Understanding and Preventing Violence, Volume 3 Social Influences (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Violence Between Spouses and Intimates: Physical Aggression Between Women and Men in Intimate Relationships
Violence Between Spouses and Intimates: Physical Aggression Between Women and Men in Intimate Relationships
Pages 115-292
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From page 115... ...
Jeffrey Pagan is at the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University. Angela Browne is at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
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From page 116... ...
, and also to the children for whom they cared, intensified as the public became aware of the confluence of family violence and other violent behaviors outside the family. Violence in the home, previously informally condoned because it was "private," was now defined in a social context as deviant and placed in the public domain, marking a "moral passage" in American
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From page 117... ...
Third, the emphasis on victimization in criminal justice research and practice in the 1970s identified family violence as an important and complex phenomenon confronting the police and courts iParnas, 1967; Bard and Zacker, 1971; Wilson, 19771. During the 1970s, sweeping legal and police policy changes were instituted in response to public concern and social science investigations.
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From page 118... ...
In turn, criminal justice policy toward wife assault has reflected research paradigms and theories of criminal or violent behavior toward strangers, rather than either an integrated perspective or a perspective incorporating the unique con tributions of family violence research. MARITAL VIOLENCE DEFINED In this paper, the discussion of research and policy on vioience between intimate adult partners includes physical assault, sexual assault, and homicide, committed, threatened, or attempted by spouses, ax-spouses, common-law spouses, or cohabitants toward their partners.
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From page 119... ...
Also, the differences in jurisprudential issues regarding children and elderly dependents, and the variations in administrative response systems, require a broader and more complex analysis. Accordingly, the terms wife assault, marital violence, and spouse abuse are sometimes used interchangeably to describe the phenomenon of assaults and abuse by partners or spouses in current or former intimate relationships in which they are or were cohabiting.
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using cross-cultural data on family violence from the Human Relations Area Files tHRAF) data base ;Lagace, 1979)
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Consensus on a universal definition of family violence is no more evident in cross-cultural research than in contemporary research in the United States jKorbin, 1977~. Variations in injury, motivation, and context are consistent with variations in the social organization of these societies, the meanings attached to marital violence, and the unique family configurations E.g., Gartner, 19901.
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From page 122... ...
. ~ J ~ press has joined women's groups and charitable organizations to denounce wife beating, child abuse, and related forms of family violence in the strongest terms." Reform Movements Toward Women and Children From the Puritans Through the Nineteenth Century The first American law prohibiting beating female spouses was enacted in the Puritan era in 1641 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
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From page 123... ...
was passed in 1672 in the Plymouth Colony. However, only 12 cases of spouse assault against wives were prosecuted in the Plymouth Colony court from 1633 to 1802 {fleck, 19871.3 No further laws against wife assault or other forms of family violence were enacted until a Tennessee law was passed in 1850, followed by a Georgia law seven years later and by an Alabama Supreme Court ruling in 1871.
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From page 124... ...
Society turned to social casework, rather than law enforcement, as the preferred intervention, and cases that were identified were attributed increasingly to economic hardship, family problems, or psychiatric disturbance {Gordon, 19881. General interest in family violence declined until the 1960s.
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From page 125... ...
Early writings on police responses to family violence were critical, citing their refusal to get involved in family disputes Fields, 1978) , their avoidance of arrest and other criminal sanctions Field and Field, 1973; Martin, 1976; Roy, 1977; Dobash and Dobash, 1979)
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From page 126... ...
The new social knowledge of family violence led to recognition that domestic disputes were a major problem facing law en ~ ~ .
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The separate origins of the responses to marital violencefeminist grassroots organizations on the one hand and criminal justice system auspices on the other led to different approaches to stopping violence. These differences were reflected in the service emphases of programs sponsored in these divergent milieus, their interpretation of the role of criminal law, and ultimately, the types of organizations involved in social interventions.
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From page 128... ...
Solutions are believed to require "treating" all members, and the treatment approach is typically based on the supposition that early intervention will be able to head off severe violence before criminal justice sanctions are necessary. Social control interventions in sharp contrast to empowerment models-are predicated on the notion that the authority of the legal system will exercise control over the "disputants" and coerce or
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From page 129... ...
Legalistic Approaches Legalistic approaches most often were sponsored by and affiliated with criminal justice agencies. These approaches focused on the victim and the assailant in the context of laws that were being broken, and were rooted in assumptions of specific deterrence ISherman and Berk, 1984; Berk and Newton, 1985; Langan and Innes, 1986; Williams and Hawkins, 1989al.
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From page 130... ...
"The Battered Child Syndrome," child welfare agencies saw battered children in increasing numbers, as hospital staff and social workers identified and reported children as suspected victims of child abuse. Workers viewed family violence primarily as a problem affecting children {and later, adolescents)
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Although important to the well-being of victims, definitions that included these dimensions were considered to have little relevance to the codified behaviors of concern to the criminal court. Instead, criminal justice policy and research relied on definitions that stressed codified behavior to inform legal policy or response.
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From page 132... ...
Marital violence was alternately explained as a result of family dysfunction or interaction patterns, individual pathology, situational factors that influenced marital dynamics, social pathology, or the behavioral product of ideological supports or cultural beliefs in the patriarchical social and economic organization of society. Research on marital violence conducted in one paradigm had limited utility in another social arena.
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From page 133... ...
