NCJ Number
113111
Editor(s)
M B Straus
Date Published
1988
Length
270 pages
Annotation
This text provides a life-span perspective on family violence, its cause, treatment, and prevention.
Abstract
An overview is presented of mother-infant bonding and attachment and the developmental tasks of infancy and early childhood. Implications for child abuse and neglect and its prevention are discussed. Types of infant maltreatment are identified; and victim, parent, sociocultural, and cultural factors that contribute to infant abuse and neglect are discussed. The effects of physical child abuse on the victim's subsequent experience of and behavior in interpersonal relationships are examined. The incidence, etiology, effects, and prevention of child sexual abuse are delineated; and criminal justice and mental health responses to it are discussed. The dynamics and consequences of adolescent abuse are reviewed, with particular emphasis on the high involvement of abused teens in the juvenile justice, alternative youth services, and mental health systems. Male and female development are considered with respect to abuser and victim status in adulthood, and wife battering and marital rape are examined in terms of societal attitudes and victim and offender profiles. The implications of prior victimization and stress on males are analyzed with reference to family functioning and domestic violence. A framework is provided for empowering battered women; and policy considerations regarding legal and treatment responses to family violence are discussed. Similarities and differences in victimization over the life span also are discussed. Finally, factors contributing to the abuse and neglect of the elderly and the handicapped (children and adults) are discussed. Chapter figures and references and index. See NCJ-113112-NCJ-113116.