NCJ Number
183704
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 6 Issue: 7 Dated: July 2000 Pages: 747-783
Date Published
July 2000
Length
37 pages
Annotation
This article examines definitional issues in violence against women.
Abstract
Issues relevant to defining violence against women include the importance of severity of aggressive behavior in partner relationships, connections among types of aggressive behavior and adequacy of explanatory models of partner violence. Severity of aggression is important for describing and understanding partner violence. Different types of abusive behavior should be assessed to account for variation in partner abuse. Constructs drawn from multiple domains are needed to adequately explain partner aggression across the range of severity of partner abuse. Standardized structured interviews to assess partner violence in high-risk surveillance would complement checklists for general population surveillance. Because seriously violent perpetrators of partner abuse are a small percentage of the population, general population surveys, even with a large sample size, are unlikely to recruit many, if any, serious perpetrators. Locating these serious victims and perpetrators requires other surveillance strategies such as surveillance at sites with high proportions of more serious abuse (e.g., police domestic violence calls and arrests, civil protection order caseloads, physically injured emergency room patients, court-ordered substance abuse treatment programs and shelter residents) or screening using characteristics (e.g., relationship distress, younger age, alcohol abuse, and history of family or relationship violence). Figure, references