The section concludes with an analysis of risk factors that characterize marital violence. PARTICIPATION AND FREQUENCY OF MARITAL VIOLENCE The two primary sources of epidemiological data on marital violence- the National Family Violence Surveys and the National Crime Survey are based on nationwide probability samples of households.
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This is termed the participation rate per 1,000 respondents. Rarely do family violence researchers calculate offending rates tcf.
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National Pro babiJity Samples Among the national probability samples, participation rates for overall violence Number of persons per 1JOOO population) are consistent for the 1975 and 1985 National Family Violence Surveys iStraus et al., 1980; Straus and Gelles, 19901.
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National Probability Samples Straus and Gelles ~ 1990) 6,002 Straus et al.
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Yet when the 1985 NFVS rates are calculated for the 18-24 age group, the results still show important differences in prevalence estimates for the NFVS and NYS data sets. Table 2 compares mate and female participation rates in spouse assault using the CTS items for three samples: the NYS sample, the 1975 NFVS sample, and the 18- to 24-year-old respondents from the 1985 NFVS.
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4= ad o co a, o Go an In a, o ~ - l Id 4 · - l By o a' a, cd AL ~4 ¢ Ed o .
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From page 139... ...
For the NYS data, gender differences are evident only for female reports of husband-to-wife serious violence and wife-tohusband general violence. The most consistent pattern across the data sets is the higher rate of serious husband-to-wife violence by mates reported by female partners.
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From page 140... ...
NonprobabiJity Local Samples Researchers have attempted to estimate prevalence rates among specific samples using convenience, purposive, or other nonrandom sampling methods. Table 1 shows that the estimates generally are higher among these samples for reports of violence by male partners.
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From page 141... ...
report that rates of severe violence varied across several studies, from 8 to 102 per 1,000 men and from 25 to 59 per 1,000 women. Participation in severe violence by males was far higher in the Kentucky telephone survey of women than comparable reports in the NFVS data: 87 per I'000 respondents ISchulman, 19791.
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From page 142... ...
frequencies for each category.8 Table 3 shows participation and offending rates calculated for 6,002 respondents in the 1985 NFVS data set. Only rates of maTeto-femaTe violence are shown: mate reports of offending and female reports of victimization.
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< .001. Income There were no significant differences for participation rates, but there were significant differences by both sex of respondents and income level for offending rates.
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From page 148... ...
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From page 149... ...
Offending rates were higher for female reports of victimization, but there were no differences by educational disparity in offending rates. Comorbidity With Other Family Violence We also computed participation and offending rates for two comorbidity factors: violence during pregnancy and parent-to-child violence.
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From page 150... ...
Although mates and females reported significant differences by age group, the patterns differed: females reported the highest participation for younger males Ages 18-251, but males between ages 26 and 35 reported higher participation rates. Once again, female reports of base rates of participation were higher for all age groups.
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From page 151... ...
The use of offending rates illustrates differences in marital violence that are not evident when only participation rates are reported, particularly within sociodemographic groups. For severe violence, female reports of male participation were consistently higher.
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From page 152... ...
, marital violence was continuous or escalating over periods lasting 3 to 15 years. Also, males who are serial assailants, who move to commit assaults in one marriage after another, are not captured in either the household surveys or the criminal justice experiments.
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From page 153... ...
Three specific studies of family violence have been reported from the NCS data. Gaquin il977-1978)
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From page 154... ...
Langan and Innes {1986J estimated that 2.1 million men were victims of domestic violence at least once during an average 12-month period, consistent with the 1980 NFVS estimates. They also noted that, compared with victims of stranger violence, victims of domestic violence were at far greater risk of recurring victimization.
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VIOLENCE BETWEEN SPOUSES AND ARTISTES / 155 TABLE 4 Percent Distribution of Crimes of Violence Involving Nonstranger Victimizations by Victim-Offencler Relationshipa Victim-Offender Relationship Percent Well-Known, Victimized Spouse Ex-Spouse Not Related 1987 Assault 19.5 6.6 3.9 79.0 Aggravated 18.3 5.0 3.9 80.6 Simple 20.0 7.1 3.9 78.5 1986 Assault 19.8 7.8 3.7 69.4 Aggravated 20.3 6.0 2.4b 69.7 Simple 19.6 8.5 4.2 69.3 1985 Assault 23.1 8.3 6.0 40.0 Aggravated 21.0 7.7 2.3 b 40.3 Simple 24.0 8.6 7.5 41.2 1984 Assault 23.2 9.2 4.7 43.8 Aggravated 24.3 10.6 4.3 44.8 Simple 22.8 8.5 4.9 43.4 1983 Assault 18.9 8.1 3.5 44.8 Aggravated 17.9 8.4 2.7b 44.2 Simple 19.2 7.9 3.8 45.1 aSingle-offender victimizations only. bEstimate based on 10 or fewer sample cases.
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From page 156... ...
In particular, the critical period of separation of married women from spouses seems to pose the highest risk of violent victimization. Official Records Prior to the first victimization or household surveys, research on family violence relied on official data drawn from the criminal justice, mental health, social work, anti clinical records of both public and private agencies tWeis, 19891.
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From page 157... ...
. Moreover, NCS data are unequivocal on the severe underreporting of marital violence to criminal justice agencies ;Gaquin, 1977-1978; Lentzner and DeBerry, 1980; Langan and Innes, 1986~.
