Violence In Perspective Research Articles

Childhood Physical Maltreatment and Young Adult Dating Violence: A Propensity Matching Approach.

Intimate partner violence disproportionately occurs among young adults and relates to a range of health and behavioral problems throughout the life course. Although numerous studies substantiate the prevailing cycle of violence perspective, methodological limitations in prior research prohibit the conclusion of a causal relationship between childhood physical maltreatment and dating violence perpetration and victimization in young adulthood. The current research applies a quasi-experimental propensity score matching approach to a large sample of young adults ( n = 4,168) to isolate the causal effect of childhood physical maltreatment on dating violence perpetration and victimization. Results suggest selection bias accounts for the correlation between childhood physical maltreatment and young adult physical dating violence perpetration and victimization, indicating a spurious relationship-before matching: odds ratio (OR) = 1.38, p < .001; OR = 1.35, p < .001; after matching: OR = 1.08; p = .379; OR = 1.09; p = .297. Study limitations and implications are discussed.

Emergency nurses' perspective of workplace violence in Jordanian hospitals: A national survey

BackgroundEmergency departments are considered high-risk areas, where violence against nurses is a serious and prevalent problem. Such violence has negative effects on nurses, and therefore on the quality of care provided. Aims of the studyTo explore the risk factors behind violence, and to specify reasons for the level of low reporting of violence among Jordanian nurses in emergency departments. MethodA cross-sectional design through conducting a survey in emergency departments in Jordanian hospitals. ResultsThe total number of emergency department nurses who participated in the study was 227. Of these, 172 (75%) had experienced some form of violence. Verbal violence was the most reported (63.9%), compared to physical violence (48%). The most reported reasons for violence from the nurses' perspective were waiting time, overcrowding, and patient and family expectations not being met, with frequencies of 54.3%, 53.3%, and 46% respectively. The treatment room was the most common place where the violence occurred. Only 16.6% of the nurses who experienced violence actually reported it. Being accustomed to workplace violence is the most stated reason for not reporting violence to the hospital administration or the authorities. ConclusionViolence against emergency department nurses is a significant issue that cannot be ignored. There are multiple reasons. The key point in dealing with the problem is to treat its specific causes.

“I never knew which way he would swing…:” Exploring the Roles of Substances in the Lives of System-Involved Intimate Partner Violence Survivors

This article reports findings of a mixed-methods study exploring the role that substances play in the lives of service-mandated female survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). The study sample consists of 22 women who had completed a court- and/or child protective services (CPS)-mandated IPV parenting program. Quantitative results reveal moderate levels of current substance use and higher levels of past substance use. Qualitative analyses yield three key areas of participants’ perspectives of substances and violence: (a) role of participants’ substance use, including coping and partner influence; (b) role of partner’s substance use, including severity and substance preferences; and (c) relationship between substance use and IPV, including effects on safety and IPV frequency and severity. We find victimization is a function of a partner’s—rather than a victim’s—substance use. Future programming should focus on the overlapping risk factors between substance use and IPV.

Staff perspectives of violence in the emergency department: Appeals for consequences, collaboration, and consistency.

Violence committed by patients and their families and visitors against Emergency Department staff in the United States is common and detrimental to staff well being, morale, and care practices. Hospitals losses occur due to decreased staff retention, prestige, and patient and visitor satisfaction. The purpose of the baseline survey reported here was to identify and describe staff experiences, concerns, and perceptions related to violence and abuse perpetrated by patients, family, and non-family visitors in a Level 1 emergency department. The survey sample was composed of 41 registered nurses and 10 paramedics. The majority of the participants (84%, n= 41) were female and worked full time (82%, n= 41) on the 7P-7A (49%, n= 25) shift. The cross-sectional mixed-method descriptive design used a survey to measure violence experiences and interviews with key informants. Specific analytical methods included descriptive and inferential statistics and ethnography. The findings are summarized by a model that portrays 1) Contributing factors to the development of violence in the ED, 2) maladaptive reactions to workplace violence of Cynicism, Concern for focus on customer service, and Conflict, and 3) three themes that, depending on their presence or absence, serve as barriers or facilitators to violence: Consistency, Consequences and Collaboration. Interventions developed to minimize violence in the ED must focus on modifiable risk factors and address what is in the department's control including staff education in recognizing escalating anxious or aggressive behavior, policy development and implementation, and environmental changes.

