‘Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend’: Towards a variety in programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence

Abstract

As the new probation services’ Integrated Domestic Abuse Programmes (IDAP) are being rolled out over the country, this article seeks to argue that we should retain a variety of approaches to domestic abuse perpetrators. This argument is based on a number of themes and is supported by case examples from a programme that until April 2005 has worked with both voluntary and mandated perpetrators in Cardiff. These themes can be summarized into: those that relate to the state of knowledge about such perpetrators; those that relate to the limits of a criminal justice approach to the problem of domestic violence; and lastly to the ability of programmes not placed in the criminal justice arena to more effectively engage perpetrators in change. The particular programme from which case examples are drawn is one which combines a systemic (Duluth) approach with a cognitive behavioural one but which also integrates therapeutic group work methods.