“The support y’all give is truly needed. Not just for me but for all people. If more people checked in with each other maybe people wouldn’t be indulging in destruction… y’all allowed me to open up about the trauma I had. I didn’t even know it was affecting me. I always buried everything and held it.” — TI-APIP Participant
In a year defined by uncertainty, with a federal shutdown threatening essential survivor services and intimate partner violence on the rise, a new report offers something rare: evidence of hope and progress.
The Urban Institute’s independent evaluation of the Urban Resource Institute’s Trauma-Informed Abusive Partner Intervention Program (TI-APIP) highlights promising practices that could reshape how our nation responds to violence. Published on October 28, 2025, the study explores one of the most complex challenges of our time: how to hold people accountable for harm while helping them heal from their own trauma.
At its core, the report affirms what URI has long believed: healing and accountability are not opposites; they are both essential to prevention.
Breaking the Cycle at Its Roots
Every year, millions experience intimate partner violence (IPV). Yet most systems intervene only after harm occurs. For decades, many intervention programs focused almost entirely on punishment and behavior correction. URI’s trauma-informed approach asks a different question: what if the path to accountability must first go through healing?
Launched in partnership with the District Attorney of New York County (DANY) and the CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance (ISLG), TI-APIP merges accountability with compassion. Participants, most of whom are Black and Brown men charged with IPV-related offenses, engage in a 26-week curriculum on responsibility, conflict resolution, emotional regulation, and empathy.
“We know that trauma is often both the cause and the consequence of violence,” said Nathaniel M. Fields, President and CEO of URI. “If we want to end intimate partner violence, we must address the pain that drives it. Safety and accountability can, and must, coexist. This work asks people to confront the trauma they have buried, and that takes both courage and support.”
Promising Practices and Progress
The Urban Institute’s four-year evaluation followed 124 participants from 2019 through 2022, a period shaped by criminal justice reform and the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite those challenges, the outcomes were significant.
Participants were significantly less likely to be re-arrested within 12 months compared to a matched group of IPV offenders. No participant received a prison sentence within one year of completing the program. The majority showed growth in empathy, accountability, and communication skills, with more than 90 percent rejecting the idea that violence is ever necessary to “win an argument.” Nearly nine in ten participants had experienced trauma themselves, revealing a powerful link between past harm and future violence.
These results demonstrate that when accountability is rooted in empathy and people are given the tools to unlearn harm, meaningful change can occur. As Fields noted, “When we center humanity, we change outcomes. Participants in programs like TI-APIP are learning that violence does not make them strong, that vulnerability is not weakness, and that transformation is possible.”
The Urban Institute described TI-APIP as a promising practice in domestic violence prevention, a model that connects trauma awareness with behavioral accountability to help stop violence before it begins.
Healing Is Revolutionary
Participants described the program not as punishment but as a lifeline. Many said it was the first space where they could speak without judgment, reflect on their actions, and be treated as capable of growth.
“I didn’t even know it was affecting me,” one participant said. “I always buried everything and held it.”
For URI, this is the essence of its mission. Healing, even for those who have caused harm, is a revolutionary act. It is how communities break the cycles of violence that too often repeat across generations and systems.
“When we treat accountability as an extension of healing, we build safer communities,” Fields said. “This is not softness. It is strength, grounded in science and justice.”
From Intervention to Prevention
TI-APIP is one part of URI’s larger continuum of programs that advance both safety and prevention. This includes Respect + Responsibility (R+R) and the Relationship Abuse Prevention Program (RAPP), which reaches thousands of NYC youth each year with education on healthy communication, boundaries, and consent.
Together, these initiatives represent a full spectrum of services, from crisis intervention to long-term transformation, focused on survivors, families, and those who have caused harm.
Fields explained, “For too long, interventions have focused only on punishment. Programs like TI-APIP show that accountability rooted in compassion leads to better outcomes. It does not just change behavior; it changes lives.”
The Call Forward
As the federal shutdown continues to threaten survivor services, URI’s message is clear: this work cannot wait.
Promising practices like TI-APIP show that trauma-informed accountability can help prevent violence and save lives. Yet programs that address both survivors and those who cause harm remain chronically underfunded and often misunderstood.
“Every survivor deserves safety. Every person who causes harm deserves the chance to change,” Fields said. “We must invest in both if we want to end the cycle for good. Ending violence requires courage on all sides. It means seeing the full humanity of everyone involved and believing that both healing and change are possible.”
The groundbreaking report does more than evaluate outcomes; it points the way forward. It highlights a promising practice that reimagines justice through compassion, evidence, and accountability.
That is what it means to heal, rise, and shine.
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