family violence essay examples

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Family violence Essay

Until recently, the family setting was a safe haven for people and crime only happened in the streets. However, this reality has been distorted by the rising crimes that occur in homes among family members (Pagelow & Pagelow, 1984). The family law action and the family violence refer to the aspects of family violence ant the courts role in dealing with violators of this law. This is a bid to protect the innocence of the children. The family law act 1975 section (60 b) stipulates underlying principles that promote their interests. It “protects children from physical and psychological harm, from being subjected to or exposed to abuse, neglect or family violence”.

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According to Barnet et al. (2011), family violence refers to violence between family member’s i.e. husbands, wives, children and parents. The APA dictionary of psychology defines domestic violence as “any action by a person that causes physical harm to one or more members of his or her family unit” (p.23).Family violence can be learned through cultural values which are repeatedly communicated through media and institutions that tolerate it. Alcohol and drug abuse could be another force of family violence. According to Halter & Varcarolis (2014), alcohol and drugs cloud one’s judgment (p. 540). However; alcohol could be used as a scapegoat to avoid arrests and punishment when caught in the act. Anger is another force that could cause people to be entrapped in family violence. Lack of skills to handle anger and stress may cause overwhelming problems for both victim and perpetrator as forms of communications may have broken down (p.11). Psychological conditions such as bipolar may contribute to cases of violence. Such conditions should be treated and people informed of the condition in case of an attack.

In all different cases discussed above aggression stands out as perpetrators of violence use this tool to overpower their victims. It is also important for afflicted families and individuals to come out and seek the protection of the law and access counseling services.

Physical child abuse

The children’s act 38 of 2005 gives clear outlines children’s rights and parents responsibilities towards children. The law has provisions of protection against physical child abuse. Many facets have been associated with child abuse. These include individual pathology, parent –child interaction, past abuse in the family and situational factors. (Bryant, 2011) discusses different theories of physical abuse according to Crosson-Tower (2008) which are linked to the children’s act of 2005.

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The pathology theory focuses on the idea that abusers have personality or biology makeup issues. The issues may include anger control problems, low tolerance for frustrations, rigidity or being disorganized. Such instances point to parent’s failure to manage their lives, therefore, intruding into their children’s lives. Such parents may not be in a position to empathize with their children and expose them to ridicule and physical punishment. Parent child relationship theory explains the types of parents who are prone to abuse their children and children likely to be abused. So parents concentrate on children’s the wrong instead of achievements and offer no praise. In this theory, the child may assume the responsibility of the care giver .The less skilled parent has a negative perception of the child and sees nothing in them.

Social learning or past abuse theory concentrates not only on what children learn or experience but also what they do not learn as a result of the experiences. The abusive parents become role models. Such children believe that violence is acceptable as a method of child rearing and discipline, (Crosson-Tower, 2008). It is crucial to note that not all children in abusive homes become abusive in their later years. Those who break the cycle maintain a healthy relation with those that supported them emotionally while growing up.

Child sexual abuse

Every society has established rules that govern mating or sexual intercourse. The prohibition to mate with certain relatives is known as an incest taboo. The most universal form of an incest taboo involves mating between members of the nuclear family. The protection of children from sexual offenses Act, 2012 is a comprehensive law provided to protect children from all forms of violence by incorporating friendly mechanisms to report, record, and investigate and trial of offences through special courts.

The inbreeding theory explains the existence of the incest taboo focuses on and the potential harm it causes to the family. The theory was proposed before the introduction genetics which holds that mating between family members may produce children with genetic defects. Evidence to support this information is lacking. Outbreeding which is practiced by human populations has positive benefits such as an increase in genetic variation, improved health and lower rates of mortality. This is because the inbreeding theory elicits different views among the legislatures. The theory focuses on the biological consequences of incest (Ferraro & Andreatta, 2010).

The family disruption theory associated to Bronislaw Malinowski, 1927 holds that mating between mother and son, brother and sister, father and daughter will lead to jealousy and disrupt the family’s ability to function as a unit. For example if this kind of arrangements would be allowed, it would unhealthy competition for sexual satisfaction leading to conflict. This theory originated to repress sexual urges within the nuclear family. This also would cause the problem of the role ambiguity within a family setting. The theory holds that there is more to be gained when one marries from another group. Marrying from different families strengthens social ties. This theory endeavors to create a wider social network of inter family alliances (Ferraro & Andreatta, 2010).

Characteristics of a spousal abuser

The family act of 1975 shields victims of violence from violent actions by abusers. In this case, we will discuss the spousal abusers. The perpetrators have low self-esteem and build dependency on women perceived as ‘winner’ and gain satisfaction through their partner’s accomplishments. When they lose control they dominate and feel superior to their women. In such scenarios, the abuser is comfortable in isolation and may have difficulties in building and maintaining close and personal ties within the family and outside.

The perpetrators are also traditional in that they believe in the patriarchal system, male supremacy and stereotyped the masculinity. They have authoritarian styles of leadership in the family and esteem persons of higher authority. They are very moody and may pose as loving husbands, mothers and sometimes with no apparent reasons revert to anger. This is sometimes referred to as dual personalities where a victim’s mood suddenly changes. In this state, they are unable to express their feelings. They are often unemployed, underemployed or are dissatisfied with their jobs. They may also be very unproductive and unorganized when executing their work. This causes problems in the work place as they pass off as unreliable and demotivated in their duties (Pagelow & Pagelow, 1984).

Abusers lack assertiveness which results to aggression to get what they want. They lack a sense of direction which makes it difficult for people to get reach them. In some instances the aggressor may result to absconding all his duties due to the belief of being inefficient and unproductive. The aggressors shift to alcohol and are highly dependent. Alcohol helps the aggressor to escape from troubles. If the aggressor was socialized or brought up where alcohol consumption was associated with drunken behavior (Pagelow & Pagelow, 1984).

Criminal justice response to partner violence

Historically, the criminal justice failed to adequately respond to domestic violence acts within homes. To rectify this situation pro arrest policies were initiated by law enforcement agencies due to activism by feminist groups reacting to police inaction. The changes made in the 1980’s focused on the impact of pro arrest when dealing with battered women. The crime of intimate violence then was largely viewed as a private issue rather than a social problem as legal and social institutions preferred the hands-off-approach (Schmidt, & Sherman 1996).

The Minneapolis domestic violence that sort to evaluate the effectiveness of police responses was implemented in 1981-1982 by Lawrence Sherman who was director of the police foundation. The design called the police to randomly select three categories of offenders who would face arrest, forced separation from their spouse and forced counseling. The findings for this response bent towards arrest as the more effective response. Those that faced arrest had lower rates of committing the offence again as opposed to those who went through counseling or spouses separated from them (Sherman &Cohn, 1989).

Sherman & Cohn (1989) hold that the subsequent experiments commissioned by the institute of justice were required to address domestic violence incidents that drew police attention. They were also to use see repeat offenders determine the extent and use arrests as one of the treatments. The results from these tests showed variation as no one state recorded similar results as Minneapolis. The different results recorded were as a result of sites studied, the alternative treatments that were compared to arrests and many more factors. The sites studied include Nebraska, charlotte, Wisconsin, Miami-Dade county, Colorado among others (p.117-144).

Barnett, O. W., Miller-Perrin, C. L., & Perrin, R. D. (2011). Family violence across the lifespan: An introduction. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Bryant, C. D. (2011). The Routledge handbook of deviant behaviour. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Crosson-Tower, C. (2008). Understanding child abuse and neglect. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Ferraro, G. P., & Andreatta, S. (2010).Cultural anthropology: an applied perspective (8th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Halter, M. J., & Varcarolis, E. M. (2014). Varcarolis’ foundations of psychiatric mental health

nursing: A clinical approach. St. Louis, Mo: Elsevier.

Pagelow, M. D., & Pagelow, L. W. (1984). Family violence. New York: Praeger.

Schmidt, J. D., & Sherman, L. W. (1996). Does arrest deter domestic violence. Do arrests and restraining orders work, 43.

Sherman, L. W., & Cohn, E. G. (1989). The impact of research on legal policy: The Minneapolis domestic violence experiment. Law and Society Review, 117-144.

The Family Law Act and family violence. (n.d.). The Family Law Act and family violence.

Retrieved April 22, 2014, from http://www.familylawcourts.gov.au/wps/w

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Family Violence in History and Nowadays Essay

Interests in learning about family violence, how history has contributed to violence in the family today.

I am interested in family violence because I want to be a police officer. Daily through the media, we are bombarded with information in relation to family violence in its different forms. I am interested in learning more about family violence due to the desire to understand the factors that contribute to high cases of domestic violence. I think the information in this course will be important in helping me to understand the various issues with regard to domestic violence. Examples of family violence are sexual harassment and rape, psychological assault perpetrated by both men and women. It has been shown that cultures of different communities support many types of violent acts (Majau, 2014).

The patriarchal power system is not embodied in the biological males, but it is a social construction (Gosselin, 2014).Therefore, the long history of male domination is insightful in determining whether this cultural subordination of women to men provides the reason for the existence of the inequalities that exist between the sexes and also establishes the effect of globalization of this topic.

The information is necessitated by the fact that this family violence is usually not reported, or even when reported, the perpetrators go scot-free (Majau, 2014). There are fewer legislation and policies to curb family violent acts (Gosselin, 2014). The other inherent aspect of this topic is how this culture has been interred in the women that they are not only the perennial victims, but they are also perpetrators of this vice by silently hiding their sufferings or by psychologically taunting other women.

Thus, family violence can largely be attributed to the underrepresentation of women at home and other major decision-making institutions such as religious institutions and learning institutions (Majau, 2014). This becomes a barrier for women to attain power and change the oppressive traditions. In fact, efforts have to be focused on empowering women in different communities.

Gosselin, D. K. (2014). Heavy hands: An introduction to the crimes of family violence , (5 th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Majau, U. (2014). Perspectives to sex discrimination: male and female chauvinism . Web.

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Domestic Abuse: Types, Causes, and Impact

Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

Yolanda Renteria, LPC, is a licensed therapist, somatic practitioner, national certified counselor, adjunct faculty professor, speaker specializing in the treatment of trauma and intergenerational trauma.

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• Supporting Someone

Domestic abuse , also known as domestic violence or family abuse, is a pattern of behavior that is used to hurt, terrorize, manipulate, or gain control over a family member.

Domestic abuse may be perpetrated by any member of the household, such as an intimate partner, parent, child, sibling, relative, or staff member. When domestic abuse is perpetrated by an intimate partner, it is referred to as intimate partner violence. When a child is a victim of domestic abuse, it is referred to as child abuse .

People from marginalized groups are at greater risk of experiencing abuse. However, it’s important to recognize that anyone can be a victim of abuse, regardless of their age, race, gender, sexual orientation, class, or faith.

Domestic abuse and intimate partner violence are serious public health issues globally. In fact, it is believed that domestic abuse is the most prevalent but least reported crime in the United States.

This article explores the types, causes, signs, and impact of domestic abuse, as well as some ways to support someone who has been abused.

If you or a loved one are a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential assistance from trained advocates. 

If you are in immediate danger, call 911 . For more mental health resources, see our National Helpline Database .

Types of Domestic Abuse

Domestic abuse can take many forms. These are some of the different types of domestic abuse:

• Physical abuse , which is when someone harms the other person’s body, causing them to experience pain or suffer physical injuries. Physical abuse includes slapping, beating, hitting, kicking, punching, pinching, biting, choking, pushing, grabbing, shaking, or burning another person.
• Sexual abuse , which includes any form of touching or sexual contact without the other person’s explicit consent. Sexual abuse also includes any form of sexual contact between an adult and a person below the age of 18 .
• Emotional or psychological abuse , which includes yelling, cursing, name-calling, bullying, coercing, humiliating, gaslighting, harassing, infantilizing , threatening, frightening, isolating, manipulating, or otherwise controlling another person. Emotional/psychological abuse can be just as harmful as sexual or physical abuse.
• Neglect , which involves failing to provide a child or a dependent adult with necessities such as food, water, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision. Neglect can also be emotional, which involves failing to provide love, care, and emotional support to a family member.
• Financial abuse , which involves taking control of an individual's finances by controlling their income, restricting their ability to work, or accumulating debts in their name.
• Cultural identity abuse , which involves using aspects of a person's cultural identity to cause pain. This might involve threatening to out a person as LGBTQ+, using racial or ethnic slurs, or not permitting the person to practice traditions and customs of their faith.
• Technological abuse , which involves using technology as a means to threaten, stalk, harass, and abuse the other person. Examples of this form of abuse include using tracking devices to monitor someone's movements or online activities and demanding to have access to the person's social media or email accounts.
• Immigration abuse , which involves inflicting harm on a person by using their immigration status to threaten or restrict aspects of their life. Examples of this might involve threatening the individual's family members, destroying or hiding their immigration papers, and threatening to have them deported.

