Re-education or recovery? Re-thinking some aspects of domestic violence perpetrator programmes

There has been a substantial development of domestic violence perpetrator programmes within the probation service in recent years. Pressures to ensure that approaches are ‘evidence-based' and thereafter formally ‘accredited' have led to the proliferation of somewhat standardized models of intervention in both probation, and increasingly, in the voluntary sector. This does not fit either with the experience of practitioners nor from emerging research in this field. This article suggests that too much might be expected from current interventions. Consideration is then given to what individualized approaches might require in this context and specifically examines how desistance-focused approaches might apply with this type of ‘offender'