This chapter describes some of the recent restorative justice innovations and research that substantiates their usefulness. It explores developments in the conceptualization of restorative justice based on emergence of new practices and reasons for the effectiveness of restorative justice as a movement and restorative dialogue as application. Chaos theory offers a better way to view the coincidental timeliness of the emergence of restorative justice as a deeper way of dealing with human conflict. The chapter reviews restorative justice practices that have opened up areas for future growth. Those practices include the use of restorative practices for student misconduct in institutions of higher education, the establishment of surrogate dialogue programs in prison settings between unrelated crime victims and offenders. They also include the creation of restorative justice initiatives for domestic violence and the development of methods for engagement between crime victims and members of defense teams who represent the accused offender.

This chapter presents ways in which forensic social workers respond flexibly, collaboratively, and effectively to situations of domestic violence. It describes ways to engage men who abuse in becoming better fathers and partners. The chapter examines how social workers can foster culturally respectful partnerships with and around families that safeguard all family members. Few services are available for men who abuse to learn how to become responsible parents, and evaluations of these programs are even more limited. Two exceptions are a Canadian program called Caring Dads and a North Carolina program called Strong Fathers. These responsible fatherhood programs seek to raise the men’s awareness of the deleterious impact of children’s exposure to domestic violence and to enhance the men’s skills in communicating and parenting.

This chapter includes brief historical, political, and cultural perspectives on violence against women as well as the current state of this issue. It discusses various forms of violence against women that impact their emotional, physical, and psychological well-being. Clinical implications include an overview of the clinical foundation in working with survivors of violence and the three layers of the counseling process: prevention, intervention, and restoration. The chapter discusses the impact of this work on the counselor, along with how to promote posttraumatic growth in clients. The movement toward ending violence against women has gained significant momentum since the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. The emotional effects of domestic violence (DV) can have devastating impacts on survivors. Although sexual violence is often present within DV, it also occurs outside of intimate relationships. Legally, sexual violence is often referred to as sexual assault or rape.

This chapter discusses issues of power, the cycle of violence, learned helplessness (LH), the battered woman syndrome (BWS), and reasons victims stay in abusive relationships. Violence within intimate relationships can be understood as one partner gaining power over the other partner with the use of coercive and controlling tactics. Such tactics may be reinforced with physical and/or sexual violence. Battered women who acquire LH tend to be at high risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD); their development of LH is associated not only with their abusive situation but also with past difficult life circumstances. The dynamics of domestic violence are so complex that it is difficult for most people to understand why a woman living in an abusive relationship does not simply leave. Many of the common explanations for why victims stay are myths.

This chapter focuses on the effects of intimate partner violence (IPV) on victims of diverse cultural backgrounds and/or at-risk populations who suffer social and economic injustices. It presents the barriers experienced by victims who are members of diverse populations, including those who are impoverished, older, living in rural areas, same-gender couples, living with disabilities, immigrants, Asian American, African American, Hispanic, Native American, and veterans returning from war. States that adopt the Family Violence Option (FVO) can establish programs, exemptions, and waivers to assist battered women. Persons who recruit women into the sex industry are known to social workers and law enforcement as controllers, traffickers, and pimps. Without performing proper screening to identify victims of sex trafficking, law enforcement may arrest victims under other prostitution statutes and subject them to further trauma. When members of at-risk and diverse populations are also victims of domestic violence, they live in multiple jeopardy.

This chapter reviews the characteristics and typologies of intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators as well as methods to determine their level of lethality and motivation to change. Many perpetrators are treated in batterer intervention programs (BIP) which attempt to change their cognitive and behavioral patterns, thus discontinuing their abusive acts. Many perpetrators have a history of child abuse. They may have been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused, have witnessed IPV, or have been maltreated in some other manner. Substance abuse may also co-occur with IPV. Some researchers suggest that substance abuse is involved in anywhere from 20 to 80 of domestic violence cases. Although most traditional research and the literature addressing IPV between heterosexual couples focuses on female victims and male perpetrators, increasingly men are being recognized as the victims of female perpetrators.

