Women Who Perpetrate Relationship Violence

Moving Beyond Political Correctness

Frederick Buttell, Michelle Mohr Carney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317954620
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

Find out what drives women to violence in their intimate relationshipsand how to prevent itWomen Who Perpetrate Relationship Violence examines the causes and consequences of violence initiated by women against their partners. This unique book fills the void of available literature on domestically violent women, taking a frank look at the issues surrounding female batterers who are the primary aggressors in their intimate relationships. Contributors write candidly about the similarities and differences between violent women and violent men, how to develop effective interventions, existing theories on the development of abusive behavior in women, and society's response to violent women.The counseling and psychological community has responded to the problem of domestic abuse and violence against women. But very little has been done to address the issues of domestic abuse and violence committed by women. Women Who Perpetrate Relationship Violence presents innovative original research that focuses specifically on women as offenders, rather than simply adapting programs created for male batterers to women. The book includes epidemiological studies, secondary analyses, personality profiles, and a study of women entering a 16-week, court-mandated, batterer intervention program (BIP). Women Who Perpetrate Relationship Violence examines:

• predictors of intimate violence, including antisocial criminal records, alcohol abuse, and personality disorders
  
• associations between interpersonal dependency and violence
  
• elevated histrionic, narcissistic, and compulsive personality traits
  
• personality disorders
  
• lethal domestic assaults
  
• recidivism
  
• differences in demographic and psychological variables between women who complete treatment programs and those who drop out
  
• and much more

Women Who Perpetrate Relationship Violence is an invaluable professional resource for psychologists, social workers, and counselors.

Exploring the Relevance of Attachment Theory as a Dependent Variable in the Treatment of Women Mandated into Treatment for Domestic Violence Offenses

MICHELLE MOHR CARNEY
FREDERICK P. BUTTELL

ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of the study was to: (a) investigate the pre-treatment levels of interpersonal dependency and violence among women entering a 16-week, court-mandated, batterer intervention program (BIP) and determine if there were any associations between interpersonal dependency and violence; (b) investigate differences in demographic variables and psychological variables between treatment completers and drop-outs; and (c) evaluate the treatment effect of a standard BIP in altering levels of interpersonal dependency among treatment completers.

Method: The study employed a secondary analysis of 75 women, 39 treatment completers and 36 drop-outs.

Results: Analysis indicated that women who assault their intimate partners and are court-ordered into treatment are excessively dependent on their partners prior to beginning treatment, that level of interpersonal dependency is directly related to a multidimensional conceptualization of domestic violence (i.e., psychological aggression, physical assault, sexual coercion and injury), that interpersonal dependency is an important variable in predicting treatment completion and that the BIP increased the level of interpersonal dependency among treatment completers.

Conclusion: Implications of the findings for professionals providing intervention services to women in court-mandated batterer intervention programs were explored and discussed. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS Attachment theory, women offenders, batterer intervention programs

Although the prevalence and consequences of male violence directed towards women in intimate relationships has been well established [for a recent review, see Lawson, (2003)], the research on violent women in intimate relationships is far less developed. The primary reason for this situation is the highly charged and frequently acrimonious debate about whether “husband battering” actually exists (Pagelow, 1992). The crux of the debate hinges on the data generated from two, mutually exclusive, data sets. Data from nationally representative surveys suggest that men and women are equally violent in intimate relationships (Straus, 1999), a conclusion borne out by Archer’s (2000, 2002) meta-analysis of 82 couple-conflict studies which found that women were more likely to use physical aggression than men and to resort to violence more often than men. This data is directly contrasted by data generated from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) that has consistently indicated that women are five times more likely than men to have been the victims of domestic violence (Rennison & Welchans, 2000). These different data sets have led to diametrically opposed conceptualizations of domestic violence. On one side are those aligned with the national family violence surveys who believe that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships (e.g., McNeely, Cook & Torres, 2001), while, on the other side, are those who believe men are the primary aggressors in intimate relationships. Opponents of the latter position purport that the survey data fails to account for either the context in which domestic violence takes place or the differential consequences of violence for men and women (e.g., Kimmel, 2002). Recently, the debate has taken on added significance as women are increasingly being arrested for domestic violence offenses and mandated into batterer intervention programs (BIPs) as part of a criminal sentence.

