Violence in Police Families: Work-Family Spillover

This article uses a path model to examine the relationship between violence exposure and domestic violence among police officers with the expectation that the relationships would be both direct and mediated. The mediation factors included burnout, authoritarian spillover, alcohol use, and department withdrawal. The model was tested through an analysis of data collected from 413 officers. Four mediation chains were identified; the most powerful of these was burnout and authoritarian spillover. Suggestions for future research include understanding violence in the context of unique workplace cultures, classifying violence types, and clarifying how this population defines violence and control.     

Attitudes Towards Violence Against Women In Men of South Asian Ancestry: Are Acculturation and Gender Role Attitudes Important Factors?

The purpose of this study was to examine attitudes toward violence against women in men of South Asian ancestry. Studies conducted on other cultural groups have examined separately the influence of gender role attitudes and acculturation on violence against women. In the current study, we proposed that acculturation and attitudes towards violence against women were related through the mediation of gender role attitudes. One hundred male South Asian university students were administered questionnaires that measured their acculturation, gender role attitudes and attitudes towards wife beating. Results indicated that gender role attitudes fully mediated the relationship between acculturation and attitudes towards violence against women. This means that lower acculturation is only related to higher acceptance of wife assault because lower levels of acculturation are related to more restrictive and conservative beliefs about the roles of men and women.     

CHILD CUSTODY MEDIATION AND SPOUSE ABUSE

This article discusses domestic violence, providing information and a review of literature regarding this phenomena. The article then goes on to describe a protocol developed by the Orange County (California) mediation and investigative unit that provides protection to the alleged victim of violence through the use of assessment interviews, co-mediation with a male-female mediation team, and the development of postparenting arrangements that provide for protection and security. The article also reviews a sample of 100 domestic violence cases handled in Orange County during 1991. Data from this research suggest that mediators using the protocols described in this article are able to guide the more serious, high-risk cases into more protective outcomes and that mediation can provide a very important adjunct to the trial court process.     

Culture in transition: Awareness and appropriate response to domestic violence among Hmong American college students

This explanatory study examined Hmong college students’ experience, awareness, and appropriate response to domestic violence in the Hmong community, using a survey (n?=?231) at one of the largest Hmong-serving institutions in the United States. Findings indicated that 32.8% of Hmong college women had some violence from their romantic partners and two thirds of Hmong college men and women were aware of violence in the Hmong community. Those young generation Hmong reported that the most appropriate method to solve conflicts within the Hmong community is through the traditional clan system. These results can be used to begin formulating research-based cultural competence education for providers in the criminal justice system and facilitate discussions on youth perceptions.     

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea? A Critique of the Ability of Community Mediation to Suppress and Facilitate Participation in Civil Life

This article revisits debate between academics and practitioners about the potential of community mediation. While mediation evangelicals make bold claims about the possibility of mediation helping to rebuild communities, academic critics have been suspicious of such contentions and claimed instead that mediation has provided just another route through which the state can interfere in the life of its citizens. It is argued here that debate on the topic has been clouded by unduly high expectations of disputes as agents of social change. Their importance has been understood by reference to their ability to rebuild communities or their potential to become test cases. It is argued here that mediated disputes make much more modest challenges to state authority but that they can be aided in this by the intervention of mediators prepared to take a pragmatic approach to the unachievable ideal of neutrality. The article does not conceive of community mediation as an alternative of the state or its agent. Rather, it suggests that mediators can be embedded within both worlds and act as message-bearers between them.     

