Family Violence Council’s Domestic Violence Abuser Research Collaborative

One challenge to assessing what research tells us about the effectiveness of AIPs is the lack of consistent definitions for key terms such as abuse, as well as agreement as to what constitutes a successful outcome or effectiveness. For example, one study may consider only physical trauma injuries, while another study may look at other abusive behaviors including one or more of the following: threats of bodily harm, aggressive and coercive sexual behaviors, and a range of controlling and emotionally abusive behaviors such as the destruction of personal property, verbal intimidation, efforts to limit the victim’s activities and social contacts, and denigrating or humiliating acts.