Criminal Charges, Risk Assessment, and Violent Recidivism in Cases of Domestic Abuse

72 Pages Posted: 25 Jan 2023

See all articles by Dan Black

Dan Black

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy

Jeffrey Grogger

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Tom Kirchmaier

London School of Economics - Centre for Economic Performance

Koen Sanders

Center for the Protection of Human Rights (CPHR) - LSE

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: January 24, 2023

Abstract

Domestic abuse is a pervasive global problem. Here we analyze two approaches to reducing violent DA recidivism. One involves charging the perpetrator with a crime; the other provides protective services to the victim on the basis of a formal risk assessment carried out by the police. We use detailed administrative data to estimate the average effect of treatment on the treated using inverse propensity-score weighting (IPW). We then make use of causal forests to study heterogeneity in the estimated treatment effects. We find that pressing charges substantially reduces the likelihood of violent recidivism. The analysis also reveals substantial heterogeneity in the effect of pressing charges. In contrast, the risk-assessment process has no discernible effect.

Keywords: Domestic abuse, charges, risk assessment, propensity score weighting

Suggested Citation

Black, Dan and Grogger, Jeffrey T. and Kirchmaier, Tom and Sanders, Koen, Criminal Charges, Risk Assessment, and Violent Recidivism in Cases of Domestic Abuse (January 24, 2023). University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper No. 2023-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4336508 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4336508

Dan Black

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy ( email )

1155 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

Jeffrey T. Grogger (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Harris School of Public Policy ( email )

1155 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Tom Kirchmaier

London School of Economics - Centre for Economic Performance ( email )

Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom
+44 207 955 6854 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/site/tomkirchmaier/home

Koen Sanders

Center for the Protection of Human Rights (CPHR) - LSE

Oktobrova 65, 08001 Presov
Bratislava
Slovakia

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