Seattle Police car image courtesy of Flickr user Seattleye and used under a Creative Commons license.

What are Second Responder Programs?

Second responder programs for domestic and family violence victims involve follow-up efforts with domestic violence victims (and sometimes offenders). Programs often include a home visit by teams of police officers and victim advocates and/or service providers to provide information on services and legal options. The goal of such programs is to reduce subsequent violence by better informing victims of their options and opportunities to leave abusive relationships and receive social services.

Victims ideally better understand legal options (e.g. restraining orders) as a result of the intervention. Victims are also supposed to develop a safety plan in the event of another attack, which may include relocating to a shelter or other safe place. The program is also designed to increase victims’ level of independence by providing services such as job training and counseling

What is the Evidence on Second Responder Programs?

Second responder programs are listed under “What doesn’t work?” on our Review of the Research Evidence.

A Campbell review of second responder programs by Davis and colleagues (2008) suggests second responder programs are not effective in reducing violence. The programs do, on average, lead to a slight increase in reporting abuse to the police, but there is no evidence such programs reduce violent incidents and thus such programs do not seem to have any beneficial impact on crime and disorder. As Davis et al. (2008: 17) note “An increase in calls to the police can be interpreted in one of two ways: Either victims are experiencing more abuse as a result of the intervention, or the intervention has increased confidence in the police.” Victim self-reports indicate no significant reduction in abuse as a result of the programs. It is difficult to determine exactly what the increase in calls for service means, but the results overall are not very positive for second responder programs.

One study (Hovell et al., 2006) found significant backfire effects from a second responders program. Domestic violence victims that received a visit by the Family Violence Response Team were 1.7 times more likely to be re-abused than a comparison group that received no special services.

Welsh and Rocque (2014) examined harmful effects in criminal justice interventions.  They note that among the 15 outcomes measured in the 10 second responder studies in the Davis et al. (2008) systematic review, only 1 was in a desirable direction, 12 suggested no impact of hte program, and 2 suggested significant evidence of undesirable effects.