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From page 158... ...
Official records evidently have improved with the social activism that resulted in the "criminaTization" of family violence. Mandatory arrest laws in states such as Washington and local policies elsewhere {e.g., Milwaukee)
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From page 159... ...
Browne and Williams jl989) showed that the homicide rate for female partners is 56 percent of the rate of mate spouses.
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From page 160... ...
States having more domestic violence legislation and other resources targeted for abused women {e.g., shelters, crisis lines, and specialized legal assistance) tended to have Tower rates of female-perpetrated partner homicide overall, and Browne and Williams jl989)
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From page 161... ...
Second, initial analyses revealed that trends for common-law homicides were similar to those for formal marriages, and that rates for homicides involving ax-partners showed no consistent trend. Using these categorizations, analyses of trends in lethal victimization by intimate partners for 1976 through 1987 revealed quite different patterns for married and unmarried couples: there was a slight decrease in lethal violence for married couples, but an increase in such violence between women and men in unmarried relationships.
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From page 162... ...
Thus it is possible that the failure of social control attempts to also emphasize the dangers for unmarried couples may leave out those relationship types with potentially the highest risk for lethal violence against women. In addition to gender differences, the social epidemiology of marital homicide reveals distinct patterns of risk by ethnicity.
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From page 163... ...
found that women were more likely than men to kill in the home within a context of economic dependence, past attacks, and victim-initiated physical conflicts. Local studies, primarily with samples of women incarcerated for homicide, suggest that a substantial portion of homicides by women against their mate partners are in response to the partners' physical aggression and threat See Browne, 1987, for a review of these studies)
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From page 164... ...
As measurement improves in these dimensions, estimates of the locations and risk factors for marital homicide are likely to improve and contribute substantively to policy interventions. MARITAL RAPE Marital rape is a dimension of family violence often excluded from the marital violence research of the 1970s.
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From page 165... ...
Pagan and WexTer jl985) examined sexual assault as part of marital violence based on self-reports from 2,792 women in 23 family violence intervention programs.
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From page 166... ...
agrees that marital rape is "harmful" but cautions that subsuming it within a definition of family violence or abuse would create conceptual confusion and inhibit theory development. He argues that definitions of violence should include specific acts that are consistent with legal usage, and that reflect normative standards of conduct and humane values.
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From page 167... ...
.. From the earliest origins of family violence intervention programs, women victims sought services and protection more often than men (Pagan et al., 19841.
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From page 168... ...
report only whether either partner was hurt badly enough to "need to see a doctor." No specific list of injuries was provided, confounding the measure of injury with economic and geographical variables, as well as the willingness to disclose injuries from family violence publicly. Thus, the psychometric properties of the measure of injury are uncertain.
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From page 169... ...
Other data suggest that men and women rate the severity of violence differently, even when they agree that it occurred ;see Table 31. Although published research from the NFVS data has emphasized the "equality" of violence participation rates for women and men, Straus et al.
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From page 170... ...
In the NCS, data are limited to reporting the number of "serial victimizations." Problems of interpretation and validity concerns also limit conclusions about gender differences based on NCS data. NCS questions are posed in the context of a "crime" survey, raising difficulties for respondents who may define spouse assaults as a "family" matter.
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From page 171... ...
calculations of offending rates as well as participation rates across a variety of sampling and measurement conditions, and {3) careful attention to definitional parameters of assaultiveness and violence, conclusions about the absence of gender differences are unwarranted.
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From page 172... ...
They compared family violence among whites and Mexican Americans using global measures of "family violence" from Epidemiological Catchment Area surveys. The items combined several CTS items into one.
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From page 173... ...
{1989) analyzed data on locations of repeat calls for service for "domestic disturbances," a broad category that includes loud stereos, family fights, neighbor disputes, and family violence.
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From page 174... ...
found variations by state in female-perpetrated partner homicides that were negatively correlated with legal resources and social spending for interventions for abused women. Indicators of urbanismi~ and the male homicide rate predicted the female homicide rate, suggesting an urban concentration of female-perpetrated partner homicides.
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From page 175... ...
found that African Americans accounted for 45.4 percent of all spouse homicide victims, and their rate was 8.4 times higher than the white rate. White wives had twice the risk of spousal homicide, but African American women had homicide victimization rates moderately Tower than the rate for African American males.
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From page 176... ...
Stets and Straus {19901 used three measures of "injury" to compare injury risk for mates and females from the National Family Violence Surveys {1975 and 19851. First, respondents were asked
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From page 177... ...
More women victims than men reported all three forms of nonphysical injury) and the gender differences intensified with the severity of violence.
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From page 178... ...
Among women who sought help from family violence intervention programs iN = 270) ,56 percent reported being the victim of abused at least once a month {Fagan and WexIer, 1985~.
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From page 179... ...
- x Hi hi 11 co In o · · o Hi ·_1 ·_1 au o o · - l ct o o o LO ¢ 4_, o ~ ~ v ~ .
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From page 180... ...
Official Records Official records have the obvious limitations of serving the data collection needs of the agencies that gather them and the variability that characterizes definitions of behaviors as well as procedures for recording and reporting. Accordingly, law enforcement data will collapse a wide variety of acts into categories such as "domestic disturbance," or even "spouse assault," under new legislation that calls for mandatory arrest or criminal penalties for violations of court orders.
