AUTHOR=Vieira-Pinto Paulo , Muñoz-Barús José Ignacio , Taveira-Gomes Tiago , Vidal-Alves Maria João , Magalhães Teresa 

TITLE=Suspension of Criminal Proceedings for Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Impact on Re-Entries

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.725081

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.725081

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Intimate partner violence (IPV) is one of the most prevalent crimes in our society, but the legal mechanisms to oppose it are recent. The Portuguese criminal justice system (CJS) has a response, the Provisional Suspension of Criminal Proceedings (PSCP) that proposes an integrated consensual solution with the involved parties, to reduce offender recidivism. This article examines the effect of PSCP on re-entries into the CJS.  We examined 1662 IPV police reports, exploring cases that underwent PSCP and re-entries of the same offender in the CJS. Results show that PSCP is applied in 17% of the cases. No variables tested moderated the relationship between PSCP and re-entry over 96 months following the first police report. The article also examined variables that might moderate the decision to request this legal mechanism among victims and defendants. From all determinants analyzed, with a possible relation to the PSCP implementation, the presence of social violence, victims, and defendants age emerged in the present study as significantly associated with this legal mechanism.