evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

San Diego Family Justice Center — the Original One-Stop Model for Domestic-Violence Survivors

United States of America · San Diego · See the United States of America profile · See the San Diego profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 47% 67/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Opened in 2002, San Diego's Family Justice Center pioneered co-locating police, prosecutors, advocates and social services for domestic-violence survivors in one building; the model has since been replicated at 100+ US sites and centres in 20+ countries.

15
Centres replicated nationally (2004-2006 DOJ initiative) (2004-2006)
100+
Centres supported by the Family Justice Center Alliance
5
San Diego County domestic-violence homicides (2023)
San Diego Family Justice Center — the Original One-Stop Model for Domestic-Violence Survivors

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
City of San Diego / San Diego Family Justice Center
Period
2002–present
Keywords
domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, strangulation, victim services, multi-agency co-location

Context

The San Diego Family Justice Center opened in 2002 under then-City Attorney Casey Gwinn, co-locating police, prosecutors, civil legal aid, medical staff, shelter and social-service advocates in one building so survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse and strangulation could access services in one visit.

Results

The US DOJ's President's Family Justice Center Initiative (2004-2006) funded 15 further centres nationally on the San Diego blueprint, and the Family Justice Center Alliance has supported more than 100 centres across the US and centres in 20+ countries. San Diego County's domestic-violence homicides fell to a 30-year low of five deaths in 2023, a 50% year-on-year decline.

Conclusions

The National Institute of Justice's evaluability assessment of the national initiative found rigorous outcome evaluation had not yet been carried out consistently across sites; no published cost-efficiency analysis was found, and the county homicide decline is context, not a causal claim about the Center specifically.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
City Attorney's office, police and prosecutors, civil legal aid, medical staff, shelter and social-service advocates

Conditions for success

  • Consistent outcome-evaluation infrastructure across replicated sites

Common failure modes

  • NIJ found evaluation infrastructure still developing across the national initiative
  • No controlled study isolates the Center's own causal effect on safety/case outcomes

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful