effectiveness of single programs in the context of surrounding, wider, community and societal efforts and influences.
Although the basis of primary prevention is relatively straightforward – stop the violence before it takes place whenever possible – primary prevention is actually a complex process. While many domestic violence prevention efforts focus on the individual – educating, informing, and protecting the individual at risk of either being victimized or being a victimizer -- it is important to remember that all prevention work deals with the larger picture, which includes families, community organizations, and society as a whole. No one act of violence is either caused or prevented in isolation.
The World Report on Violence and Health offers an ecological model to help understand the root causes and risk factors of violence that need to be identified and addressed by prevention strategies (see side box):
The Ecological Model for Understanding Risk Factors for Violence
Violence is the outcome of a complex interaction among many factors that must be examined at various levels. The World Report on Violence and Health offers an ecological model to help understand the root causes and risk factors of violence that need to be identified and addressed by prevention strategies. The model identifies risk factors at four levels: individual, relationship, community, and societal.
At the individual level, personal history and biological factors influence how individuals behave and increase their likelihood of becoming a victim or a perpetrator of violence. These include early developmental experiences, demographic characteristics (age, education, income), psychological or personality disorders, substance abuse, and a history of behaving aggressively or having experienced abuse.
Personal relationships such as family, friends, intimate partners and peers may influence the risks of becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence. For example, having violent friends may influence whether a young person engages in or becomes a victim of violence.
Community contexts in which social relationships occur, such as schools, neighborhoods and workplaces, also influence violence. Risk factors here may include the level of unemployment, population density, mobility, and the existence of a local drug or gun trade.
Societal factors influence whether violence is encouraged or inhibited. These include economic and social policies that maintain socioeconomic inequalities between people, the availability of weapons, and social and cultural norms such as those around male dominance over women, parental dominance over children, and cultural norms that endorse violence as a normal method to resolve conflicts.
This pictographic diagram, modeling the Transforming Communities' definition of types of abuse and violence, has been adapted from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health intervention model, utilized in Browne-Miller and Scheffler (1990). For more information and training at these levels of prevention, please contact Transforming Communities: Technical Assistance, Training and Resource Center, operated by Marin Abused Women's Services, (MAWS) at: info@transformcommnities.org.
“Creating dialogue and collaboration involves building relationships – and that takes time and effort. A one-day Enhancing Collaboration workshop is an important step in starting a long-term process of mutual exploration of theological concepts, beliefs around domestic violence, and community resources. What we have observed is that people are putting in that time and effort and are building community along the way. The workshops may start the dialogue, but participants continue it through their action plans and ongoing community networking and service. Many domestic violence advocates and faith leaders are now seeing each other as resources and support.”
Transforming Communities
Technical Assistance Training and Resource Center (TC-TAT)
Catalyst: Profile of Epic Faith Initiative, Vol. 3, No. 2,
Spring/Summer 2005, San Rafael, CA.
“Designing a prevention program in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community involves measuring changes and outcomes on many different levels. On a personal level, recognizing internalized homophobia gives both the victim and the perpetrator the opportunity to see the red flag and to not engage in that kind of relationship, and the ability to understand what domestic violence is – to name it and get out sooner. On a community level, we are looking for changes in how community institutions such as the police and hospitals deal with same-sex domestic violence cases. On a societal level, offering resources and support at community events gives people an overall awareness and chance to break through denial. Our hope is to see a change in the LGBT community’s norms around same-sex domestic violence.”
Delena Couchman, Prevention Program Coordinator
Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, September 23, 2005.
Domestic violence is systemic – meaning it takes place in a system that allows and even contributes to this violence. This system includes virtually all of our society’s sectors, such as education, health, government, law enforcement, religion, family, media, and other institutions. It thus makes sense that effective responses to this violence will have systemic, cross-sector characteristics as well. Meet the problem where it lives – virtually everywhere!
So what does prevention from a systemic perspective look like? And how can people making the case for domestic violence prevention use this global vision of prevention?
First and foremost, what is emerging in all social and medical sector prevention efforts – whether these be related to violence prevention, accident prevention or disease prevention – is the understanding that whatever we single out to prevent is part of the larger picture, a piece of a larger condition, situation or problem.
A second and also very important understanding is that the value of a single, isolated prevention effort may not be as great as an effort conducted in concert with other efforts. The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
And third, the outcome of a single prevention effort may be linked to other prevention efforts. This linkage makes the valuation of a single effort quite challenging. And, this same linkage makes the valuation of a single prevention effort – in the absence of the valuation of other efforts affecting the outcome of this effort, rather limited.
“As a funder, I have had to help programs justify that they are using their state funds specifically for domestic violence prevention. Some of the prevention measures that people choose to do – such as getting people a job, reducing poverty, addressing substance abuse, and others – don’t necessarily directly link to domestic violence, but we know that they are protective factors and that in a holistic approach, that positive foundation of support systems is often necessary to help someone avoid getting into a domestic violence situation. You have to make that link so that funders and policy-makers understand the whole picture.”
Nancy Bagnato, Coordinator,
Violence Against Women Statewide Prevention Project
California Department of Health Services, September 23, 2005.
“Coordinating prevention efforts within one community will help keep prevention messages consistent, build relationships across service providers that may streamline response, and keep the values of the advocacy movement at the center of all prevention efforts undertaken across such a diverse set of groups. An important principle in relationship building is the mutual support individuals and organizations can offer to each other’s “issues.” For example, members of a women’s advocacy organization may want to show their support for policies and programs promoted by a youth runaway home, and vice versa.”
A Vision for Prevention: Key Issues and Statewide Recommendations for the Primary Prevention of Violence Against Women in Michigan,
Michigan Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, p. 13.