Abstract Objective: The purpose of this project is to present an annotated bibliography on select articles focusing on the ineffectiveness of batterer intervention programs are not effective in changing the attitudes and behaviors of the batterers. Methodology: We used the EBSCO and JSTOR databases to search for the articles included in the project. The keywords used for searching the articles were "Batterer Intervention Programs", and the focus was on original research only, which excluded review, editorials, and book reviews. Results: We found out that current batterer intervention programs are not effective in altering the attitude of the batterer and there is need to have alternative programs. The programs mostly have high attrition rates and most individuals will not complete the programs, making them less effective. Conclusion: Incorporating other methodologies into the batterer intervention program like neuroscience would be beneficial to the program. Having motivators for the batterers could also assist in reducing the relapse rate.

The Effectiveness of Batterer Intervention Programs

Research has shown that at least 85 percent of all domestic violence victims are women and about 1.5 million women located in the United states do experience sexual or physical violence from a current intimate partner each year. Almost half of the female victims do sustain an injury at one point in the course of the abuse. It has been shown that 41 percent of the victims will require medical care as a result of the physical assault from their partners. There are also long-term effects associated with domestic violence like gastrointestinal disorders, adverse pregnancy outcomes, increased number of unintended pregnancies, decreased control over contraception, and chronic pelvic pain. There have been massive efforts and expenditure in the country going into offering services and support for domestic violence. However, there has been a lag in focusing on the domestic violence batterers-individuals who cause the problem- in the areas of prevention and intervention.

A quick search of the EBSCO database in 2017 indicates that there are about 5602 articles on the topic of domestic violence, but only 947 articles on domestic violence batterers. The lack of enough research and focus on batterers has resulted in little being known about the quality of a good batterer intervention program. However, even with this little information, there are formal care studies that have been developed and they have been implemented across the country in numerous states. The lack of information on what would constitute an effective program has not hindered the implementation and different standards have been implemented in different states.

Batterer intervention programs are not effective in changing the attitudes of the batterers and they have minor effects on behavior changes. There have been various studies that have shown many of the batterers will relapse even after undergoing the 24 weeks programs as mandated by the courts. This means that in as much as batterers are forced to undergo the batterer intervention program, most of them will either not complete the program or those who complete are highly likely to relapse. Therefore, the programs are not effective in modifying the attitudes of the batterers and there is need to reevaluate them and establish how they can be more effective. Going through this paper one will be able to see the different interventions implemented for batterers and how effective they have been. The reader will also gain a clear understanding of why the programs are not effective.

All the articles had to be recently published with a cutoff being made for articles published prior to 2012. This ensured that we were analyzing articles that are recent and that were researching recent development in the batterer intervention programs. Using older articles could also be effective, but since there was enough research to support our thesis from these recent articles we opted to only use articles not older than five years. All the articles included in the annotated bibliography were empirical studies reporting original research. This allowed us to better understand how the research was carried out and identified how effective the specific methodology for intervention employed worked. We excluded all articles that had words like review and or meta-analytic review. This is because articles that had these terminologies in their titles indicate that they were reviewing a particular research article or different research articles, which would not allow us to have full information regarding our current topic.
Annotation Format

This is a descriptive, evaluative annotated bibliography, where the annotations are organized based on their relevance to our thesis that batterer intervention programs are not effective in changing batterers attitudes and behavior. For each annotation, a complete citation of the article is provided followed by a descriptive evaluation of the article. This allows the reader to better understand what the article is researching and the outcomes of the research. Also, the relevance of the article to our topic will be pointed out. The annotations will briefly indicate the findings of the study, and their relation to our thesis and the other articles reviewed. We will also point out any limitations that the authors or researchers have noted in their studies.

Results

Buttell, F. P., Powers, D., & Wong, A. (2012). Evaluating predictors of program attrition among women mandated into batterer intervention treatment. Research on Social Work Practice, 22(1), 20-28

The purpose of this study was to establish the differences between women who complete and those who drop out of a 26-week batterer intervention program (Buttell, Powers, & Wong, 2012). The study used a nonequivalent control group design. The researchers established that there are psychosocial risk factors associated with increased program attrition in women and men batterers. This risk is the reason why many people do not complete the programs and this renders the program non-effective. Even when the attendance of the program has been court mandated, the levels of drop out are still high. The researchers were faced with a limitation in that they could only focus on the batterers who had been sent into the program and they could not follow-up on the individuals once they dropped out. This is an article published in 2012, making it a recent and we are using it because it demonstrates the recent developments on the topic of batterer intervention programs. The article was published in the Research on Social Work Practice published by Sage Publications, which is a social work journal that focuses on evaluation research, especially in social work practices. The journal is intended for social workers and professionals in the field of social work. The relevance of the article is that clearly demonstrates that the batterer intervention programs are not effective as it is expected and that there are high levels of attrition amongst…