Signs of Domestic Abuse

It’s important to recognize domestic abuse because the victims are our friends, family members, coworkers, and neighbors.

These are some of the signs that someone is experiencing domestic abuse:

• Being upset or agitated
• Being withdrawn or unresponsive
• Exhibiting signs of fear or nervousness around certain people
• Displaying sudden changes in behavior or unusual behaviors
• Having injuries such as cuts, bruises, black eyes, or broken bones
• Having bruises, bleeding, torn clothes, or bloodstains around genital areas
• Being dehydrated, malnourished, or unkempt
• Living in unsafe or unsanitary conditions
• Wearing long-sleeved clothing or sunglasses to cover up bruising
• Having unusual eating or sleeping habits
• Being extremely meek and apologetic
• Losing interest in daily activities
• Isolating from friends and family

Causes of Domestic Abuse

Research suggests that there are a number of different factors that contribute to the prevalence of domestic violence:

• Cultural factors: Historically, many patriarchal cultures have permitted the beating and chastising of women and children, who are viewed as a man’s property. Additionally, the concept of a woman’s sexuality is often tied to the family’s honor. Therefore, any actions or behaviors by a woman that are perceived as acts of dishonor toward the family are met with judgment and abuse.
• Legal factors: Law enforcement agencies tend to treat domestic abuse as a private family matter and sometimes hesitate to intervene or get involved. Acts of domestic abuse are often treated with more leniency than crimes committed by strangers. In fact, sexual abuse by intimate partners is not even recognized as a crime in many cultures.
• Economic factors: Lack of economic resources is often associated with domestic abuse.
• Environmental factors: People who have grown up in abusive environments and witnessed or experienced abuse as children may be more likely to perpetrate domestic abuse as adults. This is referred to as the intergenerational cycle of abuse .
• Social factors: Society still tends to blame victims for being abused, which can make it difficult for them to come forward and report their abusers. Victims are often scrutinized minutely, and any imperfections are held against them.
• Substance use: Excessive use of substances such as alcohol and drugs can lead to domestic abuse.

Impact of Domestic Abuse

Being abused can cause a person to:

• Think they did something to deserve the abuse
• Believe they are unwanted and unworthy of love or respect
• Feel guilty or ashamed
• Feel helpless and powerless
• Feel used , controlled, or manipulated
• Be terrified of doing something that will upset their abuser
• Behave differently in order to avoid upsetting their abuser
• Have difficulty sleeping, concentrating, or participating in activities they once enjoyed
• Develop mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety
• Develop physical health conditions such as heart disease, digestive issues, muscle and bone conditions, fertility problems, and nervous system disorders
• Feel responsible for regulating the emotions and behaviors of their abuser
• Feel hypervigilant and like they are constantly walking on eggshells
• Not feel good enough or capable to make it on their own
• Constantly doubt their perception and their decisions

Experiencing domestic abuse can cause physical and mental health issues that persist long after the abuse stops.

Supporting Someone Who Has Been Abused

These are some ways to support someone who has been abused:

• Listen to the person and believe them
• Honor where they are in their process and don't push your personal views
• Offer assistance and let them know they’re not alone
• Help them note down all the details they can remember
• Remind them that they’re not to blame for anything that has happened to them
• Encourage them to seek professional support, either through a confidential hotline or via other medical or mental healthcare providers
• Encourage them to speak up about the abuse and report their abuser to the authorities, because keeping it secret only protects their abuser
• Respect whatever choice they make and let them know you'll be there for them regardless of what they decide

A Word From Verywell

Domestic abuse can take many different shapes and forms. It can be extremely traumatic to experience, leaving behind physical wounds, emotional scars, and health issues. It can affect every aspect of the person’s life and make it difficult for them to function.

Recovery takes time, but speaking up about the abuse, leaving an abusive situation , and seeking treatment are important steps that can help.

United Nations. What is domestic abuse?

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventing intimate partner violence .

Li S, Zhao F, Yu G. Childhood maltreatment and intimate partner violence victimization: A meta-analysis . Child Abuse Negl . 2019;88:212-224. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2018.11.012

City Government of Annapolis, Maryland. Myths about domestic violence .

Nemours Foundation. Abuse .

Women Against Abuse. Types of abuse .

Department of Human Services. Domestic violence crisis and prevention .

Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. Types and signs of abuse .

Yakubovich AR, Stöckl H, Murray J, Melendez-Torres GJ, Steinert JI, Glavin CEY, Humphreys DK. Risk and protective factors for intimate partner violence against women: Systematic review and meta-analyses of prospective-longitudinal studies . Am J Public Health . 2018;108(7):e1-e11. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304428

Greene CA, Haisley L, Wallace C, Ford JD. Intergenerational effects of childhood maltreatment: A systematic review of the parenting practices of adult survivors of childhood abuse, neglect, and violence . Clin Psychol Rev . 2020;80:101891. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2020.101891

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Emotional and verbal abuse .

Malik M, Munir N, Ghani MU, Ahmad N. Domestic violence and its relationship with depression, anxiety, and quality of life . Pak J Med Sci . 2021;37(1):191-194. doi:10.12669/pjms.37.1.2893

Cleveland Clinic. How to heal from emotional abuse .

By Sanjana Gupta Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

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Great argumentative essay topics on domestic violence with prompts, dr. wilson mn.

• July 31, 2022
• Essay Topics and Ideas , Samples

One of the most difficult parts of writing an argumentative essay is coming up with a topic and a thesis statement . Here’s a comprehensive list of Argumentative Essay Topics On Domestic Violence with Prompts.

Argumentative Essay Topics On Domestic Violence with Prompts

• The consequences of domestic violence. Essay Prompt: Some people consider domestic violence a common thing in a household. What can it lead to? Give examples and suggest solutions.
• Should domestic violence be taken seriously? Essay Prompt: Is domestic violence a common thing or a serious problem, which needs an immediate solution? Should women endure it?
• Officer-Involved Domestic Violence, Essay Prompt: The number of officer-related domestic violence has been on the rise, which causes concern about the safety of the family members of police officers. The main reason domestic violence has been on the rise is the stressful work environment that police officers go through.
• Theoretical Explanations for Domestic Violence Social Research Paper Essay Prompt: Domestic violence is one of the major societal problems experienced around the world. According to Guerin and Ortolan (2017), domestic violence encompasses aspects such as bullying, intimidation, and in extreme cases, murder perpetrated by an individual within a domestic setting.

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• How Does Domestic Violence Influence Children’s Education? Essay Prompt: Domestic violence and education: examining the impact of domestic violence on young children, children, and young people and the potential role of schools. Frontiers in psychology. This article explores the adverse effects of domestic violence on children and the role of schools.
• Types of domestic violence. Essay Prompt: Point out the ways women can be violated. What are the most dangerous ones? What are their consequences?
• Domestic violence: a personal matter or an open problem? Essay Prompt: In this essay, discuss whether domestic violence should be kept in secret or brought out to publicity. Give your reasons.
• Domestic violence: who is to blame? Essay Prompt: If a husband beats up his wife, is he a brute or does she really deserve it? Give your reasons.
• Why women bear it. Essay Prompt: Try to find an answer to the question: why do women endure violence? Is it the absence of self-respect or the power of love? Give your reasons.
• Domestic violence as the echo of the past. Essay Prompt: In the past, violence against women was acceptable and nowadays some men keep to such a stereotype. Is it reasonable to keep this “noble” tradition or should it become a thing of the past?

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Domestic violence argument topics

• How to protect yourself from domestic violence? Essay Prompt: In this essay, you should make a research and point out ways to protect yourself from domestic tyranny. You may consult legislative documents.
• I’m a victim: what to do? Essay Prompt: If one becomes a victim of domestic tyranny, what measures should be taken? How to punish the offender? Give examples.
• Social services protecting victims of domestic violence. Essay Prompt: What are the social services protecting victims of violence? What are their functions? Do they really help?
• How to recognize a despot. Essay Prompt: If husband has lifted his hand against wife once, he is sure to do it again and again. How can a tyrant be recognized and avoided? Offer your variants.
• Punishment for offender. Essay Prompt: Consult special literature and comment how justice can punish a person blamed in domestic violence.
• To forgive or not to forgive? Essay Prompt: Analyze the cases of domestic violence and decide whether tyranny can be forgiven. Decide whether it is reasonable, to give the offender one more chance. Explain why.
• Domestic Violence, Child Abuse and Rape Violence Effects on Individual or Community Essay Prompt: Discuss your knowledge of the effects these three crimes have on individuals and society as a whole.
• Negative Effects of Domestic Violence on Children Essay Prompt: This essay affirms that domestic violence poses a number of negative effects on children, including social development, brain development, and social behavior. (Domestic violence argument topics)
• Why Domestic Violence Victims Don’t Leave Essay Prompt: There were surprising things in the video; for instance, the domestic violence follows predefined steps when the victim is new in the relationship.
• Domestic Violence And Sociological Perspective Or Sociological Imagination Essay Prompt: Schools as Training Grounds for Domestic Violence and Sexual Harassment (Domestic violence argument topics)
• Find out more on  Argumentative Essay Topics About Social Media [Updated]

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Violence in Families: Assessing Prevention and Treatment Programs (1998)

Chapter: 9 conclusions and recommendations, 9 conclusions and recommendations.

The problems of child maltreatment, domestic violence, and elder abuse have generated hundreds of separate interventions in social service, health, and law enforcement settings. This array of interventions has been driven by the urgency of the different types of family violence, client needs, and the responses of service providers, advocates, and communities. The interventions now constitute a broad range of institutional services that focus on the identification, treatment, prevention, and deterrence of family violence.

The array of interventions that is currently in place and the dozens of different types of programs and services associated with each intervention represent a valuable body of expertise and experience that is in need of systematic scientific study to inform and guide service design, treatment, prevention, and deterrence. The challenge for the research community, service providers, program sponsors, and policy makers is to develop frameworks to enhance critical analyses of current strategies, interventions, and programs and identify next steps in addressing emerging questions and cross-cutting issues. Many complexities now characterize family violence interventions and challenge the development of rigorous scientific evaluations. These complexities require careful consideration in the development of future research, service improvements, and collaborative efforts between researchers and service providers. Examples of these complexities are illustrative:

• The interventions now in place in communities across the nation focus services on discrete and isolated aspects of family violence. They address different aspects of child maltreatment, domestic violence, and elder abuse. Some
• interventions have an extensive history of experience, and others are at a very early stage of development.
• Many interventions have not been fully implemented because of limited funding or organizational barriers. Thus in many cases it is too early to expect that research can determine whether a particular intervention or strategy (such as deterrence or prevention) is effective because the intervention may not yet have sufficient strength to achieve its intended impact.
• The social and institutional settings of many interventions present important challenges to the design of systematic scientific evaluations. The actual strength or dosage of a particular program can be directly influenced by local or national events that stimulate changes in resources, budgets, and personnel factors that influence its operation in different service settings. Variations in service scope or intensity caused by local service practices and social settings are important sources of "noise" in cross-site research studies; they can directly affect evaluation studies in such key areas as definitions, eligibility criteria, and outcome measures.
• Emerging research on the experiences of family violence victims and offenders suggests that this is a complex population composed of different types of individuals and patterns of behavior. Evaluation studies thus need to consider the types of clients served by particular services, the characteristics of those who benefited from them, and the attributes of those who were resistant to change.

In this chapter the committee summarizes its overall conclusions and proposes policy and research recommendations. A key question for the committee was whether and when the research evidence is sufficient to guide a critical examination of particular interventions. In some areas, the body of research is sufficient to inform policy choices, program development, evaluation research, data collection, and theory-building; the committee makes recommendations for current policies and practices in these areas below. In other areas, although the research base is not yet mature enough to guide policy and program development, some interventions are ready for rigorous evaluation studies. For this second tier of interventions, the committee makes recommendations for the next generation of evaluation studies. The committee then identifies a set of four topics for basic research that reflect current insights into the nature of family violence and trends in family violence interventions. A final section makes some suggestions to increase the effectiveness of collaborations between researchers and service providers.

