Human Options is a non-profit social service agency in Orange County, California which provides services for battered women and their families. This study: assessed the outcomes for graduates of its programs; obtained consumer evaluations of the agency's services; measured the needs for aftercare services; and assessed how the children of program…

A recent nine-month field study considered the relationships among school-sponsored and community forms of literacy practices in a migrant-sending area of rural Mexico. While many teachers in rural Mexico argue that students should remain in school rather than migrate to the U.S., this study demonstrates the ways in which schools in rural Mexico…

This study is a follow-up investigation of the career and life experiences of battered women two years after shelter exit. Using consensual qualitative research, we interviewed 6 women from our original sample of 13 regarding their career and life adjustments and future aspirations. Results indicated that participants generally reported both…

The life-long neurological impairments found in people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), including learning disabilities, impulsivity, hyperactivity, social ineptness, and poor judgment, can increase susceptibility to victimization and involvement in the criminal justice system (CJS). Individuals with FASDs become involved in the CJS…

This multigenerational study empirically demonstrates the extent to which offspring whose parents experienced childhood abuse are at increased risk of being abused or neglected. Females with substantiated childhood sexual abuse and nonabused comparison females were assessed at six points spanning 18 years in a prospective, longitudinal study.…

Background: Childhood sexual and physical abuse has been related to subsequent offending behaviour in non-disabled individuals as well as people with intellectual disabilities, but there is a dearth of research examining the link between these two characteristics and psychological, behavioural and psychiatric symptoms amongst sex offenders with…

Wife abuse is a social problem that confronts all sectors of the human services network. It is not known what life factors influence an abused wife's initial choice to leave home and seek help in a shelter agency or to stay home and seek help in a non-shelter agency. This study was conducted to examine the relative importance of various factors…

Children's exposure to family violence may lead to increased school difficulties, as shown in studies demonstrating the relationship between children's adjustment disorders and stressful family events. To examine the unique effects of violence on children's cognition, this study compared the academic performance and conflict levels of two groups…

Husband-to-wife violence has been the focus of much research and several theories have attempted to explain its occurrence. This study tested exchange theory and resource theory, examining the possibility that not only lower status husbands, but also husbands of higher status, may be influenced toward aggression by status discrepancies with their…

This study tested the learned helplessness theory, stress theory, and a modified stress theory to determine the best model for predicting the probability that a woman would seek help when she experienced severe violence from a male partner. The probability was hypothesized to increase as the stress of the violence experienced increased. Data were…

Danger to police is a major premise of much contemporary police training for domestic disturbance calls. Intervening in domestic disturbances has long been seen as the single most frequent cause of police deaths. A study was conducted by the National Institute of Justice to examine the danger faced by police when responding to domestic disturbance…

Alcohol abuse is often a precipitating factor in domestic violence, especially in the most serious forms of violence. The term coalcoholic has been used to describe persons in a dyadic relationship with an alcoholic including spouses, lovers, parents, or close friends. Two intervention programs for coalcoholic battered women were studied. In the…

Investigates a largely uncharted dynamic in the literature--the incidence of wife abuse among incestuous families--and suggests that professional caregivers reevaluate conventional treatment modalities that are based on certain assumptions regarding the mother's role in incest. (Author)

Investigated relationship between courtship violence and later spouse abuse in 82 women clients at domestic violence shelters. Examination of histories with regard to physical violence during childhood, courtship, and marriage demonstrated remarkable similarity between courtship and marital violence. Relationship violence rather than courtship or…

Investigated the ability of the Child Abuse Potential Inventory to screen for child abuse in a group of spouse abusers. The completed, valid protocols revealed that 36.5 percent of the spouse abusers had elevated child abuse scores, while only 9.1 percent of the nonabusers had elevated abuse scores. (Author/BL)