The Social and Legal Paradox Relating to Marital Rape in India: Addressing Structural Inequalities

Recently when the Bill to criminalize marital rape was introduced in India, it was turned down by the Parliament. According to some of the Parliamentarians, marriage is a sacred institution and touching it will leads to breakdown of marriages. They are of the view that India should be proud of its culture because "the nation has low divorce rates". Statements have been issued against criminalizing marital rape without acknowledging the fact that most marriages in India survive because women silently endure violence and abuse within such relationships. The culture of "silence", "tolerance", "adjustment", "compromise" among women is propagated to "save and respect the 'honour', the 'pride' and the 'values'" of the Indian family overlooking the fact that incest, violence, suicides, murders are the price women pay. On the other hand there is a men’s group which is lobbying fiercely to highlight the fact the law against domestic violence has been misused by women and therefore should be diluted. They further propagated that the enactment of penal law against marital rape will also be abused by women. According to such arguments, a woman, who is not docile, subservient or compliant and complains about the continuous abuse within the conjugal relationship is an anti-family warrior breaking the sacred bonds while converting bedroom to a battlefield. Both the groups ignore the reality that most cases of emotional violence, sexual abuse, physical assault, mental trauma, all takes place within this "sanctified" territory because women are powerless and vulnerable and have been socialized to be pliant, obedient and subservient. This essay attempts to unpack the everyday possibility as well as reality of the lives of women in the light of backlash on women’s rights and looks at the debate on criminalizing marital rape from the gender perspective. It concludes that this concept needs to be examined in the larger perspective of violence against women and should be dealt accordingly.

Violence against Women: A Disciplinary Debate and Challenge

Forty years of research, theory, legislation, and programming have not reduced the high rates of either violence against women or intimate partner violence. Social science researchers, polarized into Family Violence and Feminist perspectives, are mired in the debate over gender symmetry and its implications. Recommendations include (1) integrating the two perspectives, (2) incorporating the work on family strengths, youth resilience and developmental assets, (3) strengthening interdisciplinary connections including religious studies, and (4) integrating research, teaching, and activism for long-term, primary prevention. A three-model typology of activism includes education, common cause, and confrontation strategies.

Assaults on Inmates and Staff by Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Homicide: An Examination of Competing Hypotheses.

The current study presents the results of an analysis of serious and assaultive prison rule violating behavior among male perpetrators of intimate partner homicide (IPH). Data on prison rule violations were collected from a sample of 189 inmates convicted of IPH in a large, southern prison system. The study focused on the degree of continuity in violent behavior among IPH offenders from the community to the prison setting. The current study tested hypotheses derived from both the feminist perspective (FP) and the general violence perspective (GVP). As a group, IPH offenders were better behaved in prison than other incarcerated homicide offenders, thereby offering some support for the FP. However, the lower level of assaultive behavior among the group was not universal. Characteristics associated with continued violent offending in the prison environment were the same as those found in previous studies of incarcerated homicide offenders, thereby lending greater support to the GVP.

Gender Embodiment as Gender-Enacted Body: A Review of Intimate Partner Violence and Gender Embodiment Perspectives

The author proposes the gender-enacted body as a better perspective of gender embodiment than the three current prevailing views: sex differences (the biomedical organism), socio-cultural imprint (the regulated body) and experienced gender (the lived body), which are not wrong, but misrepresentative of the active nature of gender embodiment. Gender embodiment is both an ongoing process of configuring subjectivity and the ensuing gendered agency. This implementation of the enacted body perspective is supported by two different arguments: first, a theoretical one to establish that the process of gender embodiment and the corporality that results from it are the settlement of human meaning and acting conditions; second, an empirical application of this perspective to resolve the shortcomings of current explanations of intimate partner violence in heterosexual couples by interpreting some well-known gender embodiment processes as enactment processes in which the body becomes an agent that generates practice. These gender-enacted bodies generate, in assemblage with the breakdown of the circuits of dependence within the couple, the agency of this kind of violence.