Conclusions

The committee's conclusions are derived from our analysis of the research literature and discussions with service providers in the workshops and site visits, rather than from specific research studies. This analysis takes a client-oriented

approach to family violence interventions, which means that we focus on how existing services in health, social services, and law enforcement settings affect the individuals who come in contact with them.

• The urgency of the need to respond to the problem of family violence and the paucity of research to guide service interventions have created an environment in which insights from small-scale studies are often adopted into policy and professional practice without sufficient independent replication or reflection on their possible shortcomings. Rigorous evaluations of family violence interventions are confined, for the most part, to small or innovative programs that provide an opportunity to develop a comparison or control study, rather than focusing on the major existing family violence interventions.
• This situation has fostered a series of trial-and-error experiences in which a promising intervention is later found to be problematic when employed with a broader and more varied population. Major treatment and prevention interventions, such as child maltreatment reporting systems, casework, protective orders, and health care for victims of domestic violence, battered women's shelters, and elder abuse interventions of all types, have not been the subjects of rigorous evaluation studies. The programmatic and policy emphasis on single interventions as panaceas to the complex problems of family violence, and the lack of sufficient opportunity for learning more about the service interactions, client characteristics, and contextual factors that could affect the impact of different approaches, constitute formidable challenges to the improvement of the knowledge base and prevention and treatment interventions in this filed.
• In all areas of family violence, after-the-fact services predominate over preventive interventions. For child maltreatment and elder abuse, case identification and investigative services are the primary form of intervention; services designed to prevent, treat, or deter family violence are relatively rare in social service, health, and criminal justice settings (with the notable exceptions of foster care and family preservation services). For domestic violence, interventions designed to treat victims and offenders and deter future incidents of violence are more common, but preventive services remain relatively underdeveloped.
• The current array of family violence interventions (especially in the areas of child maltreatment and elder abuse) is a loosely coupled network of individual programs and services that are highly reactive in nature, focused primarily on the detection of specific cases. It is a system largely driven by events, rather than one that is built on theory, research, and data collection. Interventions are oriented toward the identification of victims and the substantiation and documentation of their experiences, rather than the delivery of recommended services to reduce the incidence and consequences of family violence in the community overall. As a result, enormous resources are invested to develop evidence that certain victims or offenders need treatment, legal action, or other interventions, and comparatively limited funds are available for the treatment and support services themselves—a
• situation that results in lengthy waiting lists, discretionary decisionmaking processes in determining which cases are referred for further action, and extensive variation in a service system's ability to match clients with appropriate interventions.
• The duration and intensity of the mental health and social support services needed to influence behaviors that result from or contribute to family violence may be greater than initially estimated. Family violence treatment and preventive interventions that focus on single incidents and short periods of support services, especially in such areas as parenting skills, mental health, and batterer treatment, may be inadequate to deal with problems that are pervasive, multiple, and chronic. Many programs for victims involve short-term treatment services—less than 6 weeks. Services for offenders are also typically of short duration. Yet research suggests that short-term programs designed to alter violent behavior are often the least likely to succeed, because of the difficulties of changing behavior that has persisted for a period of years and has become part of an established pattern in relationships. Efforts to address fundamental sources of conflict, stress, and violence that occur repeatedly over time within the family environment may require extensive periods of support services to sustain the positive effects achieved in short-term interventions.
• The interactive nature of family violence interventions constitutes a major challenge to the evaluation of interventions because the presence or absence of policies and programs in one domain may directly affect the implementation and outcomes of interventions in another. Research suggests that the risk and protective factors for child maltreatment, domestic violence, and elder abuse interact across multiple levels. The uncoordinated but interactive system of services requires further attention and consideration in future evaluation studies. Such evaluations need to document the presence and absence of services that affect members of the same family unit but offer treatment for specific problems in separate institutions characterized by different service philosophies and resources.
• For example, factors such as court oversight or mandatory referrals may influence individual participation in treatment services and the outcomes associated with such participation. The culture and resources of one agency can influence the quality and timing of services offered by another. Yet little information is available regarding the extent or quality of interventions in a community. Clients who receive multiple interventions (especially children) are often not followed through different service settings. Limited information is available to distinguish key features of innovative interventions from those usually offered in a community; to describe the stages of implementation of specific family violence programs, interventions, or strategies; to explain rates of attrition in the client base; or to capture case characteristics that influence the ways in which clients are selected for specific treatment programs.
• The emergence of secondary prevention interventions specifically targeted to serve children, adults, and communities with characteristics that are
• thought to place them at greater risk of family violence than the general population, along with the increasing emphasis on the need for integration and coordination of services, has the potential to achieve significant benefits. However, the potential of these newer interventions to reduce the need for treatment or other support services over the lifetime of the client has not yet been proven for large populations.
• Secondary preventive interventions, such as those serving children exposed to domestic violence, have the potential to reduce future incidents of family violence and to reduce the existing need for services in such areas as recovery from trauma, substance abuse, juvenile crime, mental health and health care. However, evaluation studies are not yet available to determine the value of preventive interventions for large populations in terms of reduction of the need for treatment or other support services over a client's lifetime.
• The shortage of service resources and the emphasis on reactive, short-term treatment have directed comparatively little attention to interventions for people who have experienced or perpetrated violent behavior but who have not yet been reported or identified as offenders or victims. Efforts to achieve broader systemic collaboration, comprehensive service integration, and proactive interventions require attention to the appropriate balance among enforcement, treatment, and prevention interventions in addressing family violence at both state and national levels. Such efforts also need to be responsive to the particular requirements of diverse ethnic communities with special needs or unique resources that can be mobilized in the development of preventive interventions. Because they extend to a larger population than those currently served by treatment centers, secondary prevention efforts can be expensive; their benefits may not become apparent until many years after the intervention occurs.
• Policy leadership is needed to help integrate family violence treatment, enforcement and support actions, and preventive interventions and also to foster the development of evaluations of comprehensive and cross-problem interventions that have the capacity to consider outcomes beyond reports of future violent behavior.
• Creative research methodologies are also needed to examine the separate and combined effects of cross-problem service strategies (such as the treatment of substance abuse and family violence), follow individuals and families through multiple service interventions and agency settings, and examine factors that may play important mediating roles in determining whether violence will occur or continue (such as the use of social networks and support services and the threat of legal sanctions).
• Most evaluations seek to document whether violent behavior decreased as a result of the intervention, an approach that often inhibits attention to other factors that may play important mediating roles in determining whether violence will occur. The individual victim or offender is the focus of most interventions and
• the unit of analysis in evaluation studies, rather than the family or the community in which the violence occurred.

Integrated approaches have the potential to illuminate the sequences and ways in which different experiences with violence in the family do and do not overlap with each other and with other kinds of violence. This research approach requires time to mature; at present, it is not strong enough to determine the strengths or limitations of strategies that integrate different forms of family violence compared with approaches that focus on specific forms of family violence. Service integration efforts focused on single forms of family violence may have the potential to achieve greater impact than services that disregard the interactive nature of this complex behavior, but this hypothesis also remains unproven.

Recommendations For Current Policies And Practices

It is premature to offer policy recommendations for most family violence interventions in the absence of a research base that consists of well-designed evaluations. However, the committee has identified two areas (home visitation and family preservation services) in which a rigorous set of studies offers important guidance to policy makers and service providers. In four other areas (reporting practices, batterer treatment programs, record keeping, and collaborative law enforcement approaches) the committee has drawn on its judgment and deliberations to encourage policy makers and service providers to take actions that are consistent with the state of the current research base.

These six interventions were selected for particular attention because (1) they are the focus of current policy attention, service evaluation, and program design; (2) a sufficient length of time has elapsed since the introduction of the intervention to allow for appropriate experience with key program components and measurement of outcomes; (3) the intervention has been widely adopted or is under consideration by a large number of communities to warrant its careful analysis; and (4) the intervention has been described and characterized in the research literature (through program summaries or case studies).

Reporting Practices

All 50 states have adopted laws requiring health professionals and other service providers to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Although state laws vary in terms of the types of endangerment and evidentiary standards that warrant a report to child protection authorities, each state has adopted a procedure that requires designated professionals—or, in some states, all adults—to file a report if they believe that a child is a victim of abuse or neglect. Mandatory reporting is thought to enhance early case detection and to increase the likelihood that services will be provided to children in need.

For domestic violence, mandatory reporting requirements for professional groups like health care providers have been adopted by the state of California and are under consideration in several other states. Mandatory reports are seen as a method by which offenders who abuse multiple partners can be identified through the health care community for law enforcement purposes. Early detection is assumed to lead to remedies and interventions that will prevent further abuse by holding the abuser accountable and helping to mitigate the consequences of family violence.

Critics have argued that mandatory reporting requirements may damage the confidentiality of the therapeutic relationship between health professionals and their clients, disregard the knowledge and preferences of the victim regarding appropriate action, potentially increase the danger to victims when sufficient protection and support are not available, and ultimately discourage individuals who wish to seek physical or psychological treatment from contacting and disclosing abuse to health professionals. In many regions, victim support services are not available or the case requires extensive legal documentation to justify treatment for victims, offenders, and families.

For elder abuse, 42 states have mandatory reporting systems. Several states have opted for voluntary systems after conducting studies that considered the advantages and disadvantages of voluntary and mandatory reporting systems, on the grounds that mandatory reports do not achieve significant increases in the detection of elder abuse cases.

In reviewing the research base associated with the relationship between reporting systems and the treatment and prevention of family violence, the committee has observed that no existing evaluation studies can demonstrate the value of mandatory reporting systems compared with voluntary reporting procedures in addressing child maltreatment or domestic violence. For elder abuse, studies suggest that a high level of public and professional awareness and the availability of comprehensive services to identify, treat, and prevent violence is preferable to reporting requirements in improving rates of case detection.

The absence of a research base to support mandatory reporting systems raises questions as to whether they should be recommended for all areas of family violence. The impact of mandatory reporting systems in the area of child maltreatment and elder abuse remains unexamined. The committee therefore suggests that it is important for the states to proceed cautiously at this time and to delay adopting a mandatory reporting system in the area of domestic violence, until the positive and negative impacts of such a system have been rigorously examined in states in which domestic violence reports are now required by law.

Recommendation 1: The committee recommends that states initiate evaluations of their current reporting laws addressing family violence to examine whether and how early case detection leads to improved outcomes for the victims or families and promote changes based on sound research. In

particular, the committee recommends that states refrain from enacting mandatory reporting laws for domestic violence until such systems have been tested and evaluated by research.

In dealing with family violence that involves adults, federal and state government agencies should reconsider the nature and role of compulsory reporting policies. In the committee's view, mandatory reporting systems have some disadvantages in cases involving domestic violence, especially if the victim objects to such reports, if comprehensive community protections and services are not available, and if the victim is able to gain access to therapeutic treatment or support services in the absence of a reporting system.

The dependent status of young children and some elders provides a stronger argument in favor of retaining mandatory reporting requirements where they do exist. However, the effectiveness of reporting requirements depends on the availability of resources and service personnel who can investigate reports and refer cases for appropriate treatment, as well as clear guidelines for processing reports and determining which cases qualify for services. Greater discretion may be advised when the child and family are able to receive therapeutic treatment from health care or other service providers and when community resources are not available to respond appropriately to their cases. The treatment of adolescents especially requires major consideration of the pros and cons of mandatory reporting requirements. Adolescent victims are still in a vulnerable stage of development: they may or may not have the capacity to make informed decisions regarding the extent to which they wish to invoke legal protections in dealing with incidents of family violence in their homes.

Batterer Treatment Programs

Four key questions characterize current policy and research discussions about the efficacy of batterer treatment, one of the most challenging problems in the design of family violence interventions: Is treatment preferable to incarceration, supervised probation, or other forms of court oversight for batterers? Does participation in treatment change offenders' attitudes and behavior and reduce recidivism? Does the effectiveness of treatment depend on its intensity, duration, or the voluntary or compulsory nature of the program? Is treatment what creates change, or is change in behavior reduced by multiple interventions, such as arrest, court monitoring of client participation in treatment services, and victim support services?

Descriptive research studies suggest that there are multiple profiles of batterers, and therefore one generic approach is not appropriate for all offenders. Treatment programs may be helpful in changing abusive behavior when they are part of an overall strategy designed to recognize and reduce violence in a relationship, when the batterer is prepared to learn how to control aggressive impulses, and

when the treatment plan emphasizes victim safety and provides for frequent interactions with treatment staff.