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From page 181... ...
The CTS measures used in the NFVS represent the most widely cited metric of epidemiological data on family violence. The CTS has been used in a variety of sampling and procedural conditions.
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From page 182... ...
Yet Szinovacz {1983) found differential validity by respondent characteristics for both spouse assault and child abuse.
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From page 183... ...
This includes research on risk factors for violence that are evident in both general population and treatment or clinical samples' marital dynamics of violent and nonviolent couples ; Szinovacz, 1983 J personality factors associated with both stranger and family violence, and lack of social desirability ;Resick and Reese, 1986J.
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From page 184... ...
Finally, the wide range of participation rates for Tables 1 and 2 raises questions about the external validity of the findings of the research using self-reports and suggests, as noted earlier, that method-dependent biases {Widom, 1990) may contribute to disparate findings.
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From page 185... ...
The elements of coercion and social control in criminal justice
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From page 186... ...
concludes that differing profiles of wife assaulters may reflect the variations in research strategies more than substantive differences in typologies. With these limitations in mind, this section reviews empirical knowledge on the characteristics of mate partners and violent relationships.
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From page 187... ...
Yet much of the research is limited to self-selected samples of wife assaulters Saunders, 1987) or to reports from victims about their assailants: ;Gondolf, 19881.
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From page 188... ...
point out that these images not only link substance abuse and family violence, but also depict causal relationships and portray these behaviors as an underclass phenomenon. Empirical evidence on the contributions of intoxication to ag
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From page 189... ...
, assault rates were half those of the often drunk respondents.24 The authors conclude that the heaviest drinkers are "anesthetized" both emotionally and physiologically, but although rates of alcohol use were high among assaultive spouses, they were no higher than among the general population. Kantor and Straus {19871 analyzed data from the 1985 NFVS to examine the "drunken-bum" theory of wife assault by mates.
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From page 190... ...
Both the Kantor and Straus t1987~ and the Coleman and Straus jl983J studies also suggest that expectancies develop through social learning processes: for example, reactions to alcohol and behaviors while intoxicated are observed in the family context "witnessing family violence and the instrumental use of physical aggression. There are several alternative interpretations of the alcoholassault relationship in marital violence.
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From page 191... ...
For stranger violence, there is consistent evidence that the association with intoxicants is spurious and mediated by the context in which intoxication occurs and the social set of individuals in that scene iFagan, 19901. Shields et al.
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From page 192... ...
Thus, the interaction of personality, social network, situation or setting, and cultural norms provides a powerful influence on individual behaviors in the family while intoxicated. Concurrent Violence Toward Children Family violence researchers have looked most closely at the co-occurrence of wife and child abuse.
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From page 193... ...
form of family violence was reported. For example, 6.6 percent of the husbands who assaulted both children and wives also were involved in severe violence toward strangers Involving injury)
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From page 194... ...
Childhood Exposure to Violence Exposure to violence as a childeither as a witness of parental violence or as a victim of child abuse is an important precursor of adult violence toward children or toward spouses ;GelLles, 1974; Pagelow, 1984; Pagan et al., 1983; Straus, 1983; HotaTing and Sugarman, 1986; Browne, 1987; Caesar, 1988; Rosenbaum and O'Leary, 1981~. Most studies have cited the importance of childhood exposure to violence in later domestic violence {see Browne, 1987:23-35~.
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From page 195... ...
Although empirical evidence underscores the importance of early childhood socialization to violence, intergenerational theories have not adequately specified the structures, processes, and contingencies that shape the "transfer" of violence from one generation to the next. Moreover, social learning processes may be mitigated by other socialization processes tWidom, 1988~.
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From page 196... ...
{19831, based on reports from 270 women in family violence intervention programs, found that 46 percent of spouse abusers had been arrested previously for other violence. These men were also the most frequently and severely violent in the home.
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From page 197... ...
Consistent with this, some researchers have argued that family violence in general and spousal violence in particular are special and distinct types of violence and should not be viewed as a subset of violent behavior {Dobash and Dobash, 1979; Wardell et al., 19831. The few studies of generally violent men show, however, that they are more similar to stranger assailants than to those violent only within their families Shields and Hannecke, 1983J.
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From page 198... ...
Other than their abuse histories and socioeconomic status, there do not appear to be consistent patterns that differentiate women victims from nonvictims. Notating and Sugarman's {1986)
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From page 199... ...
Neither personaTity nor behavioral characteristics were evident as risk markers for women in the HotaTing and Sugarman review. For example, the weight of empirical evidence suggests that alcohol use floes not distinguish women victims from other women.26 Many of the symptoms that victims exhibit evidently are sequelae of marital violence rather than antecedents or concurrent factors ~Walker, 1984; Margolin, 1988)
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From page 200... ...
In the majority of cases resulting in homicide, the severity of the man's violence and threats toward family members escalated over time, although the frequency of violent assaults showed varying patterns. As previously noted, almost all of the women in the homicide group had sought intervention from the criminal justice system, obviously without success, before the fatal event isee also Lindsey, 1978; Saltzman et al., 1990; and Sherman and Berk, 1984' as cited in Browne and Williams, 1989 )
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From page 201... ...
