The Impact of Domestic Violence in the United States

The Impact Of Domestic Violence In United States

Introduction

Since the late 1970s, attention paid to domestic violence has increased exponentially. It is now one of the types of victimization garnering the most policy and research attention. Initially, domestic violence was defined narrowly as physical violence perpetrated by husbands against their wives. This definition has evolved in the last 30 years as people have come to realize that violence exists in all kinds of romantic relationships. Here domestic violence is defined broadly as abuse perpetrated by one romantic partner (or ex-partner) against another. Other terms used to characterize abuse in romantic relationship are intimate partner violence, spouse abuse, battering, and dating violence. This entry details how common domestic violence is, the kinds of abuse victims experience, risk factors for abuse, and how abuse impacts victims, their children, and the community (Aldrich, 2005).

Theories of Domestic Voilence

The theories of domestic violence developed in feminist/gender studies, sociology, psychology, and criminology emerged from different methodological traditions. Feminist theories propose that, due to gender inequality, women's voices are silenced and domestic violence is hidden from public view. Thus, feminist theories of domestic violence are based on studies of female survivors' narrative accounts of violence they experienced at the hands of their husbands and male partners.

Sociological theories of domestic violence come primarily from large-scale survey studies that identify the individual and structural predictors of violent behavior. Micro-sociological studies, which focus on the interactive situations and contexts that encourage violence, are comparatively rare. Psychological theories of domestic violence are informed by clinical studies of people who are identified as having pathological or psychopathological characteristics. Research in criminology employs large-scale survey methods and pseudoex-perimental research design (Bailey, 2010).

Recent calls for integrating these theories propose that domestic violence is caused by a combination of psychological, cultural, and structural factors and is linked to systems of gender, racial/ ethnic, and social class stratification. In addition, ecological theories of domestic violence posit that violence is rooted in a combination of individual, interactive, contextual, sociocultural, and social structural factors. However, efforts to develop and test integrated theories of domestic violence using multiple research methods are rare.

Prevalence and Incidence

There are two ways to measure how common domestic violence is: incidence and prevalence. In the case of domestic violence, incidence is best thought of as the number of acts of domestic violence during a given time in a given population. Prevalence is best thought of as the proportion of a population that has experienced domestic violence in a specified time period. If every victim experienced only one act of domestic violence in a year, incidence and prevalence numbers would be the same for that year. However, typically incidence figures are higher than prevalence figures when based on the same data. These are typically calculated on an annual and lifetime basis, so both are presented here.

Yearly national estimates of domestic violence are taken from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), an annual national survey conducted by the ...