Research on the effectiveness of treatment programs suggests that the majority of subjects who complete court-ordered treatment programs do learn basic cognitive and behavioral principles taught in their course. However, such learning requires appropriate program content and client participation in the program for a sufficient time to complete the necessary training. Very few studies have examined matched groups of violent offenders who are assigned to treatment and control groups or comparison groups (such as incarceration or work-release). As a result, the comparative efficacy of treatment is unknown in reducing future violence. Differing client populations and differing forms of court oversight are particularly problematic factors that inhibit the design of rigorous evaluation studies in this field.

The absence of strong theory and common measures to guide the development of family violence treatment regimens, the heterogeneity of offenders (including patterns of offending and readiness to change) who are the subjects of protective orders or treatment, and low rates of attendance, completion, and enforcement are persistent problems that affect both the evaluation of the interventions and efforts to reduce the violence. A few studies suggest that court oversight does appear to increase completion rates, which have been linked to enhanced victim safety in the area of domestic violence, but increased completion rates have not yet led to a discernible effect on recidivism rates in general.

Further evaluations are needed to examine the outcomes associated with different approaches and programmatic themes (such as cognitive-behavioral principles: issues of power, control, and gender; personal accountability). Completion rates have been used as an interim outcome to measure the success of batterer treatment programs; further studies are needed to determine if completers can be identified readily, if program completion by itself is a critical factor in reducing recidivism, and if participation in a treatment program changes the nature, timing, and severity of future violent behavior.

The current research base is inadequate to identify the conditions under which mandated referrals to batterer treatment programs offer a clear advantage over incarceration or untreated probation supervision in reducing recidivism for the general population of male offenders. Court officials should monitor closely the attendance, participation, and completion rates of offenders who are referred to batterer treatment programs in lieu of more punitive sentences. Treatment staff should inform law enforcement officials of any significant behavior by the offender that might represent a threat to the victim. Mandated treatment referrals may be effective for certain types of batterers, especially if they increase completion rates. The research is inconclusive, however, as to which types of individuals should be referred for treatment rather than more punitive sanctions. In selecting individuals for treatment, attention should be given to client history

(first-time offenders are more likely to benefit), motivation for treatment, and likelihood of completion.

Mandated treatment referrals for batterers do appear to provide benefits to victims, such as intensive surveillance of offenders, an interlude to allow planning for safety and victim support, and greater community awareness of the batterer's behavior. These outcomes may interact to deter and reduce domestic violence in the community, even if a treatment program does not alter the behavior of a particular batterer. Treatment programs that include frequent interactions between staff and victims also provide a means by which staff can help educate victims about danger signals and support them in efforts to obtain greater protection and legal safeguards, if necessary.

Recommendation 2: In the absence of research that demonstrates that a specific model of treatment can reduce violent behavior for many domestic violence offenders, courts need to put in place early warning systems to detect failure to comply with or complete treatment and signs of new abuse or retaliation against victims, as well as to address unintended or inadvertent results that may arise from the referral to or experience with treatment.

Further research evaluation studies are needed to review the outcomes for both offenders and victims associated with program content and levels of intensity in different treatment models. This research will help indicate whether treatment really helps and what mix of services are more helpful than others. Improved research may also help distinguish those victims and offenders for whom particular treatments are most beneficial.

Record Keeping

Since experience with family violence appears to be associated with a wide range of health problems and social service needs, service providers are recognizing the importance of documenting abuse histories in their client case records. The documentation in health and social service records of abuse histories that are self-reported by victims and offenders can help service providers and researchers to determine if appropriate referrals and services have been made and the outcomes associated with their use. The exchange of case records among service providers is essential to the development of comprehensive treatment programs, continuity of care, and appropriate follow-up for individuals and families who appear in a variety of service settings. Such exchanges can help establish greater accountability by service systems for responding to the needs of identifiable victims and offenders; health and social service records can also provide appropriate evidence for legal actions, in both civil and criminal courts and child custody cases.

Research evaluations of service interventions often require the use of anonymous case records. The documentation of family violence in such records will

enhance efforts to improve the quality of evaluations and to understand more about patterns of behavior associated with violent behaviors and victimization experiences. Although documentation of abuse histories can improve evaluations and lead to integrated service responses, such procedures require safeguards so that individuals are not stigmatized or denied therapeutic services on the basis of their case histories. Insurance discrimination, in particular, which may preclude health care coverage if abuse is judged to be a preexisting condition, requires attention to ensure that professional services are not diminished as a result of voluntary disclosures. Creative strategies are needed to support integrated service system reviews of medical, legal, and social service case records in order to enhance the quality and accountability of service responses. Such reviews will need to meet the expectations of privacy and confidentiality of both individual victims and the community, especially in cases in which maltreatment reports are subsequently regarded as unfounded.

Documentation of abuse histories that are voluntarily disclosed by victims or offenders to health care professionals and social service providers must be distinguished from screening efforts designed to trigger such disclosures. The committee recommends screening as a strong candidate for future evaluation studies (see discussion in the next section).

Recommendation 3: The committee recommends that health and social service providers develop safeguards to strengthen their documentation of abuse and histories of family violence in both individual and group records, regardless of whether the abuse is reported to authorities.

The documentation of histories of family violence in health records should be designed to record voluntary disclosures by both victims and offenders and to enhance early and coordinated interventions that can provide a therapeutic response to experiences with abuse or neglect. Safeguards are required, however, to ensure that such documentation does not lead to stigmatization, encourage discriminatory practices, or violate assurances of privacy and confidentiality, especially when individual histories become part of patient group records for health care providers and employers.

Collaborative Law Enforcement Strategies

In the committee's view, collaborative law enforcement strategies that create a web of social control for offenders are an idea worth testing to determine if such efforts can achieve a significant deterrent effect in addressing domestic violence. Collaborative strategies include such efforts as victim support and offender tracking systems designed to increase the likelihood that domestic violence cases will be prosecuted when an arrest has been made, that sanctions and treatment services will be imposed when evidence exists to confirm the charges brought against the offender, and that penalties will be invoked for failure to comply with treatment

conditions. The attraction of collaborative strategies is based on their potential ability to establish multiple interactions with offenders across a large domain of interactions that reinforce social standards in the community and establish penalties for violations of those standards. Creating the deterrent effect, however, requires extensive coordination and reciprocity between victim support and offender monitoring efforts involving diverse sectors of the law enforcement community. These efforts may be difficult to implement and evaluate. Further studies are needed to determine the extent to which improved collaboration among police officers, prosecutors, and judges will lead to improved coordination and stronger sanctions for offenders and a reduction in domestic violence.

The absence of empirical research findings of the results of a collaborative law enforcement approach in addressing domestic violence makes it difficult to compare the costs and benefits of increased agency coordination with those achieved by a single law enforcement strategy (such as arrest) in dealing with different populations of offenders and victims. Even though relatively few cases of arrest are made for any form of family violence, arrest is the most common and most studied form of law enforcement intervention in this area. Research studies conducted in the 1980s on arrest policies in domestic violence cases are the strongest experimental evaluations to date of the role of deterrence in family violence interventions. These experiments indicate that arrest may be effective for some, but not most, batterers in reducing subsequent violence by the offender. Some research studies suggest that arrest may be a deterrent for employed and married individuals (those who have a stake in social conformity) and may lead to an escalation of violence among those who do not, but this observation has not been tested in studies that could specifically examine the impact of arrest in groups that differ in social and economic status. The differing effects (in terms of a reduction of future violence) of arrest for employed/unemployed and married/unmarried individuals raise difficult questions about the reliance of law enforcement officers on arrest as the sole or central component of their response to domestic violence incidents in communities where domestic violence cases are not routinely prosecuted, where sanctions are not imposed by the courts, or where victim support programs are not readily available.

The implementation of proarrest policies and practices that would discriminate according to the risk status of specific groups is challenged by requirements for equal protection under the law. Law enforcement officials cannot tailor arrest policies to the marital or employment status of the suspect or other characteristics that may interact with deterrence efforts. Specialized training efforts may help alleviate the tendency of police officers to arrest both suspect and victim, however, and may alert law enforcement personnel to the need to review both criminal and civil records in determining whether an arrest is advisable in response to a domestic violence case.

Two additional observations merit consideration in examining the deterrent effects of arrest. First, in the research studies conducted thus far, the implementation

of legal sanctions was minimal. Most offenders in the replication studies were not prosecuted once arrested, and limited legal sanctions were imposed on those cases that did receive a hearing. Some researchers concluded that stronger evidence of effectiveness might be obtained from proarrest policies if they are implemented as part of a law enforcement strategy that expands the use of punitive sanctions for offenders—including conviction, sentencing, and intensive supervised probation.

Second is the issue of reciprocity between formal sanctions against the offender and informal support actions for the victims of domestic violence. The effects of proarrest policies may depend on the extent to which victims have access to shelter services and other forms of support, demonstrating the interactive dimensions of community interventions. A mandatory arrest policy, by itself, may be an insufficient deterrent strategy for domestic violence, but its effectiveness may be enhanced by other interventions that represent coordinated law enforcement efforts to deter domestic violence—including the use of protective orders, victim advocates, and special prosecution units. Coordinated efforts may help reduce or prevent domestic violence if they represent a collaborative strategy among police, prosecutors, and judges that improves the certainty of the use of sanctions against batterers.

Recommendation 4: Collaborative strategies among caseworkers, police, prosecutors, and judges are recommended as law enforcement interventions that have the potential to improve the batterer's compliance with treatment as well as the certainty of the use of sanctions in addressing domestic violence.

The impact of single interventions (such as mandatory arrest policies) is difficult to discern in the research literature. Such practices by themselves can neither be recommended nor rejected as effective measures in addressing domestic violence on the basis of existing research studies.

Home Visitation and Family Support Services

Home visitation and family support programs constitute one of the most promising areas of child maltreatment prevention. Studies in this area have experimented with different levels of treatment intensity, duration, and staff expertise. For home visitation, the findings generally support the principle that early intervention with mothers who are at risk of child maltreatment makes a difference in child outcomes. Such interventions may be difficult to implement and maintain over time, however, and their effectiveness depends on the willingness of the parents to participate. Selection criteria for home visitation should be based on a combination of social setting and individual risk factors.

In their current form, home visitation programs have multiple goals, only one of which is the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Home visitation and family

support programs have traditionally been designed to improve parent-child relations with regard to family functioning, child health and safety, nutrition and hygiene, and parenting practices. American home visiting programs are derived from the British system, which relies on public health nurses and is offered on a universal basis to all parents with young children. Resource constraints, however, have produced a broad array of variations in this model; most programs in the United States are now directed toward at-risk families who have been reported to social services or health agencies because of prenatal health risks or risks for child maltreatment. Comprehensive programs provide a variety of services, including in-home parent education and prenatal and early infant health care, screening, referral to and, in some cases, transportation to social and health services. Positive effects include improved childrearing practices, increased social supports, utilization of community services, higher birthweights, and longer gestation periods.

Researchers have identified improvements in cognitive and parenting skills and knowledge as evidence of reduced risk for child maltreatment; they have also documented lower rates of reported child maltreatment and number of visits to emergency services for home-visited families. The benefits of home visitation appear most promising for young, first-time mothers who delay additional pregnancies and thus reduce the social and financial stresses that burden households with large numbers of young children. Other benefits include improved child care for infants and toddlers and an increase in knowledge about the availability of community services for older children. The intervention has not been demonstrated to have benefits for children whose parents abuse drugs or alcohol or those who are not prepared to engage in help-seeking behaviors. The extent to which home visitation benefits families with older children, or families who are already involved in abusive or neglectful behaviors, remains uncertain.

Recommendation 5: As part of a comprehensive prevention strategy for child maltreatment, the committee recommends that home visitation programs should be particularly encouraged for first-time parents living in social settings with high rates of child maltreatment reports.

The positive impact of well-designed home visitation interventions has been demonstrated in several evaluation studies that focus on the role of mothers in child health, development, and discipline. The committee recommends their use in a strategy designed to prevent child maltreatment. Home visitation programs do require additional evaluation research, however, to determine the factors that may influence their effectiveness. Such factors include (1) the conditions under which home visitation should be provided as part of a continuum of family support programs, (2) the types of parenting behaviors that are most and least amenable to change as a result of home visitation, (3) the duration and intensity of services (including amounts and types of training for home visitors) that are necessary to achieve positive outcomes for high-risk families, (4) the experience

of fathers in general and of families in diverse ethnic communities in particular with home visitation interventions, and (5) the need for follow-up services once the period of home visitation has ended.