Three factors are evident as risks for both males and females: witnessing family violence as a child or adolescent, age, and problematic alcohol use. Although HotaTing and Sugarman jl986)
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From page 202... ...
is discussed earlier, as are patterns of alcohol use among assaultive mates. Risk Factors for Wife Assaults by Males Empirical evidence indicates that mates who are most frequently and severely assaultive toward female partners also are assaultive toward others in the family and toward strangers.
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From page 203... ...
Accordingly, traditional sex-role orientation appears to be a risk factor, although it appears to be more appropriately conceived as a distal influence mediated through other individual or situational factors. Thus, as we discuss further, mate assailants whose sex-role orientation is strongest may use it as a cultural defense, a neutralization technique iSykes and Matza, 1957J, or as an account {Scott and Lyman, 1968J or excuse for wife assault.
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From page 204... ...
Theoretical Implication of Risk Factors These risk factors suggest several important trends with implications for the explanation of wife assault and its connections to other forms of violence. First, the results suggest that, for women victims, only variables relating to their socioeconomic and marital status place them at greater risk.
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From page 205... ...
What is unknown is whether the assault of female partners is concentrated in areas marked by social disorganization, poverty, and other ecological risk factors of stranger violence. The correlation among men of social class and social structural variables with participation in both wife assault and stranger violence suggests that for some wife assaults, there are risk factors that reflect social area effects and social disorganization.
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From page 206... ...
Such norms have been linked with wife assault in empirical studies in the United Kingdom Dobash and Dobash, 19791, Canada {Smith, 19901, and the United States ;Bowker, 1984; YIlo and Straus, 19841. To explain the contributions of patriarchy to marital violence, economic inequalities and cultural portrayals of women are cited as manifestations of mate orientation and hegemony iDobash and Dobash, 1979; Pagelow, 19841.
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From page 207... ...
concluded that the better integrated the assaultive husband was in male subcultures, the more severe was his violence in the home.30 He located gratification from wife assault in the realm of patriarchal imperatives: the cultural transmission of values that demand male domination, and the reinforcement of those values through socialization as children in male-dominated families and later social embedment in violence-supporting social relationships in a violence-tolerant culture. The importance of reinforcing societal values, modeled in early childhood and refined in adult years, indicates that both environmental {or normative)
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From page 208... ...
POWER, CONTROL, AND DOMINATION Although power motivation theories were first developed by McClelland and colleagues {McClelland et al., 1972; McClelland and Davis, 1972; McClelland, 1975) regarding drinking behaviors, they follow naturally from patriarchal theories as explanations of assaults by males against their female partners.
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From page 209... ...
a man's right to have sex with his wife/ partner, even when she does not want to. If males are socialized to expect dominance or power within the relationship, aggression may be initiated from frustration over an inability to control their female partners.
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From page 210... ...
Bowker suggested that the involvement of external sources of social control {legal and social, as well as kinship networks) was a successful strategy in equalizing power relationships as an antecedent to the cessation of wife assault.
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From page 211... ...
found that simply the presence of resources such as domestic violence legislation, shelters, and other services for abused women was associated with a sharp decline in rates of all femaTeperpetrated partner homicides. Although it is known that only a minority of abused women go to shelters or become involved in legal action against their mates, Browne and Williams theorized that such resources may have symbolic as well as tangible significance, because the existence of legal and extralegal sanctions both provides a social statement that supports victims' perceptions of the seriousness of such violence and may engender a sense of empowerment and alternatives.
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From page 212... ...
Thus, when these men perceive a threat of emotional pain or Toss of control in an adult relationship, they may follow early models by resorting to violence themselves, in an attempt to avoid the potential for further victimization and pain. Within this theoretical framework, violent behaviors learned during early childhood socialization are either strengthened or inhibited during later developmental stages by the family's connection to the broader culture and its sociocultural reinforcers E.g., perceptions of neighborhood attitudes and behavioral norms toward violence and sex roles)
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From page 213... ...
However, the rare studies spanning the two behaviors suggest that there may be a critical, if overlooked, relationship between familial and extrafamilial violence. Victim Selection and Violence Careers Anecdotal data from victims and shelter workers suggest that men who are violent with their female partners will seek out other victims if cut tiff from a battering relationship.
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From page 214... ...
Yet the "domestic violence only" men differed from the others in several ways. They were from higher social status groups and had higher educational attainment, although this may well be an artifact of the self-selected sample.
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From page 215... ...
. Integrating Theories of Marital and Stranger Violence There is consistent evidence that violence toward both strangers and intimates is learned early on in the home (Pagelow, 1984; White and Straus, 1981; Walker, 1979, 1984; Pagan et al., 1983; Pagan and Wexler, 1987a; Docige et al., 1990; cf.
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From page 216... ...
Distinctions among "generally" violent mates, those violent only toward family members, and those violent only toward nonfamily members suggest that there are processes specific to victim selection in the development of violent behaviors. Social learning processes describe how socialization occurs where both the utility and the behavioral norms that express mate dominance, as well as the functional value of violence, are passed down {Bandura, 1979~.
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From page 217... ...
Thus, wife assaulters do not challenge the sanctity of marriage or societal laws against assault. The cognitive restructuring of events that is necessary to neutralize self-punishment for disapproved behavior involves four types of mechanisms: jl)
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From page 218... ...