This chapter focuses primarily on domestic violence and social work practice with low-income immigrant women, particularly those who are undocumented. Impressive social and legal remedies were achieved for victims of domestic violence in the beginning of the women’s movement. However, legislative and regulatory changes were critically needed for domestic violence victims with immigrant and refugee status to ensure their ability to access needed social welfare services and public benefits such as income support, healthcare, employment, education, housing, and personal social services. In addition, social workers were challenged to develop new models of intervention and practice that addressed the needs of immigrant domestic violence victims. An understanding of how different immigrant communities view domestic violence can help social workers begin to reformulate their practice, advocate for policy changes, and formulate effective responses to assist battered immigrant women.

The philosophy around domestic violence has undoubtedly evolved in the past several years. While most scholars studying the epidemiology of domestic violence agree that violence occurs in homes across all demographic groups, more people who are poor appear in domestic violence courts than those who have money. Early in the development of batterers’ intervention programs, both a feminist and cognitive behavioral model was developed to integrate sociocultural political and individual factors. There are three major models of treatment programs that are usually court ordered around the country. The first is the Duluth model and the second model is the combination of treatment for domestic violence and mental health problems that is represented by AMEND from Denver and EMERGE from Boston. The third model comprises mental health treatment programs that are not integrated with a sociocultural feminist perspective.

In 1980, the battered women advocates attempted to take control of what loosely was called “the battered woman’s movement” away from the professionals. However, some of those women who already have been identified with a mental disorder that is exacerbated by the abuse or those who develop battered woman syndrome and posttraumatic stress disorder from the abuse itself may need some psychotherapy to help them heal and move on with their lives. The link between sex trafficking and domestic violence has also become much better known within the last 10 years. The history of society’s newest interest in the eradication of violence against women and children demonstrates both the intricacies of the problem and the difficulties in dealing with it. Although shelters do provide safety for only a small number of women and children, their presence in a community sends a message about zero tolerance for such abuse.

This chapter addresses the complex relationship between child abuse and domestic violence. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was developed by the United Nations over a 10-year period to protect the human rights of the child by banning discrimination against children and affirming special protection and rights appropriate to minors. Forensic mental health experts who specialize in child custody evaluations come more from the perspective of child protection and rarely understand how to support and reempower the mother who has been abused. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most commonly diagnosed disorder in abused children, although some of the symptoms are not easily seen in young children who often show dysregulation of their body functions. Newer psychotherapy strategies called “trauma-specific treatment” may help children who have been abused heal from the trauma.

Today, the debate over the misinterpretation of the term “learned helplessness” is less important, particularly since the originator of the theory, Martin Seligman, has looked at the less controversial flip side, learned optimism. In any case, the discussion about the theories of learned helplessness and learned optimism is relevant to finding a theory that many can embrace that helps explain the complex relationships found in domestic violence. This chapter adapts the theoretical concept of learned helplessness to help explain why women who could develop such intricate and life-saving coping strategies found it so difficult to escape a battering relationship. The concept of learned helplessness has been quite useful in expert witness testimony to help jurors understand how difficult it is for women to leave the relationship and why some women become so desperate that they must arm themselves against batterers.

The research over the past 40 years led to the validation that living in a domestic violence family can produce psychological effects called the battered woman syndrome (BWS). Over the years, it has been found that the best way to understand violence in the home comes from listening to the descriptions obtained from those who experience it: victims, perpetrators, children, or observers. The understanding of domestic violence reported was learned from the perceptions of the courageous battered women who were willing to share intimate details of their lives. The theory of learned helplessness suggests that they give up the belief that they can escape from the batterer in order to develop sophisticated coping strategies. Learned helplessness theory explains how they stop believing that their actions will have a predictable outcome. The abuse of alcohol and perhaps some drugs is another area that would predict higher risk for violent behavior.

This chapter addresses some negative effects on children when exposed to violence against their mothers by batterers. It focuses on teenagers as more data have become available about teens, delinquency, and violence in their homes. In the 40 years since the original battered woman syndrome (BWS) research, there has been plethora of data collected about children who have been exposed to domestic violence, particularly by their fathers or father-like substitutes abusing their mothers. The child abuse experts began a study funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to retrospectively assess for relationship between adverse childhood events and lifetime prevalence of health concerns. To eradicate domestic violence and violence in the community, we must stop modeling both sexist and violent behavior and change the divorce laws to empower children and abused women so they are no longer victimized by the abusers.