The presence of women, as offenders, in treatment programs for domestic violence offenders, is the direct result of legislation mandating the arrest of perpetrators in cases where police respond to a call and determine that domestic violence has occurred. In brief, in the late 1980s, most states enacted Law Enforcement Protection legislation. This legislation, commonly referred to as “warrantless arrest,” allows police who respond to a domestic violence call to arrest the abuser and press charges themselves. In these cases, the victim does not have to file a warrant against the abuser before an arrest is made. These laws remove the burden of pressing charges from the victim and have resulted in a substantial increase in the number of domestic violence arrests and convictions. Interestingly, this same legislation has resulted in a significant number of women being arrested and prosecuted for domestic violence offenses (Martin, 1997). Although the arrest of women was clearly an unintended consequence of mandatory arrest statutes (Swan & Snow, 2002), their sudden appearance in court-mandated treatment programs has had a dramatic impact on the national debate regarding female initiated violence. As a result of women being court-mandated into batterer treatment programs, it is no longer possible to suggest that women are infrequently the initiators of violence in their intimate relationships (Carlsten, 2002). If this were true, there would be very few women arrested, successfully prosecuted, and mandated into treatment as part of a criminal sentence. Unfortunately, however, there is very little empirical information available about female domestic violence offenders and, currently, women convicted of domestic violence offenses are mandated into BIPs designed to intervene with male offenders (Dowd, 2001).

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN WHO PERPETRATE VIOLENCE

Given the politics surrounding the issue of female violence occurring in intimate relationships, it is not surprising that much of the available research on this topic has been devoted to fleshing out differences between men and women arrested for domestic violence offenses (Fiebert & Gonzalez, 1997; Hamberger, 1997; Hamberger, Lohr, & Bonge, 1994; Hamberger & Potente, 1994; Martin, 1997; Miller, 2001; Morse, 1995; Swan & Snow, 2002). The effect of this small body of research has been to delineate differential causes and consequences of intimate partner violence for both male and female participants.

More recently, the issue of how men and women in BIPs may be similar has been addressed in several studies, the findings of which suggest that women may be more similar to men than was previously expected. For example, in a recent study of 52 women referred to treatment for abusive behaviors, women who were violent towards their partner only (PO) were found to use controlling violence less frequently, defensive or reactive violence more frequently, report witnessing their mothers’ physical violence less frequently and report fewer traumatic symptoms, relative to women who were generally violent (GV) (Babcock, Miller & Saird, 2003). In this respect, women in BIPs may be similar to men in BIPs in that there might be within group differences along several dimensions, which might hold promise for different clinical interventions [for a recent review of male, batterer subtypes, see Holtzworth et al. (2000)]. Other recent studies have suggested that women and men referred to BIPs are more similar than dissimilar. Specifically, Busch and Rosenberg (2004) discovered that women were similar to men in terms of their use of severe violence, inflicting severe injuries on their partners, use of violence against non-intimates and usage of alcohol and/or drugs at the time of their arrest. Similarly, Henning, Jones and Holdford (2003) discovered that the women were demographically similar to the men in terms of childhood experiences, exposure to interparental conflict and mental health history.

The Role of Attachment Theory

Given the similarities between women and men in treatment for domestic violence offenses, the recent experimental evaluations of BIP effectiveness for male batterers, which have suggested that they are having either little or no treatment effect (Dunford, 2000; Feder & Forde, 2000; Davis & Taylor, 1999; Davis, Taylor & Maxwell, 1998), may have implications for female offenders as well. In brief, as the research suggesting that BIPs are having small treatment effects has accumulated, some authors have advocated for expanding our conceptualization of theories regarding what causes domestic violence (Lawson, 2003; Rosenbaum & Leisring, 2003). According to Sonkin and Dutton (2003), the most promising of these theories is attachment theory. Interestingly, the focus on attachment theory was the direct result of observations made in clinical practice that male batterers were overly dependent on their intimate partners but incapable of initiating and maintaining an emotionally supportive relationship. As a result, these men desired closeness with their partners but, given their inability to achieve emotional closeness, engaged in violent and controlling behaviors to ensure physical closeness rather than emotional closeness (Murphy et al., 1994).

Evaluating the quality of childhood attachment patterns in adult samples is extremely difficult. Researchers often use indirect measures, most commonly interpersonal dependency, to judge the quality of childhood attachment in adults. Conceptually, excessive interpersonal dependency among abusive men is viewed as a consequence of insecure attachment in childhood (Dutton, 1995, 2000; Holtzworth-Monroe et al., 1997). In brief, attachment theory proposes that the overall quality of the infant-caretaker relationship during infancy and early childhood is both the primary determinant of dependent traits in adulthood (Ainsworth, 1969) and a model for later interpersonal relationships (Bowlby, 1980). Regarding the development of excessive interpersonal dependency among batterers, Dutton (1995) has argued that battered mothers ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Female Perpetrators of Intimate Abuse
• Exploring the Relevance of Attachment Theory as a Dependent Variable in the Treatment of Women Mandated into Treatment for Domestic Violence Offenses
• Personality Profiles of Women and Men Arrested for Domestic Violence: An Analysis of Similarities and Differences
• Women as the Aggressors in Intimate Partner Homicide in Houston, 1980s to 1990s
• Investigating Intersections Between Gender and Intimate Partner Violence Recidivism
• Index