When cultural evaluations accept that marital conflict can cause aggressive or violent behaviors, then these accounts are more often honored by society, and the use of such excuses is greater. SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY AND COMMISSION OF HOMICIDES BY ABUSED WOMEN Most of the explanatory frameworks discussed thus far have focused on the perpetration of partner violence by mates, in part because male violence is more frequent and severe, and in part because case-control studies have failed to find factors that differentiate women victims of marital violence from nonvictims.
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From page 219... ...
As people involved in neither violent nor property crimes, they would be predicted to be nonviolent in nearly all social contexts. Further, there were no systematic differences in the backgrounds of these women from women in the comparison group that would constitute risk markers for their later involvement in a homicide.
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From page 220... ...
If one views the escalation of violent acts by the abuser as ordered along a continuum, the "latitude of acceptance" for a battered woman would be that range of activities to which she could adapt. This latitude would be affected by four dimensions frequently discussed in the literature on family violence: jl)
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From page 221... ...
For example, there have been no similar applications of social judgment theory to other women victims of abuse and no research on whether social judgments inevitably alter perceptions of acceptable alternatives. However, Bowker t1983, 1986b)
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From page 222... ...
These cognitive processes in turn are further influenced by cultural and situational factors that determine the norms, beliefs, and sanctions regarding behaviors following arousal during marital conflict or stress. Three major independent variables increase the probability of violence during microsocial interactions: {1)
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From page 223... ...
These settings and social contexts also influence the choice of behaviors, and convey the rules and norms proscribing behaviors, the cognitive interpretation of the situation, and therefore the probability of marital violence while in that situation. Personality Factors A propensity toward marital violence reflects explanations regarding the use of physical force to resolve perceived conflicts.
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From page 224... ...
The influence of larger political, economic, and socialorganizational influences on culture and proximal social controls of violence in general, and wife assaults in particular- must also be acknowledged. The interaction among personality, social context, and arousal seems critical to understanding marital violence.
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From page 225... ...
CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY Significant changes have taken place in criminal justice policy toward marital violence over the past 20 years. These developments were preceded by criticisms of the police, and the criminal justice system more generally, for failing to respond effectively to spouse assault.
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From page 226... ...
In a review of criminal justice responses to marital violence, Elliott {1989) concludes that one-third of all domestic disturbance calls involve some form of domestic violence, with the majority of these involving assaults between "intimate" cohabitants or former cohabitants.
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From page 227... ...
The premise is that strict and swift application of criminal sanctions in wife assault cases will better protect victims and reduce the likelihood of repeat violence. The empirical basis for these policies derives both from accumulated evidence of the ineffectiveness of nonarrest or informal police dispositions of family violence calls {Martin, 1976; Bowker, 1983; Morash, 1986)
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From page 228... ...
Findings from the Minneapolis experiment, together with results of nonexperimental studies comparing arrest with other police dispositions of spouse assault cases ;Berk and Newton, 19851, provided evidence that influenced police policy and legislation nationwide Sherman and Cohn, 1989~. Thus, for several years, the Minneapolis study provided critical, determining evidence in criminal justice policy development for wife assault.
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From page 229... ...
First, the follow-up period was relatively short Six months! , given the episodic and cyclical patterns of family violence observed by Walker jl979, 1984)
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From page 230... ...
Berk {personal communication, 1986) states that assailants withIengthier histories of either wife assault or stranger violence had higher recidivism rates than others, regardless of experimental conditions.
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From page 231... ...
They contend, similar to Ford jl983J, that victims can then use the criminal justice process to negotiate their own security with suspects/spouses. Thus, according victims, the option for arrest becomes an empowerment strategy.
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From page 232... ...
Evidently, both the perceived and the actual deterrent effects of arrest seem to diminish for assailants familiar with the "going rates" of punishment for wife assault in the criminal justice system. These rates may be even lower for areas in which stranger violence or other crime problems are assigned a high priority.
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From page 233... ...
/ PROSECUTION OF MARITAL VIOLENCE Major developments in the prosecution of family violence cases have centered on increasing the percentage of cases formally prosecuted and on improving the quality and aggressiveness of that
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From page 234... ...
Research on factors that influence prosecution of marital violence cases reflects the absence of specific decision-making criteria and the generalization of prosecutorial discretion for stranger and family violence cases. Schmidt and Steury jl989)
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From page 235... ...
found little evidence that different factors were involved in the decision to prosecute family violence cases compared to stranger violence crimes. Differences were attributed in part to the quality of evidence, but primarily to differences in victim/witness cooperation- a complex issue in the prosecution of family violence cases.
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From page 236... ...
With few exceptions, wife assault cases continue to be evaluated and prosecuted with little difference from other violence cases {Schmidt and Steury, 1989J. The organizational, fiscal, and procedural accommodations necessary within prosecutors' offices to effectively pursue sanctions in family violence cases still are not commonplace.
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From page 237... ...
enable offenders both to learn alternative responses for conflict management or anger control and to internalize the negative consequences of violent behavior. Treatment alternatives and options have a Tong-standing place in the criminal justice system jGendreau and Ross, 19791.
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From page 238... ...
Treatment also focuses on anger detection, control, and management to influence cognitive and behavioral abilities. These programs have been widely accepted as an option for criminal justice processing, in part because they reflect explanations of wife assault that do not challenge basic assumptions within criminal justice agencies about the causes of crime.
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From page 239... ...
