Violent men in Britain are to be sent to American-style classes in how to treat women, under a nationwide program to reduce domestic violence.
The training will challenge male stereotypes of nagging wives or a woman's proper role in the home, and teach alternatives to "coercive, dominating, violent behavior."
It will aim to prevent abusive men from attacking future partners, or returning to take revenge on former wives. Past victims will be interviewed and offered advice on protecting themselves and their children.
Until now, much of the sporadic help offered to men who hit their partners but want to change their ways has been provided by charities with little cash. But it remains controversial, with many women's groups not convinced that it works.
The first nationwide approved program, to be introduced in April, is based on one developed in Duluth, Minnesota. Men will have weekly sessions for up to 10 months, organized by their probation officers, on everything from "sexual respect" to how violence affects children and why the victim cannot be blamed for an assault.
"It's about not making excuses for choices you make and for behaving in an unacceptable way," said Nicola Harwin of the charity Women's Aid, who is trained in the method used in Duluth and sat on the working group advising on the UK scheme.
"It's not the fact that she is on at you to do the housework, or hasn't prepared your food the way you like it -- it's about men being responsible for their own use of violence. It also challenges beliefs about women and what is their role," she said.
A government spokeswoman said the classes for offenders were "seeking to protect future victims of domestic violence as well as the current known victims."
The results of pilot schemes in northern England and London had been "encouraging," but the government says it is too early to draw firm conclusions about reconviction rates.
The Duluth program -- invol-ving not just classes but changes to the criminal justice system -- was credited with cutting deaths from domestic violence in some American cities, but Harwin says spouses who stayed with their partners hoping the program would change them were often disappointed.
The project's founders estimated that fewer than half of the men stopped physically attacking their partners, and of those "very very few had stopped being psychologically abusive," Harwin said.
"Many of the women said, `When he was on the program I wish I had taken that time to leave him.' They would say their partner had stopped hitting them, but `still my life is hell.'
"What we have to be very, very clear about to women is that there is no guarantee it will make him change, and no guarantee it will protect your safety -- we need to be realistic," Harwin said.
Studies of existing programs for men in Britain suggest up to half of them drop out in the first few weeks. However, anyone deserting the new scheme will face sanctions because it will be linked to probation orders or the supervision of people released from prison.
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