Våld i trafiken. Om cyklisters utsatthet för kränkningar, hot och våld i massbilismens tidevarv

When cyclists begin to take up more traffic space than before, conflicts appear. In Sweden, the media has reported on hatred against cyclists when describing the antagonism between (male) cyclists and (male) car drivers, as well as between cyclists and pedestrians, in traffic-dense environments. Despite the current political renaissance of cycling in Sweden, the proportion of personal trips in which the bike is the main mode of transport has remained largely unchanged over the past fifteen years. This has in part been linked to cyclists’ experiences of insecurity in traffic space. Therefore, conflicts between more or less vulnerable road users are becoming increasingly important to investigate in a society where car normativity needs to be challenged in favour of more sustainable travel. The aim of this article is to, based on media material, policy reports, interviews and cyclists’ online discussion-forums, study the situation of cyclists to discuss their situation in a car-normative environment from a gender and violence perspective. What forms of conflicts do cyclists negotiate in their everyday traffic environment? How can this be understood in relation to gender and violence? It is argued that cyclists are being positioned in contradictory ways: as vulnerable and exposed on the one hand, and as particularly dangerous road users in need of disciplining and interventions on the other. Not only do cyclists negotiate their situation by viewing themselves as drivers would, namely as more or less invisible. They are also subjected to what has been called ‘hatred’: discursive and even physical violence directed towards cyclists for taking up too much traffic space from motorists. Examples of (violent) resistance against and negotiation with the self-evident nature of (male) motorists’ entitlement to traffic space are given. In the final part of the paper I suggest that the violence needs to be understood as deeply embedded within larger gendered structural formations of mass motorism and traffic space.

Violência Doméstica e Transgeracionalidade: Um Estudo de Caso

The consequences of domestic violence tend to reach everyone involved, affecting significant areas of life, such as professional career, family and social bonds. The objective of this research was to comprehend a woman’s experience of marital domestic violence and its repercussions on her life. The authors performed a case study on a woman who had been living at a support center due to her experience with domestic violence, using a sociodemographic questionnaire and a semi structured interview. The participant’s life story and marital relationship were analyzed, investigating transgenerational aspects, understanding how she evaluated her own relationship and the repercussions of violence perceived in her life. According to the methodology of case studies, all collected data received quantitative and qualitative analysis. The results showed that models learned along interactions within the original families were relevant, according to the patient, to maintain a violent marital relationship, which reinforces the transgenerational perspective of violence. Furthermore, the results indicate the necessity of an attentive approach from health professionals, concerning experiences of violence during childhood, in order to develop interventions that propitiate the rupturing from transgenerational cycles.

"Like a lots happened with my whole childhood": violence, trauma, and addiction in pregnant and postpartum women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

BackgroundWomen living in poor and vulnerable neighbourhoods like Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) face multiple burdens related to the social determinants of health. Many of them struggle with addiction, are involved in the sex trade and experience homelessness and gender-based violence. Such evidence suggests that psychological trauma is also a common experience for these women.MethodsThe purpose of this qualitative study was to explore themes and subjective perspectives of trauma and gender-based violence in women who lived in an impoverished neighbourhood and struggled with substance use during pregnancy and early motherhood. We interviewed 27 individuals accessing harm reduction services for pregnant and postpartum women in Vancouver, Canada.ResultsKey themes that emerged from these women’s narratives highlighted the ubiquity of multiple and continuing forms of adversities and trauma from childhood to adulthood, in a variety of contexts, through a variety of offenders and on multiple levels. Both individual and environmental/structural conditions mutually intensified each other, interfering with a natural resolution of trauma-related symptoms and substance use. Women were also concerned that trauma could be passed on from one generation to the next, yet expressed hesitation when asked about their interest in trauma-specific counselling.ConclusionsIn offering harm reduction services for poor and marginalized women, it is clear that an understanding of trauma must be integrated. It is recommended that service providers integrate trauma-informed care into their programme in order to offer this service in a trusted environment. However, it is also necessary to shift the focus from the individual to include environmental, social, economic and policy interventions on multiple levels and from issues of drug use and reduction of drug-related harms to include issues of gendered vulnerabilities and human rights.

