Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

As public recognition of domestic violence (DV) and sexual assault (SA) has reached increasing heights, there has been an outcry for more effective prevention programs. This outcry is based on an understanding of the widespread nature of this problem and the incredible costs to victims and society as a whole. This document summarizes the development of prevention initiatives in these two related areas. However, we caution that DV and SA prevention initiatives and evaluation research on them are in their infancy. Therefore, this review points out trends and promising developments rather than definitive directions in the field. Although the research has many shortcomings it leads to important suggestions for prevention strategies.