Paradigms of Social Science The policy emphasis on deterrence through arrest and prosecution places greater premium on individual explanations of marital violence than on other models. Accordingly, research on marital violence that identifies the causes and remedies within individual assailants has had the strongest currency for criminal justice policy development.
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From page 240... ...
Pagan and WexTer {19851, for example, found that the explanatory power of risk factors in OLS models of marital violence varied according to the definition of aggression or violence used. Table 6 shows the results of OLS regression analyses predicting six different measures of marital violence for each of three sets of TABLE 6 Summary of OLS Regression Models of Marital Violence Measures by Victim, Assailant, and Situation Variables IN= 270)
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From page 241... ...
iData were based on self-reports by victims for each variable during a four-month period following participation in legal, social, or other family violence interventions. ~ Results show that the efficacy of interventions varied according to the measure used.
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From page 242... ...
can lead to very different conclusions about behavioral change and the impact of law reform. Family violence research has been concerned with explaining the occurrence of aggression in families, not just assaults.
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From page 243... ...
Criminological research, in contrast, relies on studies of offenders more than on victimization research for policy development. Research utilization in criminal justice has emphasized studies with several discernible characteristics: offenders as subjects, not respondents; experiments or quasiexperiments, rather than descriptive studies with clinical samples; violence measures that operationaTize codified law or behaviors and that also deemphasize nonphysical aggression, injury, or harm; independent variables that operationaTize official responses to marital violence or the flow of cases through the system and test explicit formulations of deterrence theory; and- most important policy applications that directly contribute to strategies to sanction and control offenders as a means of reducing marital violence.
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From page 244... ...
suggests that a specific jurisprudence of family violence is unnecessary, but even in this view the effectiveness of criminal justice policies may benefit from knowledge gained in research on marital violence. The reverse condition also seems to be important: Knowledge of the general violence patterns of a male who assaults his spouse should signify the risks of further violence in that couple.
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From page 245... ...
These are critical for establishing the woman's perceptions at the time of the homicide particularly in evaluating the imminent danger to herself based on the escalating history of previous violence and the absence of any means to stop it. Browne notes that the use of this defense is not intended to establish new law, but rather that it uses family violence research to inform "existing statutes to account for differences in the experiences of women and men .
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From page 246... ...
Family violence research generally has not addressed the social organizational issues that influence policy changes in the criminal justice system. If sanctions are the product of structural factors in the courts ;Hagan and Bumiller, 1983J, then the effects of organizational characteristics should prove significant.
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From page 247... ...
Moreover, prosecutors have the "upper hand" traditionally, and their actions disproportionately influence the legal culture and routines of the criminal court {Jacob, 19831. The formalization of marital violence cases by prosecutors may introduce changes in the standard operating procedures and victim characteristics for personnel routinely involved in stranger violence cases.
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From page 248... ...
Research on the differential effects of criminal justice sanctions also suggests that legal sanctions and social control of of
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From page 249... ...
This conflict in control paradigms is rooted in the larger issues of measurement and definition, system capacity, organizational dynamics among system agencies, and the social and organizational "currency" of marital violence cases. IMPLICATIONS FOR THEORY AND RESEARCH Several complementary directions for research are evident from the foregoing review: the integration of stranger and marital violence behaviors to expand the concepts of criminal and marital violence careers; the patterns and processes of Resistance from marital and other forms of intrafamily violence; the covariation of perceptions and salience of deterrence with social area characteristics; the cognitive and developmental effects of witnessing marital violence during childhood and adolescence; the relationship among
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From page 250... ...
If family violence is part of a generalized pattern of violent behaviors, can we then expect its career parameters and phases to parallel other types of violence patterns? The unique circumstances of, and situational influences in, family life form a special context that facilitates violence toward (particularly female)
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From page 251... ...
Most abused male children avoid later violence as adults {e.g., see Miller and Chalias, 1981~ but may go on to live unproductive and unhappy lives marked by financial difficulties and behavioral problems such as high divorce rates and problematic alcohol use. Accordingly, the immunities toward family violence are also of etiological relevance.
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From page 252... ...
Understanding the cognitive processes that shape victim selection are critical to resolving the question of factors that influence the generality of violence. RESEARCH ON DESISTANCE FROM FAMILY VIOLENCE Desistance research is an important part of the study of criminal careers but a neglected one in the literature on violence and · ~ ·1- ~ 11 Berm\ ~ _1 _ ~1~1 LO 1~;^ aggression in tam1l1es.
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From page 253... ...
Sensible policy would recognize the variety of types of wife assaulters and incorporate these covariates in explaining the effects of sanctions. For example, police may alter their response in cases from informal to formal knowing that threats, property damage, or other nonphysical but chronic aggression has occurrec!
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From page 254... ...
Unified theoretical perspectives on family and stranger violence can be tested to determine if a "special" theory of family violence is warranted. Career studies should examine the mutability of these patterns over time, changes in the ratio of interand intrafamiTy violent acts both frequency and severity)
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From page 255... ...
Further study also is needed about the conditions under which marital violence or other criminological research has informed criminal justice policy toward spouse assault. Identifying the conditions under which research has been rejected or accepted, both organizationally and in terms of the research itself, can launch a body of knowledge on research utilization.
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From page 256... ...
Interventions should be tested both for children in homes where marital violence occurs and for children who live in social areas with high rates of child abuse or spouse assaults. INTERVENTIONS THAT EMPOWER VICTIMS The complex strategies to end violence that were identified by Bowker {1983, 1986a,b)
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From page 257... ...