The development of forensic nursing from the perspective of domestic violence and sexual assault preventive policies

Forensic nursing is a new nursing specialty that provides forensic nursing service to domestic violence victims and offenders. Development of the role of forensic nurses has become urgent and necessary. The high rates of domestic violence and sexual assault in Taiwan suggest that forensic nurses have an important role to play in domestic healthcare. This article highlights the significance of forensic nursing in Taiwan in the future in terms of its origin, definitions, models, roles and functions, training and education, and previous studies. Through cooperation among academia, government, industry, and law enforcement agencies, it is expected that forensic nursing will be a positive and important area of expansion for professional nursing.

La violencia en la pareja desde tres perspectivas: Víctimas, agresores y profesionales

Researching complex social problems, such as violence against women within the couple, requieres that we seek mechanisms of observation, analysis, and interpretation that allow us both to explain events and succeed in anticipating future scenarios. The aim of this study is to analyze, from a relational and systemic perspective of violence within the couple, the discourse provided by men, women, and relevant professionals. We have planned a qualitative study in which 41 people participated (9 victims, 18 offenders, and 14 professionals). The results show a) the diversity in the characteristics of men and women involved in violent situations and the type of relationship established, b) that participants perceived the differential treatment given by institutions according to gender, c) the need to review some of the legal and intervention procedures, and d) the importance of emotional states and their influence on behaviors of victims, perpetrators, and professionals. Finally, some suggestions are given for improving research design and intervention strategies.

Systemic perspective of violence and aggression in mental health care: Towards a more comprehensive understanding and conceptualization: Part 2

This is the second of a two part paper which seeks to explore a wide range of phenomena that have been found to have an association with aggression and violence (A/V) in inpatient mental health care, synthesize these propositions according to fit or congruence into a systemic model of A/V, explore the empirical evidence pertaining to these propositions, and begin to consider application of this model to better inform our individual and/or organizational responses to A/V in mental health care. The systemic model is comprised of four thematic categories with part two of the paper focusing on the final two categories: mental health-care system-related phenomena and clinician-related phenomena. The paper then discusses a number of implications arising out of embracing a more systemic model of A/V in mental health care. In broadening our understanding to include all the phenomena that contribute increased risk of A/V incidents, we are able to move away from inaccurate views that disproportionately assign 'responsibility' to clients for causing A/V when the evidence indicates that the client-related phenomena may only account for a small portion of these incidents.

Systemic perspective of violence and aggression in mental health care: Towards a more comprehensive understanding and conceptualization: Part 1

Aggression and violence (A/V) in mental health care are all too frequent occurrences; they produce a wide range of deleterious impacts on the individual client, staff, organizations, and the broader community. A/V is a multifaceted and highly-complex problem, and is associated empirically with a wide range of phenomena. However, most attempts to reduce A/V in mental health care have invariably focused on one or two aspects of the problem at the expense of a more comprehensive, systemic approach; these have produced inconclusive results. As a result, this two-part paper seeks to: (i) recognize the wide range of phenomena that have been found to have an association with A/V in mental health care; (ii) synthesize these propositions according to fit or congruence into a systemic model of A/V; (iii) explore empirical evidence pertaining to these propositions; and (iv) begin to consider the application of this model to better inform our individual and/or organizational responses to A/V in mental health care. The paper advances a systemic model of these phenomena comprised of four thematic categories, with Part 1 of this paper focusing on the first two categories: environmental and intrapersonal (client-related) phenomena.

