In this decade, the pervasiveness of wife abuse across all segments of society has become more evident to the public, leading to a redefinition of it as criminal. This social change, based on the collective response of feminists, battered women's advocates, and legislators, has altered laws on family violence in some 43 states. While new laws…

Addresses the phenomenon of children with disabilities who are maltreated. The higher risk for children with disabilities being victimized and maltreated because of their dependency and the higher reported incidence of abuse are discussed. Reasons for the higher incidence of abuse, including social devaluation, are provided. (CR)

Childhood maltreatment is associated with psychopathology and revictimization in adulthood. Whether different types of childhood maltreatment have different long-term consequences, however, is largely unknown. The participants in this study included 42 female victims of intimate partner violence and 30 women with no history of serious trauma.…

This analogue study (written vignettes and videotapes) examines the influence of victim-perpetrator relationship (spouse or acquaintance), sex of perceiver, and type of abuse (psychological vs. physical) on attributions about victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse. College student participants (73 men, 108 women) were randomly assigned to…

This article explores the authors' practice observations of female domestic violence survivors' journey from first agency contact to active participation in a support group process. The authors have witnessed female victims of domestic violence challenging the social isolation imposed by their dominant partners as they search for meaning in their…

Published jointly by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, this document presents information drawn from a nationally representative sample of state prisoners and from existing homicide data assembled by law enforcement agencies. It sheds new light on the most serious types of child abuse and…

This paper notes recent evidence suggesting that couples characterized by violent interactions respond best to therapy when seen first in individual therapy sessions. Clinicians are then presented with a Gestalt therapy approach to intervening in cases of intimate violence that goes beyond crisis intervention. The focus is on the female's roles in…

While research has identified several factors related to female domestic violence victims, the cross-sectional methodologies used make it difficult to determine whether these factors predispose the individual to victimization. This study used a longitudinal design to assess the predictive power of indices of economic, social, and psychological…

A differentiation between two types of self-blame, behavioral and characterological, has been suggested. Behavioral self-blame is control-related and pertains to attributions made to one's behavior, while characterological self-blame is esteem-related and involves attributions made to one's character. To assess the efficacy of separating the…

Although previous research has attempted to account for the incidence of physical violence between dating partners, little attention has been devoted to the relationship factors that may account for the occurrence of violence between partners. To examine the relationships among violence and dating partners' love and liking, commitment to the…

Assessed the extent to which postassault situational variables reflecting exposure to attack-similar stimulus appeared to relate to long-term psychological distress of victims. Determined whether a classical conditioning model could adequately describe long-term responses by victims of different forms of assault, including (but not limited to)…

Following a brief introduction to the topic of child abuse (why children are abused, who are abused, who are abusers, what forms abuse takes, what sources of help are available), this essay examines 16 children's fiction books and comments on the action of the characters. Five references are included. (EJS)

This study of 234 validated sexual abuse cases (in which 59% of perpetrators were household members) calls into question the belief that children gradually disclose their abuse in a quasi-developmental process that follows sequential stages. Of the cases, 96% of victims made a partial or full disclosure of abuse during at least 1 interview with…

Data from an observational study of police behavior are used to test the thesis that arrest is less likely for spousal violence. Findings indicate that although officers are unlikely to arrest in spousal assault cases, they are equally unlikely to arrest in other types of violence. (JBJ)

In this study, 224 female undergraduates completed 4 different partner violence measures. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a one-factor model best fit the data, but that the measures did not represent the construct equally well. Frequency measures were more strongly associated with the latent construct, "partner violence" than…