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The Duluth model is a pseudoscientific protocol for
intimate partner violence Intimate partner violence (IPV) is domestic violence by a current or former spouse or partner in an intimate relationship against the other spouse or partner. IPV can take a number of forms, including physical abuse, physical, verbal abuse, verb ...
(IPV). The model is biased because it neglects women's violence, violence within same-sex relationships, bidirectional abuse, and was not created through academic study. Academics prove it is an extreme, negative, and polarized model. It was purportedly devised to bring
law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...
,
family law Family law (also called matrimonial law or the law of domestic relations) is an area of the law that deals with family matters and domestic relations. Overview Subjects that commonly fall under a nation's body of family law include: * Marriag ...
, and
social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...
agencies together in a ''Coordinated Community Response'' to work together to reduce violence against women and rehabilitate perpetrators of domestic violence. It is named after
Duluth, Minnesota Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...
, the city where it was developed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP). The model provides a method of coordinating community agencies to provide a consistent response to female victims of Intimate Partner Violence that has three primary goals: # Ensuring survivor safety. # Providing a way to hold offenders/abusive partners accountable for their violence. # Changing the climate of tolerance for this form of violence. Part of this model is the men's behavior change program ''Creating a Process of Change for Men who Batter'': ''The'' ''Duluth Curriculum''. The curriculum is the most common batterer intervention program used in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. Advocates of the Duluth model claim it is successful because it is grounded in the experience of female victims, helps offenders and society change, and pulls the whole community together to respond. The Duluth Model Coordinated Community Response has received multiple awards for its grassroots efforts to end intimate partner violence, including the
World Future Council The World Future Council (WFC) is a German non-profit foundation with its headquarters in Hamburg. It works to pass on a healthy and sustainable planet with just and peaceful societies to future generations. FuturePolicy.org The futurepol ...
's Future Policy Award in 2014. It has been criticized by mental health professionals who focus on individual behaviour and reject a social model of battering. Edward Gondolf critiques the narrow forms of evidence used to evaluate interventions, arguing that the biomedical research model is inappropriate for evaluating the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions.


Origin and theory

The feminist theory underlying the Duluth model is that men use violence within relationships to exercise
abusive power and control Controlling behavior in relationships are behaviors exhibited by an individual who seeks to gain and maintain control over another person. Abusers may utilize tactics such as intimidation or coercion, and may seek personal gain, personal gratific ...
. The curriculum "is designed to be used within a community using its institutions to diminish the power of batterers over their victims and to explore with each abusive man the intent and source of his violence and the possibilities for change through seeking a different kind of relationship with women”. This is illustrated by the "Power and Control Wheel," a graphic typically displayed as a poster in participating locations. According to the Duluth model, "women and children are vulnerable to violence because of their unequal social, economic, and political status in society." Treatment of abusive men is focused on re-education, as "we do not see men’s violence against women as stemming from individual pathology, but rather from a socially reinforced sense of entitlement." The program's philosophy is intended to help batterers work to change their attitudes and personal behavior so they would learn to be nonviolent in any relationship. The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project was the first multi-agency program designed to address the issue of
domestic violence Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes r ...
. This experimental program, conducted in Duluth in 1981, coordinated the actions of a variety of agencies dealing with domestic conflict. The Duluth model curriculum was developed by a "small group of activists in the battered women’s movement", with five battered women and four men as subjects. The program has become a model for programs in other
jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' and 'speech' or 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple level ...
s seeking to deal more effectively with domestic violence.


