Battered Women

Recent estimates indicate that as many as 8.7 million women are beaten in their homes each year. This is an alarming national statistic, but there is hope. This book examines both social work and criminal justice professional's methods of intervention on behalf of battered women escaping from violent relationships. Helping Battered Women fills a major gap in the literature on the subject. The author provides the reader with the most current, comprehensive, empirically-based, and realistic overview of policy and intervention methods of women escaping from violent relationships. This interdisciplinary volume integrates a rich diversity of perspectives by internationally recognized professors and scholars in the fields of social work, clinical psychology, and criminal justice. The authors of each of the individual chapters tackle one of the major social problems of our times--violence against women--in a systematic and sensitive manner. The authors provide a clear and cogent argument for advocacy and social change in battered women's shelters, police precincts, state legislatures, and the nation's criminal courts.

Employs an information science perspective to analyze social service program delivery to abused women. Ordinary citizens face a frustrating and increasingly complex maze of human service agencies when they seek help for everyday problems, even though "one stop" information and referral centers have been established to facilitate information seeking in many communities. This book explores the effectiveness of information and referral agenices in meeting the needs of battered women, and concludes that most available services are inadequate.

This book paints an overall picture of how domestic violence is being dealt with today and how contemporary concerns about service-user participation in improving services can be put into real and lasting effect.

Battering relationships often escalate to a point where the battered woman commits homicide. When such homicides occur, attention usually is focused on the final violent encounter; however, Ogle and Jacobs argue, while that act is the last homicidal encounter, it is not the only one. This important study argues that the battering relationship is properly understood as a long-term homicidal process that, if played out to the point that contrition dissipates, is very likely to result in the death of one of the parties. In that context, Ogle and Jacobs posit a social interaction perspective for understanding the situational, cultural, social, and structural forces that work toward maintaining the battering relationship and escalating it to a homicidal end. This book details this theory and explains how to apply it in a trial setting.

Why are we so reluctant to believe that women can mean to kill? Based on case-studies from the US, UK and Australia, this book looks at the ways in which female killers are constructed in the media, in law and in feminist discourse almost invariably as victims rather than actors in the crimes they commit. Morrissey argues that by denying the possibility of female agency in crimes of torture, rape and murder, feminist theorists are, with the best of intentions, actually denying women the full freedom to be human. Case studies cover among others the battered wife, Pamela Sainsbury, who garrotted her husband as he slept, the serial killer, Aileen Wournos, who killed seven middle-aged men in Florida between 1989 and 1990, Tracey Wiggington, the so-called "lesbian vampire killer", and Karla Homolka who helped her husband kill two teenage girls in St. Catherines Ontario in 1993.

Public awareness regarding the life-threatening nature and intense traumatic impact of domestic violence has substantially increased in the past decade. At the same time, dramatic changes have taken place regarding criminal justice and social work policies and practices applied to domestic violence intervention. And while the prevalence of domestic violence has declined slightly, national estimates still indicate that every year, approximately eight million women are abused, battered, stalked, or killed by their husbands, boyfriends, and other intimate partners. Featuring cutting-edge research and expert intervention strategies, the Handbook of Intervention Strategies with Domestic Violence: Policies, Programs, and Legal Remedies is designed to prepare professionals to swiftly and compassionately meet the multiple needs of women and children who have suffered from domestic violence. This original and indispensable volume focues on the numerous advances in legal remedies, program developments, treatment protocols, and multidisciplinary perspectives. It is a comprehensive guide to the latest research, public policies, and legal and criminal justice responses, covering federal and state legislation as well as trends in police and court responses to domestic violence. This is the first book to include court-based technology developments and new research related to the duration and intensity of woman battering. Highlighting actual cases and promising programs, the handbook also addresses important social work issues, including risk assessment protocols, a new five level continuum of woman battering, intervention methods, and treatment models. This book also examines the myriad legal issues and health problems facing the most neglected and vulnerable battered women. Written by expert practitioners and leading scholars in the field, the book's 23 chapters provide rich insights into the complexities and challenges of addressing domestic violence.

Analysts have long noted that some societies have much higher rates of criminal violence than others. The risk of being a victim or a perpetrator of violent crime varies considerably from one individual to another. Some ethnic and racial groups have been reported to have higher rates of violent offending and victimization than other groups in societies with ethnically and racially diverse populations. This series of essays explores the extent and causes of racial and ethnic differences in violent crime in the U.S. and several other contemporary societies.

The American court system is making increasing use of sociologists as expert witnesses. From toxic torts to religious cults and brainwashing, sociological knowledge is becoming increasingly more commonplace in the legal arena. This edited volume is a collection of the experiences of sociologists who have appeared as expert witnesses in a variety of court cases. Many of the cases covered in this book revolve around central issues of murder, self-defense, religious cults, battered women, child pornography, environmentalism, and homelessness. This volume is unique in its breadth of topics and contributions.

Each year, more than 2.5 million cases of battering are reported in the Unites States, and as many as 2,000 incidents of abuse turn into murder cases. Every month, more than 50,000 women in the United States seek restraining or protection orders. While many books detail distinguishing characteristics of the abusive relationship, few accounts reveal how some women eventually gather the resources and courage to leave. In a chronicle by turns harrowing and inspiring, Ann Goetting tells how sixteen women finally got away for good. Getting Out recounts not only the stories of their abuse but also the women's life histories leading up to the battering -- and the resources they drew upon to escape. Some of the women here received assistance from compassionate family members -- Lee, for instance, secured support from her parents, who scheduled a holiday trip home for her to get her away from her husband, Tony, whose battering had reached life-threatening dimensions as he became progressively more involved with an outlaw motorcycle gang. Others were saved by a network of friends -- Israeli-born Netiva married an American and escaped after a group of fellow graduate students helped break down the isolation that held her captive. As Goetting explains, leaving is a process rather than an event, often marked along the way by reconciliations and resumption of abuse. But as she and her informants suggest, the process invariably extends back to a critical moment when a decision to leave is made. The life-affirming moment may follow a particularly appalling episode of abuse or arrive in a long-repressed recognition of self-worth garnered from a positive experience at work or in the rearing of a child. Getting Out is a book that some women may read to discover solutions to problems within their own lives and those of people they know. It is also a work that social workers and psychologists who deal with battered women will find singularly informative, and one that will find an audience of readers seeking to understand the lives of women involved with abusive men.