Victim–Offender Mediation in Cases of Intimate Relationship Violence—Ideals,Attitudes, and Practices in Finland

In Finland the first experimental mediation projects founded on the principles and ideals of restorative justice were started in the beginning of the 1980s. Before the Act on Mediation in Criminal and Certain Civil Cases (1015/2005) came into force in 2006, mediation services were provided by cities, municipalities, and non-governmental organizations. Victim–offender mediation (VOM) practices varied, and there was minimal guidance and supervision by state authorities. The Act (1015/2005) aimed to standardize mediation services and practices and enable evaluation of VOM in order to provide solutions to some of the issues raised regarding mediation in intimate relationship violence (IRV). The Act states that only police or prosecutors may initiate the process for referring a case that involves intimate relationship violence. Furthermore, mediators/facilitators who handle IRV cases are required to attain further training. This article examines the ideals, attitudes, and practices of VOM in relation to intimate relationship violence in Finland. The aims and ideals stipulated in the Act on Mediation are presented and later compared to actual practices of VOM which were obtained through the review of documented agreements. These were the end-results of VOM in cases of intimate relationship violence. The empirical data also included a questionnaire sent to mediators in three offices as well as a national questionnaire sent to prosecutors.     

Mental Disorder, Violence, and Gender

Recent studies have reported comparable rates of violence among men and women with mental disorder, raising important issues for clinical risk assessment. This study examines the relationship between gender and violence using data from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study. Patients in acute psychiatric wards were interviewed 5 times over the year following their discharge to the community. Results showed some differences between men and women in the violence committed immediately following discharge, with rates for men being higher. But the prevalence of violence over the 1 year was similar for female and male discharged patients. However, there were substantial gender differences in the situational context of the violence committed. Men were more likely to have been drinking or using street drugs, and less likely to have been adhering to prescribed psychotropic medication, prior to committing violence. The violence committed by men was more likely to result in serious injury than the violence committed by women, and men were more likely than women to be arrested after committing a violent act. Women were more likely to target family members and to be violent in the home.     

Safety,Satisfaction, and Settlement in Domestic Relations Mediations: New Findings

Researchers and mediators have long been concerned about coercion, intimidation, and safety threats that could occur in mediation for cases where previous violence between the parties has occurred. Most of the research focuses on screening tools to identify parties at risk. When parties screen positive for intimate partner violence (IPV), some proceed to mediation and some do not, depending on the policies of individual mediation programs. But this misses a step: Some cases may benefit from mediation while others won't, but how can we predict whether mediation will be useful and safe in specific instances? This study uses survey data obtained from parties in domestic relations mediations to examine issues of safety, satisfaction, and settlement in the presence of various IPV behaviors.     

Autonomy,Dependence or Culture: Examining the Impact of Resources and Socio-cultural Processes on Attitudes Towards Intimate Partner Violence in Ghana,Africa

Despite the high levels of domestic violence (intimate partner violence) against African women, tests of competing theories on why the practice is common in the region are quite limited. This study evaluates the effects of resources and cultural factors on attitudes Africans hold about the acceptability of gendered violence, and specifically wife beating (battering). Answers to these questions are relevant to the discourse on intimate partner violence, at least, as pertains to male-dominated societies such as those found in Africa. Drawing on national data from the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, we explore these linkages in an African context. Our findings suggest that egalitarian decision-making and equal household contributions are associated with a reduced acceptance of abusive actions toward women. We suggest that new questions must be asked concerning the present and future role of men and women within households and the community. We share equally in the conceptualization, data analysis, and writing of the paper. We thank Drs. Nancy B. Miller and Cheryl Elman for their helpful comments on this article.     

The Social Ecology of Violent Victimization: Individual and Contextual Effects in the NCVS

Multi-level research has shown that individual and community factors are important predictors of the risk for violent victimization. However, previous analyses have drawn different conclusions about the role of any given factor. These differences likely are related to variations in how violence is measured and to the fact that the data are drawn from different locales. The research presented here uses the 1995 National Crime Victimization Survey and tract-level census data to examine (1) how the risk of violence is distributed across persons and places in the United States and (2) whether empirical findings are sensitive to the operationalization of violence. Results show that some individual-level predictors (e.g., gender and race) are sensitive to the operationalization of violence, whereas others (e.g., age and marital status) are not. In addition, the impact of community characteristics on violence depends on central-city residence. In central cities, persons most at risk are in disadvantaged tracts, with lower proportions of immigrants. Outside central cities, the proportion of immigrants in an area increases risk, while community disadvantage has no independent influence. The importance of an empirical foundation for the development of theories of risk is discussed.     

