Prevention and Intervention of Violence
There are a number of ways to define and characterize prevention and intervention. This report uses one that best identifies the kinds of responses society can take and the research that can inform those responses. First, however, it notes several other classifications.
The public health perspective classifies ”interventions” into primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. The goal of primary prevention is to decrease the number of new cases of a disorder or illness. The goal of secondary prevention is to lower the prevalence of a disorder or illness in the population. The goal of tertiary prevention is to decrease the amount of disability associated with the disorder or illness. Although these three categories seem conceptually distinct, in practice there is disagreement over their use (Institute of Medicine, 1994). Another classification is Gordon’s (1983, 1987) proposal for universal, selected, and indicated preventive measures. Universal preventive measures are desirable for everyone in a population; selected preventive measures are desirable for those in the population with an above average risk of acquiring a disorder; and indicated preventive measures are desirable for individuals who are identified as being at high risk for the development of a disorder. Because of frequent confusion over the meaning of the public health classifications, the Institute of Medicine (1994) recommended the use of a combination of it and Gordon’s: preventive interventions, broken into three categories modeled after Gordon’s; treatment intervention, which includes identification and standard treatments; and maintenance intervention, which aims at reducing relapse and recurrence and promoting rehabilitation.
This report adopts the Institute of Medicine’s (1994) use of preventive interventions, but considers treatment and maintenance interventions together under the rubric of treatment interventions. Treatment interventions are separated into individual and community-level interventions: individual treatment interventions are those, such as counseling, that are targeted at the individual; community-level interventions represent more system-oriented interventions, such as criminal justice reforms, rape crisis centers, and battered women shelters. Following this classification, the chapter first discusses preventive interventions. Second, it considers treatment interventions, both the services available to women victims of violence and those, including criminal justice interventions, for offenders.