There is no question that the presence of domestic violence and child maltreatment poses significant problems for the family court and child custody evaluators. In fact, the largest number of complaints filed with licensing boards and malpractice insurance carriers deal with child custody evaluations. Research demonstrates the lack of knowledge of judges and child custody evaluators in protecting women and children when domestic violence and child abuse are reported as compared to battered women advocates and legal aide attorneys. There are several ways to minimize the domestic violence that include blaming the victim for her behavior, artificially dividing domestic violence into different types of behavior and then assuming that certain types do not have negative impact, ignoring or misinterpreting signs of abuse, or alleging some factitious disorder like Munchausen by proxy or the nonexistent parental alienation syndrome or disorder.

Women were less likely to be able to leave a domestic violence relationship if they had substance abuse problems. Linking alcohol abuse with batterers and battered women, then, is a natural association. The relationship between substance abuse and aggression and/or interpersonal violence is more complex because of the pharmacological and physiological interaction of the different substances. Several studies have associated cocaine, crack, amphetamine, and methamphetamine use with increased violence. Individuals who abuse psycho stimulants may be inherently aggressive, antisocial, or psychopathic sensation seekers. And women who abuse substances to self-medicate from the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and battered woman syndrome (BWS) need specialized treatment for the abuse they have experienced in addition to treatment for alcohol and other drugs. Cognitive rehabilitation as well as trauma treatment and drug treatment are all needed, especially for those who have been abusing substances over a long period of time.

This chapter discusses how the criminal justice system treats battered women over the past 40 years. In the United States, advocates who began working with battered women in the 1980s believed that the most important step to end threats of violence was to punish the batterer and hold him accountable for his misconduct. To do this the legal system had to be encouraged to take action whenever domestic violence was raised. A study of the needs for victims of intimate partner violence commissioned for the Colorado legislature found that over two thirds of the women in prison stated that they had been abuse victims. Other areas of the civil rights laws have also been used to better protect battered women. The gender bias, including sexism and racism, for women coming before the criminal justice system continues to make it difficult for women to seek safety and protection.

This chapter reviews the case studies of Darlene Green, Julie Abner, Michelle Byrom and Kristina Earnest to illustrate false confessions. Confessions are one of the most incriminating forms of evidence. The Reid Interrogation Technique has been used by police departments since the 1960s and is the most commonly utilized method of interrogation in the United States. Gender differences exist in all areas of the criminal justice system. Battered women may also respond like those with a long history of serious mental illness as their mental health issues may lower their ability to withstand the pressure of interrogation. In domestic violence cases, there were the batterer’s threats to harm the children if she did not accept blame usually for his abuse of the children. Women meet all the vulnerabilities that were found in the research with men and others including the impact of the long histories of abuse and trauma.

Attachment theory provides a rich conceptual framework for understanding issues that arise in intimate partner violence (IPV) that have not been well studied in adults. Attachment was initially conceived as a neurobiological-based need for the purpose of safety and survival. Moreover, through the attachment process individuals develop an internalized set of beliefs about the self and others, known as “internal working models”. In adult relationships, attachment processes are activated by way of a cognitive-affective-behavioral triad. Woman who engage in the commercial sex industry have a much higher risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. An interesting phenomenon that ties use of pornography on the Internet together with the sexual abuse of women and children has been found in the legal community. It is known that early sexualization of children may cause interpersonal difficulties that may make it more difficult to recognize the cycle of violence engaged in by the batterer.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has conducted studies about adverse health conditions and health risk behaviors in those who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). The high numbers of women who report childhood abuse and IPV and receive no assistance in healing from the psychological effects obviously will be seen in medical clinics, often too late to stop a disease process that might have been prevented had their posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) responses been dealt with earlier. One of the most negative and lasting effects of IPV on women appears to be the impact on the women’s body image, which is related to their self-esteem. Although the health care system has attempted to deal with battered women, in fact both the structure and function are not set up to be helpful, especially when chronic illnesses are exacerbated by environmental stressors such as living with domestic violence.

