Batterers' Intervention Program (BIP) in Chattanooga, TN

The Duluth Model provides communities with an approach to responding to domestic violence - a process that places the needs of victims at the center of a community's response. This process utilizes a consistent set of principles and a shared understanding of battering in each intervention. The Duluth Model focuses on men who commit domestic violence and female victims. Its theory is based on an understanding of male power, control, and dominance as culturally and historically pervasive and which allowed, if not encouraged, men to control women, sometimes using violence. 

The Duluth Model utilizes the "Power and Control Wheel." The Power and Control Wheel can be a helpful tool to help understand the experience of women who live with men that use violence. This wheel is characterized by a pattern of actions that a person uses to control or dominate his intimate partner.

The Duluth Model or Domestic Abuse Intervention Project was created by feminist Ellen Pence. This model was named after Duluth, MN, where it was developed.

By applying all components of the Duluth Model, research has shown that more than half of offenders that move through Duluth's criminal justice system and men's nonviolence classes will not resurface in the system after eight years.