The San Francisco Family Violence Project was begun in March 1980 to improve criminal justice response to domestic violence, to provide services to victims and their families, and to educate citizens about the potential lethality of such violence. Specifically, the project has established specialized services within the criminal justice system for battered women and their families; implemented new domestic violence procedures for operations within the police, probation, and prosecution offices; developed a counseling and education program for batterers; established services for battered women at San Francisco General Hospital; established ongoing domestic violence training programs for all police recruits, training officers, and advanced officers; and assisted the police in increasing the domestic violence arrest rate by 60 percent. Project findings have documented the serious threat to life and body posed by domestic violence and the persistence of the violent behavior of abusers. The resource materials available through the project include model police policies, domestic violence diversion and probation guidelines, domestic violence felony prosecution protocol, model police data collection mechanism, police training materials, and public education materials on domestic violence as crime.