ORIGINAL ARTICLE Programs for Men who Perpetrate Domestic Violence: An Examination of the Issues Underlying the Effectiveness of Intervention Programs Andrew Day & Donna Chung & Patrick O’Leary & Ed Carson Published online: 31 January 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract This review paper seeks to explore some of the reasons why rehabilitation programs for male perpetrators of domestic violence appear to be less effective in reducing recidivism than programs for other offender groups. It is argued that while the model of systems response to domestic violence has predominated at the inter-agency level, further consideration might be given to way in which men’ s intervention groups are both designed and delivered. It is concluded that the program logic of men’ s domestic violence programs is rarely articulated leading to low levels of program integrity, and that one way to further improve program effectiveness is to incorporate some of the approaches evident in more general violence prevention programs and from what is know about good practice in general about offender rehabilitation. Keywords Domestic violence . Batterer ’ s programs . Program integrity . Offender rehabilitation Introduction Although it has been estimated that worldwide approxi- mately 8.7 million women are victimized by a current or former intimate partner each year (Roberts and Roberts 2005), it is perhaps only in relatively recent years that domestic violence has become widely accepted as a serious and widespread issue. In part this is attributable to the advocacy work of the women’ s movement which has, over the last 30 or more years, advocated strongly for society to better recognize and respond to domestic violence as a significant social problem. Considerable resources and efforts have been dedicated to the protection of women and child victims and, in recent years, attention has turned to the development and delivery of intervention programs which seek to reduce the risk of known offenders committing further offenses. Development of service responses has thus occurred in an environment that widely acknowledges domestic violence as a gendered issue where the vast majority of offenders are men. Responses to domestic violence have varied across both location and time. As a consequence, in relation to men’ s programs, there is currently a range of responses from those run by community based agencies where men attend voluntarily/not by an order of the court, through to programs for men who have been found guilty of a criminal offence related to domestic violence and are mandated to attend. Programs vary in terms of their stated purpose, disciplinary emphases, and core understandings of the nature of domestic violence. Those services and programs which are embedded within criminal justice responses and are commonly referred to as ‘integrated’ or ‘coordinated’ responses, whilst others are separated and are run relatively independently, for example, in relationship counseling or community health based services. J Fam Viol (2009) 24:203–212 DOI 10.1007/s10896-008-9221-4 P. O’Leary : E. Carson University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia P. O’Leary Bath University, Bath, UK D. Chung Warwick University, Coventry, UK A. Day (*) School of Psychology, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia e-mail: andrew.day@unisa.edu.au