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The Duluth Model or Domestic Abuse Intervention Project was developed by Minnesota Program Development, Inc., a nonprofit agency in Duluth, Minnesota.
They hold that "women and children, and some men are vulnerable to violence because of their unequal social, economic, and political status in society".
In 1981, the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project was the first multi-disciplinary program designed to address the issue of domestic violence. This experiment, conducted in Duluth, involved coordinating the actions of a variety of agencies that deal with domestic situations. The policies and activities of diverse elements of the system, from police officers on the street, to shelters for battered women and probation officers supervising offenders, were coordinated with each other. This program has become a model for other jurisdictions seeking to deal more effectively with domestic violence. More and more jurisdictions are requiring that suspects in domestic violence incidents be arrested if there is probable cause to believe that an assault occurred. Victim advocates intervene directly with victims by providing them with counseling about the court process, how to obtain and use restraining orders and how to formulate and implement safety plans. Corrections/probation agencies in many areas supervise domestic violence offenders more closely, and pay attention to the victim's needs and safety issues.
It should be noted, however, that the Duluth framework depends on a strict "patriarchal violence" model and presumes that all violence in the home and elsewhere has a male perpetrator and female victim. It explicitly rejects any concept of mutuality or symmetry in abusive relationships.
Criticism
The exclusive focus on men as perpetrators and the rejection of system dynamics models has been criticized from perspectives influenced by psychology, education or remedial therapy. The fields of psychology, psychiatry, and social work all provide for application of skill learning, improved social understanding and practiced behavioral mastery to provide for corrected and alternative behaviors. By contrast, the Duluth Model presents only "once an abuser, always an abuser" constructions to this important social problem. However, the inconvenient fact, as reported by FBI crime statistics, is that 65 to 70% of all child (abuse-related) deaths occur at the hands of their mothers or female caretakers.citation needed This very broad and clear example of female initiated violence clearly moderates exclusively "anti-patriarchal" models of interpersonal violence.
More states are now recording abuse statistics regarding the marital state of both the perpetrator and the victim. In all jurisdictions with reports available, the rate of interpersonal violence for co-habiting couples exceeds that of married couples by a margin of ten to one.
The Duluth program is widely used but clear evidence of success is limited. This is problematic for its widespread incorporation into American family courts, where the Duluth Power and Control Wheel, sometimes in combination with unscientific dogma is employed to deny equal protection of the law. One such example is Thurston County Washington, where the Duluth Power and Control Wheel is regularly handed out to litigants by the Family Court and relied upon by the Judges as a basis for their rulings. Significantly, this policy coincided with the blatant display of offensive anti-male propaganda, which has only recently been removed after a media scandal.
See also
External links
- Minnesota Program Development, Inc.
- Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project
- Muslim Wheel of Domestic Violence a variation of the Duluth Power and Control Wheel