Intensive Family Preservation Services

Intensive family preservation services represent crisis-oriented, short-term, intensive case management and family support programs that have been introduced in various communities to improve family functioning and to prevent the removal of children from the home. The overall goal of the intervention is to provide flexible forms of family support to assist with the resolution of circumstances that stimulated the child placement proposal, thus keeping the family intact and reducing foster care placements.

Eight of ten evaluation studies of selected intensive family preservation service programs (including five randomized trials and five quasi-experimental studies) suggest that, although these services may delay child placement for families in the short term, they do not show an ability to resolve the underlying family dysfunction that precipitated the crisis or to improve child well-being or family functioning in most families. However, the evaluations have shortcomings, such as poorly defined assessment of child placement risk, inadequate descriptions of the interventions provided, and nonblinded determination of the assignment of clients to treatment and control groups.

Intensive family preservation services may provide important benefits to the child, family, and community in the form of emergency assistance, improved family functioning, better housing and environmental conditions, and increased collaboration among discrete service systems. Intensive family preservation services may also result in child endangerment, however, when a child remains in a family environment that threatens the health or physical safety of the child or other family members.

Recommendation 6: Intensive family preservation services represent an important part of the continuum of family support services, but they should not be required in every situation in which a child is recommended for out-of-home placement.

Measures of health, safety, and well-being should be included in evaluations of intensive family preservation services to determine their impact on children's outcomes as well as placement rates and levels of family functioning, including evidence of recurrence of abuse of the child or other family members. There is a need for enhanced screening instruments that can identify the families who are most likely to benefit from intensive short-term services focused on the resolution of crises that affect family stability and functioning.

The value of appropriate post-reunification (or placement) services to the child and family to enhance coping and the ability to make a successful transition

toward long-term adjustment also remains uncertain. The impact of post-reunification or post-placement services needs to be considered in terms of their relative effects on child and family functioning compared with the use of intensive family preservation services prior to child removal. In some situations, one or the other type of services might be recommended; in other cases, they might be used in some combination to achieve positive outcomes.

Recommendations For The Next Generation Of Evaluations

Determining which interventions should be selected for rigorous and in-depth evaluations in the future will acquire increased importance as the array of family violence interventions expands in social services, law, and health care settings. For this reason, clear criteria and guiding principles are necessary to guide sponsoring agencies in their efforts to determine which types of interventions are suitable for evaluation research. Recognizing that all promising interventions cannot be evaluated, public and private agencies need to consider how to invest research resources in areas that show programmatic potential as well as an adequate research foundation. Future allocations of research investments may require agencies to reorganize or to develop new programmatic and research units that can inform the process of selecting interventions for future evaluation efforts, determine the scope of adequate funding levels, and identify areas in which program integration or diversity may contribute to a knowledge base that can inform policy, practice, and research. Such agencies may also consider how to sustain an ongoing dialogue among research sponsors, research scientists, and service providers to inform these selection efforts and to disseminate evaluation results once they are available.

In the interim, the committee offers several guiding principles to help inform the evaluation selection process.

• meet the preconditions for experimentation that are described in the other principles outlined below.

With these principles in mind, the committee has identified a set of interventions that are the focus of current policy attention and service innovation efforts but have not received significant attention from research. In the committee's judgment, each of these nine interventions has reached a level of maturation and preliminary description in the research literature to justify their selection as strong candidates for future evaluation studies.

Training for Service Providers and Law Enforcement Officials

Training in basic educational programs and continuing education on all aspects

of family violence has expanded for professionals in the health care, legal, and social service systems. Such efforts can be expected to enhance skills in identifying individual experiences with family violence, but improvements in training may improve other outcomes as well, including the patterns and timing of service interventions, the nature of interactions with victims of family violence, linkage of service referrals, the quality of investigation and documentation for reported cases, and, ultimately, improved health and safety outcomes for victims and communities.

Training programs alone may be insufficient to change professional behavior and service interventions unless they are accompanied by financial and human resources that emphasize the role of psychosocial issues and support the delivery of appropriate treatment, prevention, and referral services in different institutional and community settings. Evaluations of their effectiveness therefore need to consider the institutional culture and resource base that influence the implementation of the training program and the abilities of service providers to apply their knowledge and skills in meeting the needs of their clients.

Evaluation research is needed to assess the impact of training programs on counseling and referral practices and service delivery in health care, social service, and law enforcement settings. This research should include examination of the effects of training on the health and mental health status of those who receive services, including short- and long-term outcomes such as empowerment, freedom from violence, recovery from trauma, and rebuilding of life. Evaluations should also examine the role of training programs as catalysts for innovative and collaborative services. They should consider the extent to which training programs influence the behavior of agency personnel, including the interaction of service providers with professionals from other institutional settings, their participation in comprehensive community service programs, and the exposure of personal experiences in institutions charged with providing interventions for abuse.

Universal Screening in Health Care Settings

The significant role of health care and social service professionals in screening for victimization by all forms of family violence deserves critical analysis and rigorous evaluation. Early detection of child maltreatment, spousal violence, and elder abuse is believed to lead to an infusion of treatment and preventive services that can reduce exposure to harm, mitigate the negative consequences of abuse and neglect, improve health outcomes, and reduce the need for future health services. Screening programs can also enhance primary prevention efforts by providing information, education, and awareness of resources in the community. The benefits associated with early detection need to be balanced against risks presented by false positives and false negatives associated with large-scale screening efforts and programs characterized by inadequate staff training and responses.

Such efforts also need to consider whether appropriate treatment, protection, and support services are available for victims or offenders once they have been detected.

The use of enhanced screening instruments also requires attention to the need for services that can respond effectively to the large caseloads generated by expanded detection activities. The child protective services literature suggests that increased reporting can diminish the capacity of agencies to respond effectively if additional resources are not available to support enhanced services as well as screening.

The use of screening instruments in health care and social service settings for batterer identification and treatment is more problematic, given the lack of knowledge about factors that enhance or discourage their violent behavior. Screening only victims may be insufficient to provide a full picture of family violence; however, screening batterers may increase the danger for their victims, especially if batterer treatment interventions are not available or are not reliable in providing effective treatment and if support services are not available for victims once a perpetrator is identified. Screening adults for histories of childhood abuse, which may help prevent future victimization of the patient or others, may also be problematic without adequate training or mental health services to deal with the possible resurgence of trauma.

Evaluation studies of family violence screening efforts could build on the lessons derived from screening research in other health care areas (such as HIV detection, lead exposure, sickle cell, and others). This research could provide data that would support or contradict the theory that early identification is a useful secondary prevention intervention, especially in areas in which appropriate services may not be available or reliable. The cost issues associated with universal screening need to be considered in terms of their implications for savings in possible cost reductions from consequent conditions (such as the health consequences of HIV infection, sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancy, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and the exacerbation of other medical conditions) that may occur in other health care areas. Finally, the risks associated with screening (such as the establishment of a preexisting condition that may influence insurance eligibility) require consideration; such issues are already being addressed by some advocacy groups, insurance corporations, and regulatory bodies in the health care area.

Mental Health and Counseling Services

Little is known at present regarding the comparative effectiveness of different forms of therapeutic services for victims of family violence. Findings from recent studies of child physical and sexual abuse suggest that certain approaches (specifically cognitive-behavioral programs) are associated with more positive outcomes for parents, such as reducing aggressive/coercive behavior, compared

with family therapy and routine community mental health services. No treatment outcome studies have been conducted in the area of child neglect. Interventions in this field generally draw on approaches for dealing with other childhood and adolescent problems with similar symptom profiles.

For domestic violence, research evaluations are in the early stages of design and empirical data are not yet available to guide analyses of the effectiveness of different approaches. Major challenges include the absence of agreement regarding key psychosocial outcomes of interest in assessing the effectiveness of interventions, variations in the use of treatment protocols designed for post-traumatic stress for individuals who may still be experiencing traumatic situations, tensions between protocol-driven models of treatment (which are easier to evaluate) and those that are driven by the needs of the client or the context in which the violence occurred, the co-occurrence of trauma and other problems (such as prior victimization, depression, substance abuse, and anxiety disorders) that may have preceded the violence but require mental health services, and the difficulty of involving victims in follow-up studies after the completion of treatment. Variations in the context in which mental health services are provided for victims of domestic violence (such as isolated services, managed care programs, and services that are incorporated into an array of social support programs, including housing and job counseling) also require attention. Topics of special interest include contextual issues, such as the general lack of access to quality mental health services for women without sufficient independent income, and the danger of psychiatric diagnoses being used against battered women in child custody cases.

Collaborative efforts are needed to provide opportunities for the exchange of methodology, research measures, and designs to foster the development of controlled studies that can compare the results of innovative treatment approaches with routine counseling programs in community services.

Comprehensive Community Initiatives

Evaluations of batterer treatment programs, protective orders, and arrest policies suggest that the role of these individual interventions may be enhanced if they are part of a broad-based strategy to address family violence. The development of comprehensive, community-based interventions has become extremely widespread in the 1990s; examples include domestic violence coordinating councils, child advocacy centers, and elder abuse task forces. A few communities (most notably Duluth, Minnesota, and Quincy, Massachusetts) have developed systemwide strategies to coordinate their law enforcement and other service responses to domestic violence.

Comprehensive community-based interventions must confront difficult challenges, both in the design and implementation of such services, and in the selection of appropriate measures to assess their effectiveness. Many evaluations of comprehensive community-based interventions have focused primarily on the

design and implementation process, to determine whether an individual program had incorporated sufficient range and diversity among formal and informal networks so that it can achieve a significant impact in the community. This type of process evaluation does not necessarily require new methods of assessment or analysis, although it can benefit from recent developments in the evaluation literature, such as the empowerment evaluations discussed in Chapter 3 .

In contrast, the evaluation challenges that emerge from large-scale community-based efforts are formidable. First, it may be difficult to determine when an intervention has reached an appropriate stage of implementation to warrant a rigorous assessment of its effects. Second, the implementation of a community-wide intervention may be accompanied by a widespread social movement against family violence, so that it becomes difficult to distinguish the effects of the intervention itself from the impact of changing cultural and social norms that influence behavior. In some cases, the effects attributed to the intervention may appear weak, because they are overwhelmed by the impact of the social movement itself. Third, the selection of an appropriate comparison or control group for community-wide interventions presents formidable problems in terms of matching social and structural characteristics and compensating for community-to-community variation in record keeping.

These challenges require close attention to the emerging knowledge associated with the evaluation of comprehensive community-wide interventions in areas unrelated to family violence, so that important design, theory, and measurement insights can be applied to the special needs of programs focused on child maltreatment, domestic violence, and elder abuse. Although no single model of service integration, comprehensive services, or community change can be endorsed at this time, a range of interesting community service designs has emerged that have achieved widespread popularity and support at the local level. Because their primary focus is often on prevention, rather than treatment, comprehensive community interventions have the potential to achieve change across multiple levels of interactions affecting individuals, families, communities, and social norms and thus reduce the scope and severity of family violence as well as contribute to remedies to other important social problems.

A growing research literature has appeared in other fields, particularly in the area of substance abuse and community development, that identifies the conceptual frameworks, data collection, and methodological issues that need to be considered in designing evaluation studies for community-based and systemwide interventions. As an example, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention in the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has funded a series of studies designed to improve methodologies for the evaluation of community-based substance abuse prevention programs that offer important building blocks for the field of family violence interventions.

Developing effective evaluation strategies for comprehensive and systemwide programs is one of the most challenging issues for the research community

in this field. No evaluations have been conducted to date to examine the relative advantages of comprehensive and systemwide community initiatives compared with traditional services. Evaluations need to consider the mix of components in comprehensive interventions that determine their effectiveness and successful implementation; the comparative strengths and limitations of inter- and intra-agency interventions; community factors, such as political leadership, historical tensions, diversity of ethnic/cultural composition, and resource allocation strategies; and the impact of comprehensive interventions on the capacity of service agencies to provide traditional care and effective responses to reports of family violence.

Shelter Programs and Other Domestic Violence Services

Over time, most battered women's shelters have expanded their services to encompass far more than the provision of refuge. Today, many shelters have support groups for women residents, support groups for child residents, emergency and transitional housing, and legal and welfare advocacy. Nonresidential services also have expanded, so that any battered woman in the community is able to attend a support group or request advocacy services. Many agencies now offer educational groups for men who batter, as well as programs dealing with dating violence. Some communities have never opened a shelter yet are able to offer support groups, advocacy, crisis intervention, and safe homes (neighbors sheltering a neighbor, for example) to help battered women and their families in times of crisis. In addition to providing services for victims, the battered women service organizations also define their goal as transforming the conditions and norms that support violence against women. Thus these organizations work as agents of social change in their communities to improve the community-wide response to battered women and their children.

