Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP) — The Original Duluth Model for Domestic-Violence Perpetrators

Founded in 1981 in Duluth, Minnesota, the Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP) created what became known worldwide as the 'Duluth Model': a coordinated-community-response approach that combines police, courts, probation and social services with a psychoeducational group programme for men who have used violence against a partner, built around the 'Power and Control Wheel' framework of structural gender inequality.
The US Department of Justice's CrimeSolutions registry rates Duluth-model programming 'Effective' for reducing violent-offense recidivism (d=0.19) and 'Promising' for reducing victim-reported abuse (d=0.35), based on a meta-analysis of 22 studies covering 5,536 participants. However, a separate peer-reviewed meta-analysis of 29 effect sizes (Arias, Arce & Vilariño, 2013, Psychosocial Intervention) found no statistically significant reduction in recidivism attributable to the model — a genuinely mixed evidence picture that the programme's own literature acknowledges.
Despite this contested effectiveness record, the Duluth curriculum has been the most widely replicated perpetrator-programme template in the world for over four decades, directly informing programmes such as Norway's Alternativ til Vold and dozens of national adaptations, and DAIP itself continues to operate today.

Read the full analysis: https://www.theduluthmodel.org/