Theories About Domestic Violence Theories about why men or women batter and why some people are reluctant to end abusive relationships may seem abstract to police practitioners, but the theories have important implications for how police might effectively respond to the problem. Why Some Men Batter Generally, four theories explain battering in intimate relationships. Psychological theory. Battering is the result of childhood abuse, a personality trait (such as the need to control), a personality disturbance (such as borderline personality), psychopathology (such as anti-social personality), or a psychological disorder or problem (such as post traumatic stress, poor impulse control, low self-esteem, or substance abuse). Sociological theory. Sociological theories vary but usually contain some suggestion that intimate violence is the result of learned behavior. One sociological theory suggests that violence is learned within a family, and a partner-victim stays caught up in a cycle of violence and forgiveness. If the victim does not leave, the batterer views the violence as a way to produce positive results. Children of these family members may learn the behavior from their parents (boys may develop into batterers and girls may become battering victims). A different sociological theory suggests that lower income subcultures will show higher rates of intimate abuse, as violence may be a more acceptable form of settling disputes in such subcultures. A variant on this theory is that violence is inherent in all social systems and people with resources (financial, social contacts, prestige) use these to control family members, while those without resort to violence and threats to accomplish this goal. Feminist or societal-structural theory. According to this theory, male intimates who use violence do so to control and limit the independence of women partners. Societal traditions of male dominance support and sustain inequities in relationships. Violent individuals theory. For many years it was assumed that domestic batterers were a special group, that while they assaulted their current or former intimates they were not violent in the outside world. There is cause to question how fully this describes batterers. Although the full extent of violence batterers perpetrate is unknown, there is evidence that many batterers are violent beyond domestic violence, and many have prior criminal records for violent and non-violent behavior. This suggests that domestic violence batterers are less unique and are more accurately viewed as violent criminals, not solely as domestic batterers. There may be a group of batterers who are violent only to their current or former intimates and engage in no other violent and non-violent criminal behavior, but this group may be small compared to the more common type of batterer.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:40:00 +0000
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