Family Violence (From Encyclopedia of Sociology, V 3, P 682-689, 1992, Edgar F Borgatta and Marie L Borgatta, eds.)

• NCJ Number: 137216
• Author(s): M A Straus
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: Macmillan Publishing Co, Inc
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The reasons for the high rates of family violence are summarized with an emphasis on the characteristics of the family as a social institution and on social inequality.

Abstract

Factors contributing to the high rate of family violence include an inherently high level of conflict in families, a setting in which physical violence is first experienced and in which the normative legitimacy of violence is learned, a number of stressful events experienced by a family, a high rate of marital violence and child abuse, and chronic stresses such as marital conflict and poverty. No single factor accounts for more than a small percentage of the incidence of child abuse or spouse abuse. A study of the potential effect of 25 such "risk factors" found no incidents of wife beating with the presence of only 1 or 2 of the factors, but a 70-percent occurrence in families with 12 or more of the 25 factors. 44 references