Shelter services and battered women's support organizations are ready for evaluations that can identify program outcomes and compare the effectiveness of different service interventions. Research studies are also needed that can describe the multiple goals and theories that shape the program objectives of these interventions, provide detailed histories of the ways in which different service systems have been implemented, and examine the characteristics of the women who do or do not use or benefit from them.

Protective Orders

Protective orders can be an important part of the prevention strategy for domestic violence and help document the record of assaults and threatening actions. The low priority traditionally assigned to the handling of protective orders, which are usually treated as civil matters in police agencies, requires attention, as do the procedural requirements of the legal system. Courts have

accepted alternative forms of due process, including public notice, notice by mail, and other forms of notification that do not require personal contact. Efforts are needed now to compare the effectiveness of short-term (30-day) restraining orders with a longer (1-year) protective order in reducing violent behavior by offenders and securing access to legal and support services for the complainants.

In-depth case studies and interviews with victims who have had police and court contacts because of domestic violence are needed to highlight individual, social, and institutional factors that facilitate or inhibit victim use of and perpetrator compliance with protective orders in different community settings. Such studies could (1) reveal patterns of help-seeking contacts and services that affect the use of protective orders and compliance with their requirements, (2) highlight the forms of sanctions that are appropriate to ensure compliance and to deter future violent behavior, (3) explore the extent to which the effects of protective orders are enhanced in reducing violence if victim advocates, shelter services, or other social support resources are available and are used by the victim in redefining the terms of her relationship with her partner, and (4) examine the extent to which protective orders can mitigate the consequences of violence for children who may have been assaulted or who may have witnessed an assault against their mother.

Child Fatality Review Panels

The emergence of child fatality review teams in 21 states since 1978 represents an innovative effort in many communities to address systemwide implications of severe violence against children and infants. Child fatality review teams involve a multiagency effort to compile and integrate information about child deaths and to review and evaluate the record of caseworkers and agencies in providing services to these children when a report of abuse or neglect had been made prior to a child's death. These review teams can provide an opportunity to examine the quality of a community's total approach to child abuse and neglect prevention and treatment.

The experience of child fatality review teams in identifying systemic features that enhance or weaken agency efforts to protect children needs to be evaluated and made accessible to individual service providers in health, legal, and social service agencies. Key research issues include: the effect of review team actions on the protection of family members of children who have died as a result of child maltreatment; the impact of child fatality review reports on the prosecution of offenders; the influence of review team efforts on the routine investigation, treatment, and prevention activities of participating agencies; the impact of review teams on other community child protection and domestic violence prevention efforts; and the identification of early warning signals that emerge in child homicide investigations that represent opportunities for preventive interventions.

Child Witness to Violence Programs

Child witness programs represent an important development in the evolution of comprehensive approaches to family violence, but they have not yet been evaluated. Evaluation studies of these programs should examine the experience with symptomatology among children who witness family violence, to determine whether and for whom early intervention influences the course of development of social and mental health consequences, such as depression, anxiety, emotional detachment, aggression and violence, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Such studies could also compare variations in the developmental histories of children who witness violence with those of children who are injured or otherwise are directly victimized by their parents or who witness violence in their communities. Evaluation studies should consider the recommended forms of treatment for these children, the standards of eligibility that determine their placement in treatment programs, and the impact of institutional setting (hospital, shelter, or social service agency) and reimbursement plans on the quality of the treatment.

Elder Abuse Services

Only seven program evaluation studies have been published on elder abuse interventions, none of which includes random groups and most of which involve small sample sizes. Three major issues challenge effective interventions in this area: the degree of dependence between perpetrators and victims, restricted social services budgets, general public distrust of social welfare programs, and the relationship between judgments about competence and the application of the principles of self-determination and privacy to the problem of elder abuse.

Evaluation studies should consider the different types and multiple dimensions of elder abuse in the development of effective interventions. The benefits of specific programs need to be compared with integrated service systems that are designed to foster the well-being of the elderly population without regard to special circumstances. Evaluation research should be integrated into community service programs and agency efforts on behalf of elderly persons to foster studies that involve the use of comparison and control groups, common measures, and the assessment of outcomes associated with different forms of service interventions.

Topics For Basic Research

The committee identified four basic research topics that require further development to inform policy and practice. These topics raise fundamental questions about the approaches that should be used in designing treatment, prevention, and enforcement strategies. As such, they highlight important dimensions of family violence that should be addressed in a research agenda for the field.

birth, infancy, and adolescence. Other issues linked to family formation include the use of corporal punishment in child discipline, gender roles, privacy, and strategies for resolving conflict among adults or siblings.

A third approach would be studies to discern the protective factors inside and outside families that enable some children who are exposed to violence to not only survive but also to develop coping mechanisms that serve them well later in life. This analysis would have widespread implications for assessing the impact of biological and experiential factors in specific domains, such as fear, anxiety, self-blame, identity formation, helplessness, and help-seeking behaviors. Such research could also identify abuse-related coping strategies (such as excessive distrust of or overdependence on others) that may contribute to other problems that emerge in the course of adolescent and adult development.

first-time parents, victims and offenders who have substance abuse histories, etc.)

Forging Partnerships Between Research And Practice

Although it is premature to expect research to offer definitive answers about the relative effectiveness of the array of current service and enforcement strategies, the committee sees valuable opportunities that now exist to accelerate the rate by which service providers can identify the types of individuals, families, and communities that may benefit from certain types or combinations of service and enforcement interventions. Major challenges must be addressed, however, to improve the overall quality of the evaluations of family violence interventions and to provide a research base that can inform policy and practice. These challenges include issues of study design and methodology as well as logistical concerns that must be resolved in order to conduct research in open service systems where the research investigator is not able to control factors that may weaken the study design and influence its outcome. The resolution of these challenges will require collaborative partnerships between researchers, service providers, and policy makers to generate common approaches and data sources.

The integration of research and practice in the field of family violence, as in many other areas of human services, has occurred on a haphazard basis. As a result, program sponsors, service providers, clients, victims, researchers, and community representatives have not been able to learn in a systematic manner from the diverse experiences of both large and small programs. Mayors, judges, police officers, caseworkers, child and victim advocates, health professionals, and others must make life-or-death decisions each day in the face of tremendous

uncertainty, often relying on conflicting reports, anecdotal data, and inconsistent information in judging the effectiveness of specific interventions.

The development of creative partnerships between the research and practice communities would greatly improve the targeting of limited resources to specific clients who can benefit most from a particular type of intervention. Yet significant barriers inhibit the development of such partnerships, including disagreements about the nature and origins of family violence, broad variations in the conceptual frameworks that guide service delivery, differences over the relative merits of service and research, a lack of faith in the ability of research to inform and improve services, a lack of trust in the ability of service providers to inform the design of research experiments and the formation of theoretical frameworks, and concerns about fairness and safety in including victims and offenders in experimental treatment groups. These fundamental differences obscure identification of outcomes of interest in the development of evaluation studies, which are further complicated by limitations in study design and access to appropriate subjects that are necessary for the conduct of research.

Even if greater levels of trust fostered more interaction between the research community and service providers, collaborative efforts would be challenged by factors such as the lack of funding for empirical studies, the availability of limited resources to support studies over appropriate time frames, and the social and economic characteristics of some of the populations served by family violence interventions that make them difficult to follow over extended periods of time (chaotic households, high mobility of the client population, concerns for safety, lack of telephones and permanent residences, etc.).

Service providers and program sponsors have often been skeptical of efforts to evaluate the impact of a selected intervention, knowing that critical or premature assessments could jeopardize the program's future and restrict future opportunities for service delivery. Service providers have also been less than enthusiastic in seeking program evaluations, knowing that the programs to be evaluated have been underfunded and are understaffed and present a less than ideal situation; in their view, the assessment may diminish future resources and affect the development of a particular strategy or programmatic approach. The tremendous demand for services and the limited availability of staff resources create a pressured environment in which the staff time involved in filling out forms for research purposes is seen as being sacrificed from time that might be used to serve people in need. In some cases, research funds support demonstration programs that are highly valued by a community, yet few resources are available to support them once the research phase has been completed.

Researchers and service providers need to resolve the programmatic tensions that have sometimes surfaced in contentious debates over the type of services that should be put into place in addressing problems of family violence. The mistrust and skepticism present major challenges that need to resolved before the technical challenges to effective evaluations can be addressed. A reformulation of the

research process is needed so that, while building a long-term capacity to focus on complex issues and conduct rigorous studies, researchers can also provide useful information to service providers.

The committee has identified three major principles to help integrate research and practice in the field of family violence interventions:

• Evaluation should be an integral part of any major intervention, particularly those that are designed to be replicated in multiple communities. Interventions have often been put into place without a research base to support them or rigorous evaluation efforts to guide their development. Evaluation research based on theoretical models is needed to link program goals and operational objectives with multiple program components and outcomes. Intensive marketing and praise for a particular intervention or program should no longer be a substitute for empirical data in determining the effectiveness of programs that are intended to be replicated in multiple sites.
• Coordinating policy, program, and research agendas will improve family violence interventions. Evaluation research will help program sponsors and managers clarify program goals and experience and identify areas in need of attention because of the difficulties of implementation, the use of resources, and changes in the client base. Research and data-based analysis can guide ongoing program and policy efforts if evaluation studies are integrated into the design and development of interventions. The knowledge base can be improved by (1) framing key hypotheses that can be tested by existing or new services, (2) building statistical models to explore the system-wide effects of selected interventions and compare these effects with the consequences of collaborative and comprehensive approaches, (3) using common definitions and measures to facilitate comparisons across individual studies, (4) using appropriate comparison and control groups in evaluation studies, including random assignment, when possible, (5) developing culturally sensitive research designs and measures, (6) identifying relevant outcomes in the assessment of selected interventions, and (7) developing alternative designs when traditional design methodology cannot be used for legal, ethical, or practical reasons.
• Surmounting existing barriers to collaboration between research and practice communities requires policy incentives and leadership to foster partnership efforts. Many interventions are not evaluated because of limited funds, because the individuals involved in service delivery consider research to be peripheral to the needs of their clients, because the researchers are disinterested in studying the complexity of service delivery systems and the impact of violence in clients' lives, or because research methods are not yet available to assess outcomes that result from the complex interaction of multiple systems. This situation will continue until program sponsors and policy officials exercise leadership to build partnerships between the research and practice communities and to provide funds for rigorous evaluations in the development of service and law enforcement
• interventions. Additional steps are required to foster a more constructive dialogue and partnership between the research and practice communities.

Partnership efforts are also needed to focus research attention on the particular implementation of an individual program rather than the strategy behind the program design. Promising intervention strategies may be discarded prematurely because of special circumstances that obstructed full implementation of the program. Conversely, programs that offer only limited effectiveness may appear to be successful on the basis of evaluation studies that did not consider the significant points of vulnerability and limitations in the service design or offer a comparative analysis with the benefits to be derived from routine services.

The establishment and documentation of a series of consensus conferences on relevant outcomes, and appropriate measurement tools, will strengthen and enhance evaluations of family violence interventions and lead to improvements in the design of programs, interventions, and strategies. May opportunities currently exist for research to inform the design and assessment of treatment and prevention interventions. In addition, service providers can help guide researchers in the identification of appropriate domains in which program effects may occur but are currently not being examined. Ongoing dialogues can guide the identification and development of instruments and methods that can capture the density and distribution of relevant effects that are not well understood. The organization of a series of consensus conferences by sponsors in public and private agencies that are concerned with the future quality of family violence interventions would be an important contribution to the development of this field.

Reports of mistreated children, domestic violence, and abuse of elderly persons continue to strain the capacity of police, courts, social services agencies, and medical centers. At the same time, myriad treatment and prevention programs are providing services to victims and offenders. Although limited research knowledge exists regarding the effectiveness of these programs, such information is often scattered, inaccessible, and difficult to obtain.

Violence in Families takes the first hard look at the successes and failures of family violence interventions. It offers recommendations to guide services, programs, policy, and research on victim support and assistance, treatments and penalties for offenders, and law enforcement. Included is an analysis of more than 100 evaluation studies on the outcomes of different kinds of programs and services.