Aggressors against women in prison and in the community: an exploratory study of a differential profile

The current study compares the demographic and psychopathological characteristics of 54 men, who were in prison because of a serious offence of violence against women, and of 42 men, who belonged to a program of community treatment for violence against women in the home. There were no significant differences in demographic variables between the two samples. However, from a psychopathological point of view, psychiatric antecedents and current emotional instability were much more frequent and severe in aggressors within the community. Therefore, two possible differential profiles among the violent men are presented. Implications of these results for further research and clinical practice are commented on.     

Strain and violence: Testing a general strain theory model of community violence

Agnew's General Strain Theory (GST) has come to be recognized as an increasingly important explanation for violence at the individual level. Drawing on this individual level theory, Agnew [Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 36 (1999) 123] recently suggested that GST might also be applicable to explaining variations in community crime rates. This macro level General Strain Theory (MST) has, however, rarely been empirically examined. This article provides an examination of some of the central ideas in Agnew's MST using data from sixty-six neighborhoods in a southern state. The findings presented here suggest that neighborhood disadvantage and stability significantly affect neighborhood levels of strain. In turn, strain significantly affects levels of violence. The extent to which the effects of strain on violence are conditioned by levels of informal social control and social support/capital are also examined in this article. The results are partially supportive of MST.     

The Brooklyn mediation field test

This paper describes an experiment in which 465 felony arrest cases in Kings County, NY, USA, were, randomly, either filed in court and prosecuted or sent to a dispute resolution center for adjudication. The cases all involved persons who were acquainted, and nearly half were either intimate partners or in other immediate family relationships. The results indicated that the mediation process was perceived more positively by complainants than was prosecution and that going through mediation enhances complainants’ perceptions of their relationships with defendants to a greater degree than going through the court process. However, there was no evidence that mediation was no more effective than prosecution in preventing recidivism. Not surprisingly, in cases involving intimate partners or immediate family members, the offenders were most likely to experience continuing problems whether they were sent to mediation or were prosecuted. One of the values of this study is that, in the late 1970s, when this research was conducted, mediation was considered by many to be a legitimate alternative to prosecution in family violence cases, including cases arising from intimate partner violence. The data that we collected would be difficult to replicate in today’s political climate. While our study did not find that mediation reduced the odds of recidivism in these cases, neither did we find that mediation made victims less safe. Thus, it partially supports the sentiments of researchers such as Braithwaite and Strang (Restorative justice and family violence. In Strang H, Braithwaite J (eds) Restorative justices and family violence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 1−22; 2002), who argue that—given the evidence for success of restorative justice in reducing re-offending in cases other than family violence—it is worth testing whether similar beneficial effects could be found in applying restorative justice approaches to family violence cases.

FACTORS AFFECTING THE OUTCOME OF DIVORCE AND PATERNITY MEDIATIONS

Divorce mediation, an alternative to litigation when resolving disputes raised by the dissolution of a marriage or the separation of unmarried parents, has gained popularity over the past few decades. Yet, research is needed to better understand what processes make family mediation successful and for whom family mediation is successful. To study predictors of reaching agreement in family mediation, we gathered data from divorce and paternity cases at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law Viola J. Taliaferro Family and Children Mediation Clinic. Numerous factors, including history of intimate partner violence, father's reported concerns about participating in mediation, higher levels of father's income, number of mediation sessions, and attorney representation, were associated with lower rates of agreement. Associations between significant predictors are presented, as well as the combined impact of attorney representation and a history of relationship violence, which together significantly predicted lower agreement rates. The implications of these findings for understanding family mediation processes are considered.     

