Threads That Link Community and Family Violence: Issues for Prevention (From Preventing Violence in America, P 33-52, 1996, Robert L Hampton, Pamela Jenkins, and Thomas P Gullotta, eds. -- See NCJ-159949)

• NCJ Number: 159951
• Author(s): P Jenkins
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 20 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter compares similarities in the dynamics of domestic violence and community violence with a view toward developing preventive measures.

Abstract

"Domestic violence" can be defined as harm that occurs between members of the family, including spouse abuse, child abuse, child neglect, child sexual abuse, elder abuse, parent abuse, and sibling abuse. Violence in neighborhoods that is not domestic violence, such as acquaintance and stranger violence, is called "community violence." Two major frameworks may be useful in designing programs to prevent domestic and community violence. The technology of primary prevention provides a guide for building on the strengths of the community. This technology includes education, community organization, systems intervention, social support, and the promotion of competence. Reiss and Roth (1993) point out that prevention must occur at many levels: the biological, the psychosocial, the microsocial, and the macrosocial. These efforts, then, can be directed by an understanding of child development issues, neurological and genetic processes, social and community-level intervention, and situational approaches. Because not all neighborhoods have the same rates of domestic or community violence, prevention and intervention programs can be more effective if they are designed and implemented locally. By concentrating on the similarities and differences in community violence and domestic violence communities might shift the emphasis away from the less frequent phenomenon of stranger violence. 79 references