Claims that marital violence is mutual, or that women are as "violent" or assaultive as men in marriage, rely heavily on reports of participation rates a misreading indicator of violent behavior when examined apart from offending rates. The debate on Gerber differences has important implications for prevention and intervention.
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From page 258... ...
Yet family violence continues to be viewed as an idiosyncratic crime, much like white-collar crime, and remains outside the mainstream of criminological theory and research Pagan and WexTer, 1987al. The result is a focus on unique causes and solutions of specific crime types, that overTooks the common origins of different behaviors and the importance of situational influences on crime events and later stages of criminal careers.
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From page 259... ...
Are these sanctions perceived differently in different social areas and by different types of individuals? With the early focus on the deterrent effects of arrest in misdemeanor cases of wife assault, much of the research on the criminal justice system's response to marital violence has focused on and been designed to test the effects of different police responses during domestic disturbance calls.
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From page 260... ...
Finally, larger questions demand an integration of the study of family violence with the more general literature on violence in society. Can we realistically expect marital violence to decrease when rates of stranger violence continue at high levels?
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From page 261... ...
6 Ironically, it was dissatisfaction with the "crisis intervenlion" and "conflict management'' roles adopted by police that Ied to legislation in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts enabling women victims of marital violence to obtain protective orders that brought marital violence into the criminal jurisdiction. Mandatory arrest statutes and policies followed these developments.
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From page 262... ...
15 As mentioned earlier, severe violence included kicking, biting, hitting with the fist, hitting or trying to hit with an object, beating up, threatening with a gun or knife, using a gun or knife.
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From page 263... ...
There was a modest, positive association for alcohol use, but a weak, negative association for drug use during violent episodes. 25 This does not deny the distribution of family violence across social classes.
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From page 264... ...
use and victimization, but the Miller study suggests that there is a "third factor" in the relationship. 27 Whether the function is linear or nonlinear has not been empirically assessed for spouse assaults, but there have been efforts to assess risk factors for child abuse and neglect Starr, 19881.
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From page 265... ...
The intent of mandatory arrest statutes is to eliminate these restrictions on misdemeanor wife assault, the most common charge category for domestic assaults, and to allow officers to make misdemeanor arrests on the basis of either the victim's hearsay or their own probable cause determination. In California, these conditions were established by providing concurrent status as both felony and misdemeanor for domestic assault.
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From page 266... ...
Journal of Family Violence 2:37-55. Becker, H
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From page 267... ...
Meeker 1988 Experiments as reforms. Journal of Criminal Justice 16j4~:347358.
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From page 268... ...
Dutton, and V.F. Sacco, eds., Family Violence: Perspectives in Research and Practice.
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From page 269... ...
Coleman, D.H., and M.A. Straus 1983 Alcohol abuse and family violence.
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From page 270... ...
Straus, eds., The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
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From page 271... ...
Elliott, D.S. 1989 Criminal justice procedures in family violence crimes.
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From page 272... ...
Pagan, I.A. 1988 Contributions of family violence research to criminal justice policy on wife assault: Paradigms of science and social control.
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From page 273... ...
Straus, eds., The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
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From page 274... ...
Tonry, eds., Family Violence, Vol. 11: Crime and justice: An Annual Review of Research.
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From page 275... ...
New York: Simon and Schuster. 1990 The medical and psychological costs of family violence.
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From page 276... ...
Journal of Family Violence 1:323-341. 1988 Characteristics of male spouse abusers consistent with personality disorders.
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From page 277... ...
Hotaling, G.T., and M.A. Straus 1989 Intrafamily violence, and crime and violence outside the family.
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From page 278... ...
Dornfield 1992 Will they tell? Assessing preadolescents' reports of family violence.
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From page 279... ...
1989 Family Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications.
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From page 280... ...
Mason, A., and V Blankenship 1987 Power and affiliation, motivation, stress and abuse in intimate relationships.
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From page 281... ...
Challas 1981 Abused Children as Parents. Paper presented at the national conference on Family Violence Research, University of New Hampshire, Durham, July.
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From page 282... ...
Pelton, L.G. 1979 Interpreting family violence data.
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From page 283... ...
1987 Domestic Tyranny: The MakingofAmerican SocialPolicy Against Family Violence From Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press.
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From page 284... ...
1987 A Typology of Men Who Batter: Three Types Derived from Cluster Analysis. Paper presented at the third national conference on Family Violence Research, University of New Hampshire, Durham, July.
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From page 285... ...
Straus, eds., The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
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From page 286... ...
1987 Domestic Violence on Trial: Psychological and Legal Dimensions of Family Violence. New York: Springer.
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From page 287... ...
Straus, eds., The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
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From page 288... ...
Straus, eds., The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
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From page 289... ...
In D.~. Sonkin, ea., Domestic Violence on Trial: Psychological and Legal Dimensions of Family Violence.
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From page 290... ...
Paper presented at the first national conference for Family Violence Researchers, University of New Hampshire, Durham, July. Weiner, N.A., and M.E.
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From page 291... ...
1983 The female homicide offender in Dade County, Florida. Criminal Justice Review 8~2~:9- 14.
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From page 292... ...
Tonry, eds., Family Violence, Vol. 11: Crime and.fustice: An Annual Review of Research.
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Key Terms
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