Abstract
In addition to being established by research to lead to serious health concerns and known as the ultimate form of power and control over victims, domestic assault by strangulation is also a precursor to future homicide by an intimate partner. For these reasons, further attention to domestic assault by strangulation is needed in order to better understand the scope of client services needed, due to its 1) association with criminal case recantation and 2) safety concerns due to being a predictor of future homicide. By using the Power and Control Wheel (Domestic Abuse Programs, n.d.) as a method to interpret and further understand the data, the researcher created a thirteen question survey distributed to professionals working in the field with victims of domestic violence. The qualitative survey was designed to address the two-part research question: 1) What causes a victim to recant or refuse case involvement in non-fatal domestic assault by strangulation cases and 2) What are some possible ways that a criminal conviction can be secured when warranted, in the context of strangulation, without putting undue pressure on the victim to testify? As a result of the survey data collected, eleven main themes emerged from participant responses. These survey findings were consistent with the findings of the literature review; however several key differences were noted.