INTIMATE PARTNER ABUSE SCREENING IN CUSTODY MEDIATION: THE IMPORTANCE OF ASSESSING COERCIVE CONTROL

The central point of this paper argues that measuring physical violence alone is insufficient to detect relational distress in child custody/parenting time mediation samples. We present empirical findings from a large study attending custody/ parenting time mediation. Results suggest that the most economical and efficient screening tool should include measures of coercive controlling behavior. Our data suggests that coercive control is able to account for other victim distress variables crucial to mediation, including victim fear, victim safety and ultimately the fairness of the mediation process. We recommend that researchers continue to refine measures of coercive control to be used in custody/parenting time mediation settings.     

Community violence in context: risk and resilience in children and families

Although some community violence research has examined the context of community violence, including the social, economic, and structural organization of neighborhoods, more needs to be learned about family, school, and community-level factors that may promote and lessen the incidence and prevalence of community violence. In addition, further research is needed on various social, environmental, and contextual factors hypothesized to protect youth from exposure. This article (a) reviews and examines the relation between neighborhood context and risk of violence exposure, (b) reviews current literature on predictors of community violence and mental health and behavioral consequences for children and families adversely affected by community violence, (c) examines sources of resilience and community strengths that extend beyond the individual, (d) discusses the contributions and limitations of current conceptualizations of risk and resilience, and (e) highlights directions for future research. Information from this review can inform community and government efforts to lessen community violence through prevention and treatment.     

Exposure to domestic and community violence in a nonrisk sample: associations with child functioning

Limited data exist on the unique, additive, and interactive effects of exposure to domestic and community violence on children's functioning, particularly in community samples. This study examined relations between children's violence exposure, at home and in the community, and symptoms of externalizing and internalizing problems. Parents reported on domestic violence in the home, and children reported on community violence. Concurrent child functioning was measured through parent and teacher reports on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and child self-reports on the Children's Depression Inventory. A multi-ethnic sample of 117 children, aged 8 to 12 years, and their parents and teachers participated. Community violence was related to all measures of children's adjustment, whereas exposure to domestic violence was related only to CBCL externalizing problems. Teacher reports of child aggression were predicted by child age, community violence, and the interaction of community and domestic violence. Implications for research and clinical intervention are discussed.     

MANDATORY MEDIATION OF CUSTODY IN THE FACE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Mediation is frequently mandated as a first step for custody, visitation, and divorce cases. As a process that requires a balance of power between participants, mediation is not an appropriate method to resolve domestic violence disputes, a phenomenon that reflects profound disparities in power between the perpetrator and the victim. Of all marriages referred to court-based divorce and custody/visitation mediation programs, 50% to 80% involve domestic violence. This raises very serious questions about mandatory mediation. This article considers the effects of domestic violence on the mediation process. It questions the use of mandatory mediation and suggests ways that mediators might recognize and respond to domestic violence.     

Client violence and its negative impacts on work attitudes of child protection workers compared to community service workers

This study investigated the prevalence of client violence toward child protection workers and its negative impacts on the work attitudes of those workers compared with community service workers in South Korea. This study is based on the assumption that child protection workers are more vulnerable to violence than are community service workers because of the unique characteristics of the roles they play. Results of the data, drawn from a sample of 413 child protection workers and community service workers, found that client violence was more prevalent against child protection workers and that the negative impacts of this violence on work attitudes were more clearly highlighted for child protection workers. Based on the results of this study, implications for preventing client violence and lessening its negative impacts on work attitudes of child protection workers were identified.     

Gender, Threat/Control-Override Delusions and Violence

This study brings together the threat/control-override perspective and the literature on gender and stress coping to argue that gender moderates the association between threat delusions and violence. We suggest that men are more likely than women to respond to stressors such as threat delusions with violence. We test these ideas using data from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study, a multi-wave study of post-discharge psychiatric patients. Within-person results from two-level hierarchical models support the idea that men and women cope with threat delusions differently. Specifically, we find that men are significantly more likely to engage in violence during periods when they experience threat delusions, compared with periods when they do not experience threat delusions. In contrast, women are significantly less likely to engage in violence during times when they experience threat delusions, compared with periods when they do not. We discuss these findings in light of the literature on gender and stress coping.