Violence in Families provides the most comprehensive review on the topic to date. It explores the scope and complexity of family violence, including identification of the multiple types of victims and offenders, who require different approaches to intervention. The book outlines new strategies that offer promising approaches for service providers and researchers and for improving the evaluation of prevention and treatment services. Violence in Families discusses issues that underlie all types of family violence, such as the tension between family support and the protection of children, risk factors that contribute to violent behavior in families, and the balance between family privacy and community interventions.

The core of the book is a research-based review of interventions used in three institutional sectors—social services, health, and law enforcement settings—and how to measure their effectiveness in combating maltreatment of children, domestic violence, and abuse of the elderly. Among the questions explored by the committee: Does the child protective services system work? Does the threat of arrest deter batterers? The volume discusses the strength of the evidence and highlights emerging links among interventions in different institutional settings.

Thorough, readable, and well organized, Violence in Families synthesizes what is known and outlines what needs to be discovered. This volume will be of great interest to policymakers, social services providers, health care professionals, police and court officials, victim advocates, researchers, and concerned individuals.

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Essay On Domestic Violence

500 words essay on domestic violence.

Domestic violence refers to the violence and abuse which happens in a domestic setting like cohabitation or marriage. It is important to remember that domestic violence is not just physical but any kind of behaviour that tries to gain power and control over the victim. It can affect people from all walks of life and it basically subjects towards a partner, spouse or intimate family member. Through an essay on domestic violence, we will go through its causes and effects.

Causes of Domestic Violence

Often women and children are the soft targets of domestic violence. Domestic violence is a gruesome crime that also causes a number of deaths. Some of the most common causes of domestic violence are illiteracy and economical dependency on the menfolk.

The male-dominated society plays an important role in this problem. Further, dowry is also one of the leading causes which have the consequence of violence against newly-wed brides. In many parts of the world, physically assaulting women and passing horrendous remarks is common.

Moreover, children also become victims of this inhuman behaviour more than often. It is important to recognize the double standards and hypocrisy of society. A lot of the times, the abuser is either psychotic or requires psychological counselling.

However, in a more general term, domestic violence is the outcome of cumulative irresponsible behaviour which a section of society demonstrates. It is also important to note that solely the abuser is not just responsible but also those who allow this to happen and act as mere mute spectators.

Types of Domestic Violence

Domestic violence has many ill-effects which depend on the kind of domestic violence happening. It ranges from being physical to emotional and sexual to economic. A physical abuser uses physical force which injures the victim or endangers their life.

It includes hitting, punching, choking, slapping, and other kinds of violence. Moreover, the abuser also denies the victim medical care. Further, there is emotional abuse in which the person threatens and intimidates the victim. It also includes undermining their self-worth.

It includes threatening them with harm or public humiliation. Similarly, constant name-calling and criticism also count as emotional abuse. After that, we have sexual abuse in which the perpetrator uses force for unwanted sexual activity.

If your partner does not consent to it, it is forced which makes it sexual abuse. Finally, we have economic abuse where the abuser controls the victim’s money and their economic resources.

They do this to exert control on them and make them dependent solely on them. If your partner has to beg you for money, then it counts as economic abuse. This damages the self-esteem of the victim.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Domestic Violence

To conclude, domestic violence has many forms which include physical aggression like kicking and biting and it can also be sexual or emotional. It is essential to recognize the signs of domestic violence and report the abuser if it is happening around you or to you.

FAQ of Essay on Domestic Violence

Question 1: Why is domestic violence an issue?

Answer 1: Domestic violence has a major impact on the general health and wellbeing of individuals. It is because it causes physical injury, anxiety, depression. Moreover, it also impairs social skills and increases the likelihood that they will participate in practices harmful to their health, like self-harm or substance abuse.

Question 2: How does domestic violence affect a woman?

Answer 2: Domestic violence affects women in terms of ill health. It causes serious consequences on their mental and physical health which includes reproductive and sexual health. It also includes injuries, gynaecological problems, depression, suicide and more.

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Family Violence Essays Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Family , Time , Criminal Justice , Psychology , Women , Violence , Parents , Crime

Words: 2000

Published: 03/27/2020

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Introduction

There are myriad types of crimes that do not resemble the nonprofessional’s understanding of the term crime. In this case, family violence means the art of mistreatment of one family member to another. It can also be referred to as the violence that occurs between two people who are living in a close relationship. This may include spouses, people of the same sex, and other family members among other parties. The history of the Victorian women is widely known for their experiences against family violence. If not taken care of, family violence can lead to death, which is logically referred to as preventable death (Dziedzic, 2009). Besides that, it can lead to artificial disability and illness in the victims of the circumstance. To be precise, family violence appears as a threatening, coercive and controlling behavior that families. It may incorporate physical injury, which directs threats to one of the parties that are involved. Some of the threats are followed by sexual assault, emotional as well as psychological torment, and damage of the acquired property, intentional economic control, and social isolation among other weird behavior that may lead to fear. Family violence can be categorically being termed as one domestic crime. This means that its effects can be adversely such that they extend to the entire fraternity in the family. This includes the children who may not be the initial initiators of this violence. Ideally, family violence can be subdivided into different subtopics. Some of these subtopics include child abuse, intimate partners, and elder abuse. The larger the concept is, the larger the effect of family violence is. For instance, it is characterized by criminal offenses, behavioral acts as well as medical glitches. Most cases where family violence is dominant, the victim of family violence are usually the women. Many cases support the opinion that the people who face trouble during the domestically related violence are the women. Lissette Ochoa domestic violence case is one of the proofs of the most of the cases that show the meaning of family violence. This case occurred in Columbia between spouses. Like stated in the earlier analysis of family violence, this family violence occurred because of differences in the elite social status. The case was before Lissete Ochoa and she husband whose name was Rafael Dangond. Their violence story is like many other stories (Dziedzic, 2009). To start with, the husband and the wife originated from divinely constructed cultural backgrounds. Despite the fact that they came from different cultures, they did not have solid and substantial differences that could have caused a misunderstanding between them. Time to time, the difference in culture is usually one of the reasons for a lovely family relationship to be torn apart in a matter of a very short time. Rafael is the perpetrator of the crime against his spouse. He came from a very humble background. In his culture, he was taught two kinds of social attributes that do not rhyme with the act that he expressed to his lovely wife. These two important values included non-violence attitudes and tolerance. The culture observed the need to promote non-violence, not only in family matters, but also in incidences of other communal activities, as well as economic participation. Ideally, besides being nonviolent figures, they were also required by the culture to be tolerant. It is clear that the two values rhymed in a manner that one of them led to the development of the other. Tolerance is deemed to lead to a nonviolent personality (Dziedzic, 2009). This meant that his cultural background could not have led to the incidence of violence acts that were perpetrated by Rafael. On the other hand, he came from a middle class family. This means that most of the basic amenities that a child requires when growing were present with him. His parents were teachers. The parents’ had very strict religious believes. . This meant that they could not have led to this mischief. They were very friendly and understanding as deemed in their earlier lives according to their son Rafael. Despite the fact that there were not enough resources to take Rafael and his siblings to expensive private schools, they managed to go through school and earned good academic credentials (Hattery, 2012). However, a one-night situation was different from the normal livelihood of the family. His mother was alleged to having cheated on their father for some time. This incidence led to a constant disorientation of the father. According the change that occurred to his father’s psychological status, he could stand the pressure. He fought against his wife to a situation of nearly taking away her life. The latter situations led to a divorce in the family where the mother was excommunicated. Later in that year, the mother took away her life by hanging. Despite the fact, the mother was the wrong one in that incident; the psychological effect could have been installed in Rafael’s mind in terms of losing his parent through suicide. The family used to have a series of quarrels on what was considered as normal family issues. However, the quarrels started after nine years of marriage. They began because of some economic recession period that required them to have partition on the expenditure. This means that each of the members of the family, Rafael and his wife had a responsibility to carry. As soon as Lissette was fired from a good paying job, complex economic environment did not support any extra expenditure. These situations lead the wife to go seeking part time jobs. It would be considered unfortunate that she acquired one with former schoolmate man. This was not mesmerizing to the husband, Rafael. He felt a sense of insecurity that led to his drinking and taking consolation substances to help him forget the possibility of his wife cheating on him. However, this did not go on for a very long time until the situation where a man felt that his insecurity was consuming him. They started having quarrels that were astonishing due to the loud noises as well as the terms that they used against each other. The worse condition was experienced on 29 July 2009 when these normal incidences could not prevail. The two were invited for the wedding preparation party at a normal exclusive club that was situated in a near town; the two attended the party in good faith. They drunk out their wits, and it was time to dance. Rafael faced an annoying situation. Most spouses danced together. This never happened with Rafael. Instead, Lissette, his wife, went ahead and held hands with his old time school mate who was also his part time employer. This situation was not enjoyable enough for Rafael to wait. He headed for the Bathroom and cocked his gun. He later propelled towards the exit and then pulled his wife away in a bid to attract the room for discussion. The wife triggered his anger by pushing him aside and made him fall. As if not enough, Rafael dragged her to the car and drove off in astonishing silence. After arriving at home, he dragged her out of the car and shot her aimlessly due to instability of the alcohol he had taken together with other inhalants that he had started using. The close friends came to her rescue and rushed her to the hospital. It was very fortunate that he shot her from her left arm. The police were alarmed, and he was taken to custody for questioning. Despite the fact that Rafael was trying to drive his point home to his wife that he did not approve of the intimacy between her and the employer, he seemed to have lost it all. That is, he had lost his family’s confidence and love, and he was added to the state’s record of criminals and drug addicts. After a detailed analysis and research the factors that led to such an act, there was a series of confessions that were retrieved from Rafael. Initially, he had psychological problems. This was closely attributed to the history. Dating back when he was young, he felt the risk of losing his wife to her employer as it happened with his father. In addition to that, he felt that he could not manage to divorce his wife based on something that he believed he could have handled since he had experienced the pain in his life. His overprotective attitude led to a partial mental illness. Psychology determines that when one element disturbs someone from time to time, then one acquires some partial permanence in that mentality. This means that one cannot easily get that mentality, not unless continued monitoring and acceptance to adopt something different is exercised (Dziedzic, 2009). Psychological problem was one of the confessions that Rafael made to the authorities. Besides the psychological problem, Rafael also confessed after a medical checkup that he was over-possessive with his wife. However, he did not have a way to express it to her that he feared that what happened to his father was likely to happen to him. In a bid to forget all that, he went ahead and took drugs that could have resulted to partial madness. His constant use of alcohol and cocaine resulted to illusion thoughts. The use of drugs was one of the reasons why he managed to shot at his spouse. The continued substance use of any hard drug by someone who is not used to him or her can lead to permanent damage of the brain (Hattery, 2012). That is, the person in question can engage in activities without taking precaution of the sanity behind it. Any crime is subject to punishment or forgiveness. However, this decision always lies upon the hands of the victim of the judicial system. After this case went to the media, the public demanded immediate justice. The people who rescued the woman made this intervention public. They took photographs of the incidence and uploaded them over the internet. Because of the complete knowledge of the concerned activists, Rafael did not have a choice but to end up in jail. However, it was very ironical to find that there was a different perspective of dealing with issues affecting the home. To start with, Lissette wrote a letter of concern (Hattery, 2012). The content of the letter was determined to show the meaning the heart of a matrimonial home. In her conscious state, she was said to have dropped the charges thus leading to the termination of the criminal proceedings as well as the divorce that was being prepared. The used a very possessive statement, “Raphael is mine.” Besides that, she cut all the communication between her and her parents. She did this to react against the pressure that she received from her parents and relatives to let the law take its course. This incidence is a proposal on the best corrective measures that can be carried out to such perpetrators. The first element understands. After that, this person is supposed to undergo legalized rehabilitation. This starts by medical rehabilitation for him or her to regain a sane status. After this, the mental and psychological mentorship can be done. The reason why the first thing that is proposed for this kind of perpetrator is not punishment is that it becomes very hard to determine the reason behind his actions. Punishment could not be a recommendable process. This event involved life and death and the followed by forgiveness brought about need for social awareness and revision on the procedure that the law is believed to take upon such cases. Family violence is usually an internal incidence, which can cause death or disability. It is, therefore, the responsibility of social organisations to create awareness to prevent such incidences from happening.

Davis, R. L. (2008). Domestic violence: Intervention, prevention, policies, and solutions. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Dziedzic, N. G. (2009). Family violence. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press. Family Violence Prevention Fund (U.S.) (2005). Family violence prevention and health practice: An e-journal of the Family Violence Prevention Fund. San Francisco, CA: Family Violence Prevention Fund. Hattery, A., & Smith, E. (2012). The social dynamics of family violence. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.

