The impetus for this book was the increasing dissatisfaction among a diverse group of researchers, academicians, advocates, and service providers with the standards that States across the country have adopted for the management and treatment of domestic violence offenders. Some articles in this book profile both conventional and unconventional treatment strategies and techniques for perpetrators of domestic violence. Efforts to develop standards for treatment are assessed, with articles providing arguments both for and against the creation and use of standards at this stage of knowledge in the field. Based on previous articles, this article concludes that what is needed is not a set of model standards, but rather a set of guidelines for the process of developing standards. Recommendations are offered for individuals, committees, and legislative bodies charged with writing or revising standards. The authors advise that the identification of specific strategies as dangerous or unethical in the absence of supporting evidence is inappropriate; that evidence for any specific treatment length is lacking; that standards must not preclude the conduct of research; that batterer treatment subsumes a diverse set of interventions and service providers; that standards for providers should specify the education and training requirements for practice rather than the specifics of the practice itself; that batterers' intervention is a work in progress; and that standards should include some requirement for outcome evaluation. Overall, the authors advise that if batterer treatment standards are developed and used, they must be practical, reasonable, empirically informed, and flexible. 13 references