Violence and trauma: the past 20 and next 10 years

The issues of violence and trauma over the past 20 years have generated a significant amount of research. However, the development of each field has remained, for the most part, exclusive from the other. Therefore, the goal of this article is to address this shortcoming within the literature by responding to three important questions: (a) What is the most important thing we have learned about violence and trauma in the past 20 years? (b) What is the most important thing we need to learn in the next 10 years? and (c) What is the most promising methodological innovation in the past 20 years for the study or treatment of trauma or interpersonal violence? This article concludes that by increasing the discourse between the two fields, both research fields may be better able to develop conceptually, methodologically, and empirically.     

Digital forensics research: The next 10 years

Today’s Golden Age of computer forensics is quickly coming to an end. Without a clear strategy for enabling research efforts that build upon one another, forensic research will fall behind the market, tools will become increasingly obsolete, and law enforcement, military and other users of computer forensics products will be unable to rely on the results of forensic analysis. This article summarizes current forensic research directions and argues that to move forward the community needs to adopt standardized, modular approaches for data representation and forensic processing.     

Twenty years of progress in addressing domestic violence: an agenda for the next 10

The past 20 years have seen great strides in addressing violence against women by their male partners. Although the author cannot point to one single intervention or set of interventions as being the most effective, institutional reforms that have included coordinated community responses have had a positive impact. During the next 10 years, researchers must learn how to address the obstacles that prevent institutional responses from being more effective in addressing the needs of victims.     

The potential impact of private long-term care financing options on Medicaid: the next thirty years

This study analyzes the potential effect on the Medicaid program of private sector financing mechanisms for long-term care. The data are from the Brookings-ICF Long-Term Care Financing Model and include projections over the next thirty years. While private financing alternatives have some modest impacts on Medicaid expenditures and the number of Medicaid long-term care recipients, the data suggest relatively little change in the need for Medicaid. There will be substantial increases in Medicaid long-term care expenditures over time, and private sector options cannot change this much.     

Empirically enhanced reflections on 20 years of rape research

Using PsychInfo review of rape and sexual assault publications, the period of greatest fertility coincided with the establishment (1975) and demise (1987) of the National Center for the Prevention and Control of Rape. To document what has been learned and when, the era in which new rape concepts entered the literature is summarized and important developments highlighted. Then, new investigations that are urgently needed are elaborated. The author expresses concern that current federal investment is insufficient to sustain and expand a science workforce adequate to the tasks ahead. Since 1995, more than 1 billion US dollars have been awarded to prosecutors, law enforcement, and community agencies to assist victims of violence. In contrast, between 1996 and 2003, only 14 of 178 (7%) of investigator-initiated grants funded by the Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for violence against women had titles pairing the word sexual with assault, violence, abuse, or rape.     

Reflections on 20 years of research on violence and trauma

This article is part of a special issue reflecting on what people have learned about violence and trauma over the past 20 years and where we need to go in the next 10 years. The author emphasizes the importance of learning to communicate in order to form effective community partnerships. Evidence-based research is noted as a methodological innovation for policy research. Looking to the future, the author suggests that it will be important for crime prevention researchers to not just rely on Internet-based library searches so that they may avoid problems of innumeracy and ahistoricism.     

The most important things learned about violence and trauma in the past 20 years

In the past 2 decades, important insights have been gained regarding violence and trauma. Complications occur in how violence and trauma, their causes, and their effects on victims should be defined. Violence and abuse to women--physical, sexual, and emotional--are not rare events and are most often perpetrated by partners or acquaintances rather than strangers and occur in nonmarital as well as marital relationships, including same-sex relationships. A promising methodological innovation in the study of violence and trauma is the use of longitudinal designs. Innovations in treatments for victims such as evidence-based interventions have been slow to emerge; they include eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and the Seeking Safety group intervention for drug-abusing women with trauma histories. Future research should address increased understanding of variation in individual responses to violence and trauma, matching of treatment to different types of male offenders, better understanding of how culture affects violence perpetration and victimization, and evaluation of domestic violence interventions.     

Reflections on partner violence: 20 years of research and beyond

The authors reflect on past research and technology as well as their hopes for future innovations within the field of intimate partner violence. They review work that has contributed to current conceptual definitions of partner violence, particularly those that have shaped the field's broadened perspective. They discuss technological and measurement innovations that have contributed to more accurate assessments of violence prevalence. The authors believe that via these technologies, the true extent of violence within the home has been made known. In conclusion, the authors argue that to reduce violence between partners, there is an overwhelming need for future researchers to build on past data, develop improved theories, and apply those ideas to prevention and intervention techniques and programs. Furthermore, they believe that it is imperative for current and future programs to be extensively evaluated and tested for their effectiveness.     

20 years of research into violence and trauma: past and future developments

This reflection on major developments in the past, present, and future of the wider field of violence and trauma is a personal (and probably biased) sampling of what the authors hold to be important. The authors reviewed advances for victims and perpetrators of violence separately. For victims, the authors note that empirical research has established the potential traumatic impact of violence as well as various predictors of what makes persons vulnerable to adverse psychological consequences. The authors also note that the definitions of violence and trauma have evolved to include such behavioral patterns as stalking. Finally, encouraging evidence regarding the efficacy of exposure-based treatments for victims of violence is reviewed, as well as discouraging evidence regarding the efficacy of single-session debriefing following trauma. For the perpetrators, the importance of individual assessment in planning interventions is underscored, and advances in explicit and implicit assessment techniques are discussed.