By:  West                                              S.C.R. No. 3
                             SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
    1-1        WHEREAS, Victims of domestic violence recognize the need for
    1-2  a therapeutic approach to change the behavior of abusive partners,
    1-3  and many perpetrators of domestic violence are not provided an
    1-4  opportunity to modify their abusive behavior because of a lack of
    1-5  intervention programs in Texas; and
    1-6        WHEREAS, Studies of group programs for violent men ordered
    1-7  into treatment show recidivism rates as low as four percent, and
    1-8  other studies found that between two-thirds and three-fourths of
    1-9  men who completed voluntary programs remained nonviolent; and
   1-10        WHEREAS, In 1989, the 71st Legislature established the
   1-11  Battering Intervention and Prevention Project as part of the
   1-12  community justice assistance division of the Texas Department of
   1-13  Criminal Justice; the project, Texas' first direct involvement in
   1-14  domestic violence prevention through specialized programs to
   1-15  rehabilitate offenders, is a vital supplement to law enforcement
   1-16  and criminal justice systems in responding to domestic violence;
   1-17  and
   1-18        WHEREAS, Perpetrators of domestic violence must be identified
   1-19  before their behavior can be modified, and a study commissioned by
   1-20  the Texas Department of Human Services found that approximately
   1-21  600,000 women are abused in Texas every year while in 1993 there
   1-22  were only 155,767 reported incidents and only 2,254 perpetrators
   1-23  completed battering intervention and prevention program treatments;
    2-1  now, therefore, be it
    2-2        RESOLVED, That the 74th Legislature of the State of Texas
    2-3  hereby encourage the community justice assistance division of the
    2-4  Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Texas Council on
    2-5  Family Violence to issue a directive that local community
    2-6  supervision and correctional departments work with battering
    2-7  intervention and prevention programs to ensure that each community
    2-8  has a system for receiving referrals and reporting violations.