“Meet me at the hill where we used to park”: Interpersonal processes associated with victim recantation Amy E. Bonomi a, * , Rashmi Gangamma a , Chris R. Locke b , Heather Katafiasz a , David Martin c a The Ohio State University, United States b Auburn University, United States c King County Prosecuting Attorney, United States article info Article history: Available online xxx Keywords: USA Domestic violence Intimate partner violence Decisions Gender Mental health abstract Our study used live telephone conversations between domestic violence perpetrators and victims to answer novel questions about how and why victims arrive at their decision to recant and/or refuse prosecution efforts. From October 2008 to June 2011, we conducted a qualitative study involving 25 heterosexual couples, where the male perpetrator was being held in a Detention Facility (in the U.S.) for felony-level domestic violence and made telephone calls to his female victim during the pre-prosecution period. We used 30e192 min of conversational data for each couple to examine: 1) interpersonal processes associated with the victim’s intention to recant; and 2) the couple’s construction of the recantation plan once the victim intended to recant. We used constructivist grounded theory to guide data analysis, which allowed for the construction of a novel recantation framework, while acknowl- edging the underlying coercive interpersonal dynamic. Our results showed that consistently across couples, a victim’s recantation intention was foremost influenced by the perpetrator’s appeals to the victim’s sympathy through descriptions of his suffering from mental and physical problems, intolerable jail conditions, and life without her. The intention was solidified by the perpetrator’s minimization of the abuse, and the couple invoking images of life without each other. Once the victim arrived at her decision to recant, the couple constructed the recantation plan by redefining the abuse event to protect the perpetrator, blaming the State for the couple’s separation, and exchanging specific instructions on what should be said or done. Our findings advance scientific knowledge through identifying, in the context of ongoing interactions, strategies perpetrators useddsympathy appeals and minimizationdto successfully persuade their victim and strategies the couple used to preserve their relationship.Practitioners must double their efforts to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions, and efforts made to link victims to trusted advocates who can help them defend against perpetrators’ sophisticated techniques. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction In the United States, twenty-five percent of women across nationally representative samples experience domestic violence in their lifetime (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), with many enlisting the support of police to stop abuse (Brookoff, O’Brien, Cook, Thompson, & Williams, 1997; Durose et al., 2005; Houry et al., 2004). For cases that reach the court system, a high proportion of victims recant and/or refuse prosecution efforts (Berliner, 2003; Camacho & Alarid, 2008; Dutton, Goodman, & Bennett, 1999; Goodman, Bennett, & Dutton, 1999; Hare, 2006; Rogers, 1998). While rigorous research studies describing the percentage of victims who recant are lacking, reports suggest that as many as 80 percent of victims recant (Meier, 2006). Prosecutors and advocates have known for many years that witness tampering is a significant problem in domestic violence cases, and that victims recant and/or refuse prosecution due, in part, to perpetrators’ threats of retaliation (Bennett, Goodman, & Dutton, 1999; Ellison, 2002; Hart, 1993; Meier, 2006). As recog- nized by the U.S. Supreme Court, “This particular type of crime is notoriously susceptible to intimidation or coercion of the victim to ensure she does not testify at trial” (Davis v. Washington, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L Ed.2d 224, 2006). Research using victim reports or case files indeed partially links victim recantation to threats and fear of * Corresponding author. The Ohio State University, Human Development and Family Science, 1787 Neil Avenue, 151 Campbell Hall, Columbus, Ohio 43210, United States. Tel.: þ1 614 292 4753. E-mail address: bonomi.1@osu.edu (A.E. Bonomi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Social Science & Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/socscimed 0277-9536/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.07.005 Social Science & Medicine xxx (2011) 1e8 Please cite this article in press as: Bonomi, A. E., et al., “Meet me at the hill where we used to park”: Interpersonal processes associated with victim recantation, Social Science & Medicine (2011), doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.07.005