Duluth Modell

“The Duluth Model”:

Coordinated Community Response (CCR) to end Domestic Violence wins Future Policy Award 2014 for Best Policy Worldwide for innovative Policy Solutions for Ending Violence Against Women and Girls.

 
What is the Duluth Model?

The Duluth Model (CCR) is a criminal justice intervention model that prioritizes the safety and autonomy of survivors and holds perpetrators accountable through a community-wide coordinated response. It was developed to monitor compliance with legal changes as well as facilitate additional changes to address developing trends.

This concept involves a multidisciplinary approach, including a partnership between non-profit and government agencies, to ensure accountability for batterers and safety for battered women. Each disciplinary agency develops a role within this collaboration, providing a consistent response from law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and probation officers. A core aspect of the CCR is tracking the systems response to domestic violence cases and monitoring overall compliance with policies and procedures to identify the gaps in women’s safety and batterer accountability: When everyone from 911 operators to judges have a plan of agreement of how to appropriately respond, battered women and their children are safer and batterers are held accountable and given opportunities to change.
Duluth Model Website

A community using the Duluth Model approach:

(quote from website: theduluthmodel.org)

• Takes the blame off the victim and places the accountability for abuse on the offender.
• Shares policies and procedures for holding offenders accountable and keeps victims safe across all agencies in the criminal and civil justice systems from 911 to the courts.
• Prioritizes the voices and experiences of women who experience battering when creating these policies and procedures.
• Believes that battering is a pattern of actions used to intentionally control or dominate an intimate partner and actively works to change societal conditions that support men’s use of tactics of power and control over women.
• Offers offenders opportunities for change through court-ordered educational groups for batterers.
• Has ongoing discussions between criminal and civil justice agencies, community members and victims to close gaps and improve the community’s response to battering.

This approach to tackling violence against women has inspired violence protection law implementation and the creation of batterer intervention programs in the United States and around the world, including in countries such as Austria, Germany, the United Kingdom, Romania, and Australia.

 

What can you do as a community or city in Europe?

(quotations from website theduluthmodel.org adapted for Europe)

Everyone can take steps to end violence.
Here are some key ways to stop violence in your community:

Don’t ignore violence or tactics of power and control you see in your relationships, that of friends, family members or neighbours.
Download a copy of the Power and Control Wheel to help identify common tactics used and spot abuse as it happens.

Find out about resources and women's help services in your community for victims and offenders.
Does your community have a shelter for battered women, women's counselling, a helpline or a intervention center? Find out about the legislation in your country:

• Is there the possibillity for a barring order? 
• Who can support you? 
• Does your community have intervention programs for men who batter?

WAVE (women against violence Europe) offers a database on women's help services in 46 European countries. Here to find more about support services in your region: WAVE Country Report 2021

Promote alternatives to violence by using nonviolent and non-controlling speech and actions.
Download our Equality Wheel to consider your own actions and see a model for non-controlling relationships.

Help your community start a “coordinated community response” to domestic violence.
When everyone from emergency call operators (112) to judges, including NGOs, women's help services, child welfare offices, etc. have a plan of agreement of how to appropriately respond, battered women and their children are safer and batterers are held accountable and given opportunities to change.

Here it helps to identify what services already exist in your region, to then further identify all actors involved in a current intervention. Ask yourself the question: What would happen if you, your mother or daughter is affected by violence in your region? What is supportive and what not? Map the outcome.

Then you can ask: What should happen for interventions to be supportive? You can identify gaps to later develop strategies for closing those gaps.

Study Visits and Trainings can help in this process. Trainings are offered in Duluth, but also the WAVE office has a pool of trainers that offer training on “Multi-agency cooperation” in Europe. It has also published the manual "Bridging Gaps: From Good Intentions to Good Cooperations" a manual for effective multi-agency cooperation.