NCJ Number
154405
Date Published
1995
Length
347 pages
Annotation
Based on the author's 20 years of experience in working with batterers, battered women, police, and academic researchers, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the causes and effects of wife assault and its relationship to criminal justice policy.
Abstract
The first chapter of this revised edition contains an expanded history of social policy towards family violence, based largely on Elizabeth Peck's book "Domestic Tyranny." A new chapter on the abusive personality summarizes current research on the central role that a personality constellation, called borderline personality organization, plays in abusiveness. The author's thesis is that growing up in an abusive home can do more than provide an opportunity to model actions; it can influence a sense of self and an entire set of perceptions and expectations that are manifested in intimate relationships. This leads to the thesis that persons who grow up in abusive homes may develop two personalities, one public and one private. New empirical studies of the immediate effects of abuse on women are the basis for a new chapter on traumatic bonding and the battered woman syndrome. New research on the efficacy of arrest and treatment is also presented. This work apparently qualifies rather than negates the belief that arrest-treatment combinations effectively reduce recidivism. The book also shows that although trend analysis shows gradual declines in the incidence of wife assault, data on violence in dating relationships are troubling. Chapter notes, 525 references, and a subject index