NCJ Number
224355
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 25 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2008 Pages: 570-594
Date Published
September 2008
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This study sought to determine whether there were gender differences in specialization among men and women arrested for intimate partner violence.
Abstract
The results indicate that female arrestees demonstrated significantly greater levels of specialization as compared to male arrestees, providing support for the violent resistance perspective. Previous research on male domestic violence offenders has typically considered them to be highly specialized offenders, and specialized theories and policies have been developed to address this type of offending, but some scholars have suggested that intimate partner violence is not as specialized as has been previously assumed. It is noted that, especially in terms of gender differences, intimate partner violence research and theory suggest some variability in the level of specialization apparent for offenders. The current study used the gender symmetry and violent resistance perspectives of women's use of intimate partner violence to examine gender differences in specialization among a sample of intimate partner violence arrestees. The analyses employed multivariate models estimating the diversity index as a measure of specialization in general and multilevel item response theory to assess specialization in intimate partner violence specifically. Data were obtained as part of an evaluation of a community corrections agency in a medium-sized city in the upper Midwest United States, and included 189 domestic violence arrestees, 146 males and 43 females handled by that agency in 2003. Tables, references