This chapter analyzes the murder-suicide cases through a review of the newspaper reports of murder-suicides in the five major regions of the state of Florida. Guns in the home are the predominant weapons used in the murder-suicides in the United States. In countries where guns are not as accessible in the home, such as Great Britain, there is a lower murder and suicide rate. Jacqueline Campbell suggests that domestic violence is implicated in premature deaths of women from aggravated health conditions such as strokes, heart attacks, and other major illnesses that occur after being choked or strangled. The chapter also presents some murder-suicide case and self-defense case studies of women such as Ed and Linda, Nancy Kissell, Catherine Pileggi and Nellie Mae Madison. A recent study in Chicago offered some new information about the neuropsychological profile of men who killed an intimate partner as compared to those who kill others.

This chapter focuses on the commonality between domestic violence and other forms of violence against women. There are at least two major types of cultural issues that need to be understood in the United States by researchers and service providers: first, the cultural issues of those with less access to resources and the dominant cultural privileges, and second, the cultural issues of those who have emigrated to the United States from other countries, whether legally or illegally. Given the attention to cultural diversity issues in providing clinical services, there is a body of literature that deals with how these services, particularly medical and psychological treatments, must accommodate to cultural differences. Some researchers suggest that women of color in domestic violence relationships are less likely to seek help from mental health professionals because they perceive the helpers as insensitive to the racial and cultural context of their lives.

Battered women themselves are terrified about being labeled with a mental illness especially since so many are threatened into silence by their batterers who tell them that everyone will think they are “crazy”. While health service providers are now better trained in identification of both health and mental health needs of battered women and their children, there is still little understanding of what to do after identification. The Public Health Model for community distribution of health and mental health services may be a way to conceptualize all of the health services that battered women need to have in place for both prevention and intervention. The legal system also contributes to the primary prevention and intervention with women who are victims of intimate partner violence. Secondary prevention programs attempt to use the early identification of domestic violence victims as a way to prevent the development of further psychological and physical injuries.

This chapter provides a vivid glimpse of the conflict and emotional distress experienced by social workers who grew up with substance-abusing parents. It shares four personal stories of Robert: shame, denial, and the family secret, Sonia: an immigrant’s perspective on parental substance abuse and domestic violence, Andrew: effects of substance abuse on the family system across generations, and Emily: poverty, chaos, and fear overcome by resilience. Their narratives illustrate many of the dynamics and treatment issues in their personal stories. These poignant narratives provide people with a glimpse inside the hearts and minds of social work colleagues who have struggled to make sense of their own pain. Robert’s story clearly illustrates the confusion that Children of Substance-Abusing Parents (COSAPs) experience in not being able to openly discuss “the family secret”. All identifying details have been changed to protect the identities of family members.

Sex trafficking is said to be the second most lucrative crime other than involvement in illegal drug trafficking. While sex trafficking is a global problem, this chapter focuses on domestic forms as they relate to the work on domestic violence. In 2012, the National Center for Victims of Crime held a roundtable of national, state, and local stakeholders who were active in identification and intervention issues. Children who grow up in homes where there is domestic violence and other forms of family dysfunction and abuse are vulnerable to being lured into the sex-trafficking industry. Gangs have also become involved in sex trafficking, which in some gangs has replaced drugs as a major income stream. Studies of trafficking victims reveal their high drug use; in some cases over 50” of women who are interviewed said they had a substance abuse or dependence disorder.

The amount of violent behavior expressed in abusive families is enormous. O’Leary studied the escalation of the man’s aggression toward the woman and has found several points where the abuse went from psychological to physical violence and then lethal violence. Reinforcement of violence as a strategy occurs at all levels in our society. It is particularly evident in some of our child-raising practices. The chapter also discusses more popular instruments such as Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA), Danger Assessment Scale (DAS) for risk assessment in domestic violence that are used around the world. Several factors like high degree of social isolation, use of coercion as the major form of communication and high degree of withdrawal through the abuse of alcohol and drugs are common in the life histories of individuals where an abusive relationship ends in the death of one or both partners.