Drawing Conclusions: An Intergenerational Transmission of Violence Perspective

This article reviews the articles in this special issue on the effects of intimate partner violence on women and children, integrating the findings into critical questions about intergenerational transmission of violence. The author's own psychodynamically informed framework is used to interpret the results of the studies. Finally, clinically relevant implications and research directions are briefly proposed.

Psychosocial Perspectives of Girls and Violence: Implications for Policy and Praxis

Psychosocial and feminist criminologies produce a complex etiology of adolescent female violence, and advance understanding of much female behavior that juvenile authorities formally address: mental health disturbances. When girls’ violent behaviors are considered within a psychodynamic theoretical framework, policy problems are dramatically redefined, resulting in a reformulation of the social problem, newly contextualized, and the collective responses to the troubled girls it has defined. This paper places known etiologies of violent behaviors, including case study material, in a context of extant social policies that impact and determine the social location and control of violent girls. We argue that efficacious policy responses would be psychosocially informed, and focus upon a more holistic mental health praxis, rather than criminal justice practices alone.

Bater não educa ninguém!práticas educativas parentais coercitivas e suas repercussões no contexto escolar

O objetivo deste artigo é refletir sobre os efeitos das práticas educativas coercitivas para o desenvolvimento da criança e do adolescente, buscando compreender sua influência no comportamento e na aprendizagem em ambiente escolar. A partir da análise assistemática de estudos sobre o tema, foi possível compreender que as estratégias coercitivas que se utilizam da força física para educar estão associadas a resultados negativos no desenvolvimento humano da criança e do adolescente, como comportamentos agressivos e baixa autoestima, constituindo-se em risco ao desenvolvimento saudável. Contudo, tais práticas são compartilhadas socialmente e consideradas naturais pelas famílias, não havendo, muitas vezes, o conhecimento de outras formas de educar. Sendo a escola um importante ambiente de interação das crianças, ela tem sido chamada a engajar-se nessa temática. Assim, discutem-se formas de instrumentalizar os profissionais da educação para a identificação dos casos de uso de estratégias coercitivas e violência física na educação dos filhos, como também ações preventivas junto aos estudantes e à comunidade. Para que o propósito seja alcançado, órgãos responsáveis pela defesa dos direitos da criança e psicólogo escolar poderão atuar juntamente com a escola, auxiliando-a nesse processo. O psicólogo pode trabalhar com os pais no sentido de apresentar formas de educar que não passem pela perspectiva da violência, prevenindo, assim, danos ao desenvolvimento e comportamentos que dificultam a aprendizagem. Fomentar reflexões sobre essa problemática fará com que os valores da educação sem violência tomem espaço nas famílias, contribuindo para que as crianças tornem-se adultos saudáveis no futuro.

The Role of Gender in Officially Reported Intimate Partner Abuse

The role of gender in intimate partner abuse (IPA) perpetration and victimization has been debated for the last several decades. Two perspectives have emerged regarding this debate. Researchers from the family violence perspective argue that men and women are violent at near equal rates and call for a reframing of the issue from one of woman battering to one of family violence. In contrast, feminist researchers maintain that men make up the majority of perpetrators and women the majority of victims in cases of intimate partner abuse. While some have put forth arguments explaining these differences, this debate is far from over. Using official reported cases of IPA, this study examines 815 IPA cases of which 13% were female perpetrated in an attempt to clarify gender differences and similarities among male and female offenders beyond prevalence rates. Special attention is paid to contextual differences and similarities and implications this research has for future research and policy.

Violence and the Religious Instinct

This article investigates the complex phenomenon of violence as it manifests in the collective and in the psychology of the individual. Bringing together personal and archetypal perspectives of violence, along with material from mythology, dreams, cultural manifestations, alchemical and analytic material, the contention is made that violence is a vital, and at times useful, aspect of human nature. Material is presented to show how violence is linked to the imagery and functions of sacrifice; in this way violence is demonstrated to be an essential component of the religious instinct.