P.I.: Richard Dukes, Ph.D.,
CU-Springs Justice Studies Center
Final report complete, June 1999.
The “Shoebox” project is a qualitative study of offender behavior in domestic violence relationships through the analysis of documents written to the victim from the abuser. The analysis is taken from documents such as letters, cards, and drawings that a victim might keep in a personal “shoebox”. The research team analyzed the expression of love in 45 letters written to female victims by their male abusers
Information gathered from the sample was analyzed and coded for research. Comparisons were made between offender documents and two contrast samples. The first contrast sample was taken from Hallmark greeting cards that express love. The second contrast sample consisted of an examination of love as expressed in the Billboard magazine top 100 popular music hits from 1958-1998. These two contrast samples provide culturally approved expressions of love as compared to love expressed by offenders.