Effectiveness

An early U.S. government sponsored study found that batterers who complete programs based on the Duluth Model are less likely to repeat acts of domestic violence than those who do not complete any batterers' intervention program. A 2003 study conducted by the U.S. National Institute of Justice found the Duluth Model to have "little or no effect". This study had considerable shortfalls, and the National Institute of Justice said in its introduction that "response rates were low, many people dropped out of the program, and victims could not be found for subsequent interviews. The tests used to measure batterers' attitudes toward domestic violence and their likelihood to engage in future abuse were of questionable validity." A 2003 longitudinal, four-year evaluation by E. W. Gondolf, covering four cities, shows clear deescalation of reassault and other abuse, with 80% of men reaching sustained non-violence. A 2005 study led by Larry Bennett, a professor of social work at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an expert on batterer intervention programs, found that of the 30 batterer intervention programs in
Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40 percent of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. ...
,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
, 15 percent of batterers who completed the programs were rearrested for domestic violence, compared with 37 percent of those who dropped out of the programs. Bennett said the studies are largely meaningless because they lacked a proper control group. He added that participants who complete domestic violence programs are likely to be more motivated than others to improve behavior and would be less inclined to offend again. A 2011 review of the effectiveness of batterers intervention programs (BIP), primarily the Duluth model, found that "there is no solid empirical evidence for either the effectiveness or relative superiority of any of the current group interventions," and that "the more rigorous the methodology of evaluation studies, the less encouraging their findings." That is, as BIPs in general, and Duluth model programs in particular are subject to increasingly rigorous review, their success rate approaches zero. A 2014 news report reported zero percent recidivism within five years for a batterers intervention program based on
Nonviolent Communication Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is an approach to enhanced communication, understanding, and connection based on the principles of nonviolence and humanistic psychology. It is not an attempt to end disagreements, but rather a way that aims to increa ...
, and contrasted this with a recidivism rate of 40 percent within five years for a batterers intervention program based on the Duluth model as reported by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project.


Criticism

Criticism of the Duluth Model has centered on the program's sexist insistence that men are perpetrators who are violent because they have been socialized in a patriarchy that condones male violence, and that women are victims who are violent only in self-defense. Some critics argue that "programs based on the Duluth Model may ignore research linking domestic violence to
substance abuse Substance misuse, also known as drug misuse or, in older vernacular, substance abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods that are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder, differing definition ...
and psychological problems, such as attachment disorders, traced to childhood abuse or neglect, or the absence of a history of adequate socialization and training."Fisher, Andy, Rick Goodwin and Mark Patton. 2009
“Men & Healing: Theory, Research, and Practice in Working with Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse.”
The Men's Project, Funded by the Cornwall Public Inquiry
Others criticize the Duluth Model as being overly confrontational rather than therapeutic, focusing solely on changing the abuser's actions and attitudes rather than dealing with underlying emotional and psychological issues. Donald Dutton, a psychology professor at the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...
who has studied abusive personalities, states: "The Duluth Model was developed by people who didn't understand anything about therapy." Dutton also observes that "lesbian battering is more frequent than heterosexual battering". Philip W. Cook comments that in the case of homosexual domestic violence, the patriarchy is absent: there is no male dominance of women in same-sex relationships, and in fact female on female abuse is reported more than twice as frequently as male on male abuse. Furthermore, some critics argue that the model ignores the reality that women can be the perpetrators of domestic violence in heterosexual relationships. Its proponents counter that the Duluth model is effective and makes best use of scarce resources. Ellen Pence herself writes: The Duluth model is featured in the documentary '' Power and Control: Domestic Violence in America'' with commentary from its authors, as well as its main critics, such as Dutton.


See also

*
Abusive power and control Controlling behavior in relationships are behaviors exhibited by an individual who seeks to gain and maintain control over another person. Abusers may utilize tactics such as intimidation or coercion, and may seek personal gain, personal gratific ...
* Outline of domestic violence * Rape shield law *
Relationship counseling Couples therapy (also known as couples' counseling, marriage counseling, or marriage therapy) is a form of psychotherapy that seeks to improve intimate relationships, resolve interpersonal conflicts and repair broken bonds of love. History Marri ...
* Relationship education * Violence Against Women Act


References


Further reading

* *
review
by Walter S. DeKeseredy in ''Canadian Journal of Sociology Online'' November – December 2007

��A variation of the Duluth Power and Control Wheel


External links


Official Site

''Power and Control: Domestic Violence in America''
��a documentary film and web site focusing on the Duluth Model. Founders Ellen Pence and Michael Paymar are interviewed in the film, with excerpts and transcripts on the web http://www.theduluthmodel.org/training/wheels.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Duluth Model Domestic violence-related organizations in the United States Duluth, Minnesota Feminism and society Non-profit organizations based in Minnesota Psychological abuse