In this paper, researchers investigate mass incarceration and the social ecology of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women.
Results of this study exploring the social ecology of intimate partner violence (IPV) suggest that a complex of factors at multiple social-ecological levels—including adverse local conditions, dysfunctional couple conflict, and men's behavioral health and perceptions of their neighborhoods—may put women at heightened risk of IPV victimization in a time of mass incarceration. Women in heavily policed and incarcerated communities face extremely high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV)—but how criminal legal system contact affects such violence remains poorly understood. The study fits structural equation models to longitudinal, dyadic data from households in contact with the criminal legal system (N = 2,224) and their local communities. (Published Abstract Provided)