Women’s shelter loses funding for counseling men

Just wondering what folks thought of this:

For 10 years, New York state gave $42,000 a year to the Vera House battered women’s shelter to run a program for abusive men.
But state officials discovered the Syracuse agency had committed a serious breach of contract: It tried to change the bad guys. So for the last three years, the state cut off the money.
The state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence forbids any state-funded batterers programs from trying to rehabilitate abusers.

This is a hard one for me. I’m all for trusting the experts in the violence against women field, but any program that could be seen as encouraging women (even indirectly) to stay in abusive relationships because the abuser might change…ugh. Thoughts?