This conference is part of a National Science Foundation Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) project on the "Dynamics of Space and Time Use: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences for Crime and Problem Behaviors." The general aim of the conference is to help advance innovative research on space-time dynamics and human behavior. In line with this goal, the conference brings together top scholars from a variety of disciplines who are involved in research on the measurement, patterns, and/or consequences of space-time use for human problem and other behaviors. By allowing for intellectual exchange of ideas and approaches among a set of top-notch scholars who cross disciplinary boundaries, the conference seeks to spread ideas across a wide array of scholarly communities, thereby broadly impacting methods and substantive findings regarding the spatially and temporally embedded dynamics of human behavior. The presenters include: Vincent David (Visiting Fellow, Northwestern University); Barbara Entwisle(Kenan Professor of Sociology and Director of the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina); Michael F. Goodchild (Professor of Geography and Director of the Center for Spatial Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara); Richard Grannis (Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles); Stephen A. Matthews (Associate Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Demography, Faculty Director of Geographic Information Analysis Core, and Senior Research Associate in the Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University); Talia McCray (Assistant Professor of Community and Regional Planning, University of Texas); as well as Ohio State University’s own: Christopher Browning (Associate Professor of Sociology); Catherine Calder (Associate Professor of Statistics); Rachel Dwyer (Assistant Professor of Sociology); Lauren J. Krivo (Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Criminal Justice Research Center); Mei-Po Kwan (distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Science and Professor of Geography); and Liana Sayer (Associate professor of Sociology).

Prosecutors struggle with high levels of victim recantation in domestic violence cases. For years prosecutors and advocates believed that victims recanted because perpetrators overtly threatened and coerced them. However, this perspective offers an incomplete picture because it neglects other complex interpersonal dynamics influencing the victim's decision-making process. We use concepts from family systems and attachment theories to re-conceptualize recantation a complicated bi-directional, interpersonal process grounded in the intimacy needs of both partners. Specifically, recantation serves to alleviate both the victim and perpetrator's fears of being without each other, and also ensures that the victim and perpetrator will have future opportunities for working out their intimacy needs - even if working out these needs involves violence to do so. Significantly, this approach to recantation need not oppose the dominant approach, which prioritizes the coercive influence of the perpetrator but may, in fact, help to further explain that influence by situating it within a more comprehensive and complex interpersonal dynamic. Transcripts of telephone conversations of couples taped over the length of the perpetrator's jail stay at the King County Detention Facility in Seattle, Washington will be used to illustrate this re-conceptualization of recantation.