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Family Violence and Child Abuse

Family violence, often hidden behind closed doors, can have severe impacts on the well-being of children. Exposure to such violence can lead to physical injuries, emotional trauma, and long-term behavioral issues. This topic examines the intertwined nature of family violence and child abuse, the signs to look out for, and the necessary interventions to protect vulnerable individuals. PapersOwl offers a variety of free essay examples on the topic of Abuse topic.

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• 1 Family Violence and Child Abuse
• 2 Reference List

Seldomly do people realize how often child are abused by parents, not always through violence, but in other various factors that can traumatize a child. The textbook Heavy Hands written by Denise Kindschi Gosselin has an entire chapter on child abuse and the different types of abuse that are involved against these children. Historical accounts tell us that children have always been abused and neglected by one or both parents; it is not uncommon or newly revealed (Gosselin 81).

Along with the textbook assigned in class, there are other scholarly articles that analyze the effects of numerous types of abuse that children can go through in a family and points out ways to identify when this is happening to children. Child abuse is a major problem included in family violence and with all its hardships, there are interactive ways and solutions for others to stop in and prevent the abuse from happening.

When children are abused and neglected they often carry these scars on into their adulthood and never develop naturally and fully because of the abuse their parents have gave to them. Although not always, these abused and neglected children can become perpetrators themselves on multiple kinds of violence including family violence, murdering, domestic partner violence, intimidate partner violence, etc. The children that must carry this burden into adulthood have not had proper treatment and care that they should properly have. Battered child syndrome refers to the repeated mistreatment or beating of a child which results in physical and/or psychological injuries (Gosselin 87). Battered child syndrome is an important phrase to be define in the situation of child abuse and neglect. Gosselin wrote of infanticide being the murder of a child before his or her first birthday in the ancient times (83) and that it is still a problem to this day in our society. It has been seen time and time again on news of how cruel parents can be with their children and how their negligence has led to the death of their child. The most traumatic story that pops into my head is the story of Casey Anthony. It is such a horrific and gruesome story to read about, and it is so hard to think a parent could do such things to a child they are supposed to love and care for.

A crucial part in helping abused children was to implement federal and state laws and the first major change came from Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). CAPTA requires states to assign an agency to receive and investigate reports of alleged child abuse and neglect. Along with this act, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was established (Gosselin 89). Both the act and the center were great implementations for child abuse initiatives, and in time the means for helping abused children would become more abundant.

The issue of child abuse in family violence is of high importance to not only the general public, but also policy makers and researchers. I say this because of all the tragedies we see more often than we should in news stories. Mall shootings, school shootings, terrorists’ attacks, bomb threats, etc. Children that have experience the worst of child abuse growing up are at a higher percentage than others to become a harm to society that we see in these news stories. It is important for all the public, not just policy makers, to be aware of what causes these people do what they do.

I do not believe this issue has received as much attention as it should because of how the media can twist stories of tragedies caused by delusional people to get better ratings. For example, the media does not care if this child was sexually abused or physically beaten everyday of their childhood. The media cares about the fact they are socially isolated, frequent adult websites, and anything else they can focus on to make the public believe what they want them to believe. But we need to focus on someone’s past as a child to understand why they have become what they have. What they experienced growing up is what is their reality. Murders have a different sense of reality than us because of how they are raised versus how a child should properly be raise and taken care of.

A scholarly article written by Jennifer Harman, Edward Kruk, and Denise Hines looked at parental alienating behaviors. In this article, they label behaviors of such alienating acts, including emotional aggression, neglect, legal aggression, and physical aggression (Harman et al. 2018). Emotional aggression can be in the form of creating fear into a child by terrorizing them mentally and physical aggression can include sexual behaviors, hitting a child, or even throwing items at children. With physical and emotional abuse children develop disorders that carry into their adult lives. Their trust levels diminish, and they become abusers themselves because of the way they were treated as children. They are mentally broken and believe an alternate reality that their abusive parents have created for them.

Another scholarly article Child Abuse and Family Violence as Determinants of Child Psychopathology written by David Wolfe and Peter Jaffe looked at adjustment disorders of physically abused children, children on battered women, and sexually abused children. Physically abused children are at risk of problems in the expression and regulation of emotional reactions (Wolfe & Jaffe 1991). Children without proper parental guidance do not receive the emotional support they need. This lead to children not being able to express themselves in a proper manner nor are they able to react emotional to certain stimuli properly. Children that are physically abused have a harder understanding of their own emotions and the emotions that other children express towards them.

Children who witness violence towards mother also exemplify a heterogeneous population that exhibits adjustment problems ranging from chronic developmental impairments to more specific stress-related disorders (Wolfe & Jaffe 1991). The stress these children experience leads to health problems including eating disorders and weight management, difficulties sleeping or sleeping too much, and lack of responding to other authoritative figures. This varies between boys and girls. Boys tend to be more aggressive in nature acting out, not listening to elders, and have a destructive behavior. Girls on the other hand become needier, are socially withdrawn and shy, and are dependent on parental interaction.

The last category Wolfe and Jaffe looked at were sexually abused children. Sexual abuse of children by adults has been linked to a number of childhood and adulthood problems, including panic disorders, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, somatic complaints, sexual dysfunction, and low self-esteem (Wolfe & Jaffe 1991). These symptoms of sexual abuse create a lot of tension for these children in their adult lives. Sexually, they are inactive and a hard time connecting with someone on this level because of the trauma they have experienced as children. It is important for them to find someone to emotional support them through this hardship and ensure there is no pressure felt in their sexual lives. It is a difficult situation for both partners to be in and they must exhibit strong support that does not falter.

The last scholarly article found on Family violence and child abuse was Posttraumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents Exposed to Family Violence by Gayla Margolin and Katrina Vickerman looked at child abuse and parents’ domestic violence that can lead to children developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Events that fall in the realm of family violence can include physical or emotional aggression and involve at least one family member as a victim and another as a perpetrator. The actions vary widely in severity, from minor aggression to the death of a family member (Margolin &Vickerman 2011). Whether the violence portrayed is as little as yelling at a child or it be as severe as a child witnessing the murder of one of their parents, PTSD is something that can be developed in these children witnessing and experiencing the violence.

Margolin and Vickerman give about four recommendations for assessing family violence and the symptoms that children will show that could lead to PTSD. However, I believe the third and fourth recommendation are the most important to highlight. Third, any assessment of children exposed to domestic violence should include an assessment of PTSD. Fourth, PTSD should be considered as potential mediating variable between family violence and other child problems (Margolin & Vickerman 2011). It is important in the cases of child abuse to ensure it is thoroughly investigated whether they are experiencing PTSD. PTSD can highlight between family violence and child abuse giving signs to experts who can determine what the next plan of action will be to stop child abuse from occurring anymore in a given household. Numerous articles and websites offer information on what anyone can do to prevent child abuse from occurring. This information includes recognizing when child abuse is occurring.

The signs are not always something to be seen, but it can be taught to recognize when a child is experience emotional hardships and these are signs of child abuse. Another step highlighted in multiple sources is to be supportive of the children. Children imitate what happens in their own homes and what they have learned from their parents. Social workers, educators, and those that work with children can determine when a child is acting from child abuse.

This leads to the next step, which is to document and report when these events are witnessed. Everyone who sees child abuse occurring is a bystander. It is their option to stay quit or to do something about what they have seen. Society needs to become proactive and reactive bystanders instead of staying silent. Lastly, the most important step for any issue is to raise awareness. As stated before, child abuse is often hard to see as it can be emotional, and this is where awareness must be raised. Raising awareness gives the general public a better understanding of the situation and gets them involved into become advocates to helping the cause and to hopefully end child abuse from occurring anymore in homes.

Child abuse is a major concern involved in family violence. The articles and textbook have explained what child abuse is and what experiences children have from physical to emotional pain, sexual abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder. It is important for the public and policy makers to be aware of these issues and determine ways to help prevent child abuse from occurring. Children that experience abuse carry the scars into adulthood and their realities are altered from what the norm is. It is the job of the public, social workers, educators, policy makers, etc. to help raise awareness to the issue of child abuse and explain the solutions that everyone can use to get involved to help prevent child abuse in family violence.

Reference List

Gosselin, Denise K. Heavy Hands: An Introduction to the Crimes of Domestic Violence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. Print. Harman, J. J., Kruk, E., & Hines, D. A. (2018). Parental Alienating Behaviors: An unacknowledged for of family violence. Psychological Bulletin, 144(12), 1275-1299. https://0-doi-org.wizard.umd.umich.edu/10.1037/bul0000175 Wolfe DA, Jaffe P. Child abuse and family violence as determinants of child psychopathology. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science/Revue Canadienne des sciences du comportement. 23(3), 282-299. https://0-doi-org.wizard.umd.umich.edu/10.1037/h0079021 Margolin, G., & Vickerman, K. A. (2011). Posttraumatic stress in children and adolescents exposed to family violence: I Overview and Issues. Couples and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 1(S), 63-73. https://0-doi-org.wizard.umd.umich.edu/10.1037/2160-4096.1.S.63

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Domestic Violence — Family Violence in Canada

Family Violence in Canada

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Published: Jul 10, 2019

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Domestic And Family Violence

Updated 04 August 2023

Downloads 34

Category Family

Topic Domestic Violence

Domestic and Family Violence

Domestic and family violence is common in many homes involving wives, children, or husbands. In Mills' article domestic violence is presented as abuse towards women especially by feminists who tend to defend them without investigating the issue. Men are judged and associated with hurting their wives and never given a chance to offer self-defense. However, this dimension of thinking is biased since nowadays women are no longer housewives or victims of societal rules. Studies have revealed that men and women abuse each other and in some cases, women are the ones that strike at their husbands (Mill, 2009). Domestic violence is therefore presented in a one-dimension thinking in which the man carries the blame even when both are involved "women don't hit men. Only men are the abusers" (Mills, 2009). Mills therefore, notes that men and women abuse one another at similar rates but he injuries inflicted on males are less serious thus many are never reported. Several examples have been highlighted in the article including that of Rihanna and Chris Brown.

Family and Domestic Violence in Context

In Bacci (1999), family and domestic violence is presented and interpreted depending on its location of context. Many of the violent activities happen in people's homes and privacy thus it is difficult to address them. Feminist researchers interested in domestic and family violence focus on examination of the gendered context of evidence. Different actors including feminists have published the issue of family and domestic violence in this source. Policy makers affect the notion of gender symmetry debate in Australia. Feminist acknowledged domestic violence as a major problem affecting several people. Women are considered victims of sexual as well as partner violence which they suffer in the hands in male perpetrators. In Australia, policy on violence targets women as the main focus to monitor the progress and reduce the violence. Thus, in Bacci's work domestic and family violence is connected with women who are considered as the victims.

The Connection Between Sex and Domestic Violence

In Heberle and Grace (2009) domestic and family violence can be in form of sex, which is often theorized as an assault on women. Any unwanted sexual intercourse involving a man and a woman in the home is termed as domestic or family violence according to socialists. Women and girls are the majority victims although men and boys can also be sexually abused at home. Sexual violence has been politicized by feminist domestic movements through legislation thus in many cases, women are still the victims. Policies that are established in many countries tend to defend women and girls as they are considered the greatest victims. Sociologists and political activists have come up with policies to guard against family violence. However, many of them go unreported due to the societal norms that influence the attitudes of various people.

Gendered Victimisation and the Need for Equal Protection

Victimization of women is gendered thus are considered as the ones in oppression in a family setup in many cultures (Powell & Webster, 2018). Therefore, any violence against women is given special focus when policies and efforts are being put in place to guard against family attacks. Although men receive similar threats in their homes, the law tends to protect women as they are considered the weaker characters. The society is therefore biased and there is need for civil rights groups to intervene to ensure that the laws that are made by the state and other actors defend all genders.

Bacchi, C. L. (1999). Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems. Sage.

 Heberle, R. J., & Grace, V. (Eds.). (2009). Theorizing sexual violence. Routledge.

Mill, G. L. (2009). Everything You Need to Know About Domestic Violence But Were Afraid to Ask. The new faces and facts of intimate abuse.https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/embedded/200909/everything-you-need-know-about-domestic-violence-were-afraid-ask

Powell, A., & Webster, K. (2018). Cultures of gendered violence: An integrative review of measures of attitudinal support for violence against women. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 51(1), 40-57.

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