This chapter discusses the types of writing and the writing process for police officers. Effective writing for law enforcement requires the utmost attention to detail. Police officers document a wide range of episodes and events, ranging from the routine, like traffic stops, to the serious and complicated, such as arriving on the scene of a domestic violence incident. For any event, afterward, sometimes long after, officers may be called to testify in a court of law about what they witnessed, and about the content of the official report. In this situation, the best record is the official record—it is important to document everything in writing. Effective policing requires that the officer understand the sociological aspects of the job. Active listening involves hearing the words spoken, for insights about the speaker’s involvement, as well as information he or she may be omitting.

This chapter talks about the types of writing and the writing process for professionals in the judicial courts. Effective communication is one of the most important elements of training police officers in dealing with domestic violence cases. Active communication can assist officers in furthering investigations, determining who the predominant aggressors are, and showing the victim that abusive behavior is unacceptable. A positive interaction with law enforcement makes a huge impact on whether victims see the criminal justice system as a resource in escaping dangerous situations. Effective report writing for the courts is a crucial element to the successful outcome of our responsibilities in justice professions. For almost every action related to probation and parole, there is an official written record that contains the facts of the case. Effective writing for the courts (as well as elsewhere in the justice system) reflects on one’s professional competence.

This chapter discusses major empirical data and studies on the prevalence of sexual assault and treatment for sex offenders and includes a discussion about issues associated with special sex offender populations. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) suggests that sexual assault includes a wide range of victimizations, separate from rape, or attempted rape. The feminist movements of the 1970s gave public voice to issues of adult sexual and domestic violence. The victim-offender relationship has been shown to be a key factor for violence, apart from depressive symptomatology and other pervasive mental health disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, fearfulness, and other somatic complaints. Sexual assault victimization has numerous costs and consequences for the victim, the offender, their families, and society at large. Criminal justice costs of sexual violence include those incurred for law enforcement, court proceedings, personnel, public education, and incarceration of convicted offenders.

Psychological trauma can have long-term effects on health. When considering the impact of trauma on health, most people tend to focus on immediate consequences, such as injury. And these needs can be substantial. Patients who reported four or more types of childhood adversity, including sexual, physical, and emotional abuse; exposure to domestic violence; and parental mental illness, criminal activity, and substance abuse, were at significantly increased risk for such diverse conditions as ischemic heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, diabetes, and hepatitis. Human beings are meant to have social relationships with others. Unfortunately, trauma survivors often have difficulties in their relationships. Depression and Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are common sequelae of trauma. Depression is one of the most commonly occurring sequelae of trauma. Given the serious often life-threatening conditions that trauma survivors often have, an adequate health care system response is perhaps the most pressing need of survivors of traumatic events.

This chapter provides specific guidelines and examples of how to communicate effectively with attorneys, conduct interviews with parents and children, make recommendations for custody and visitation, write reports, and successfully testify in court. It includes forms for taking interview notes, templates for writing reports, examples of actual reports, sample visitation schedules, and case studies. One must write a report that is complete and understandable by the attorneys, the court, and the parents. Generally speaking, family courts look at all relevant factors promoting the child’s best interests. This includes the wishes of the child’s parent or parents; the wishes of the child; the interaction and interrelationship of the child with his or her parents and siblings; the child’s adjustment to his or her home, school, and community; the mental and physical health, if any, of domestic violence in the presence of the child.

This chapter describes that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can have a significant negative effect on families. In spite of difficulties, it is possible for family members to band together and weather the storm of PTSD. When one member of a family suffers, it affects the entire family. They may not have experienced the traumatic event, but they live every day with the consequences. They are collateral damage. PTSD can affect all members of a survivor’s family: parents, spouses, and children. Divorce is twice as common in families with PTSD. Spouses are at increased risk for domestic violence. People with PTSD are easily startled; they have nightmares, which can interfere with their family members’ sleep; and they can’t handle many social situations, often isolating their families from contact with the outside world. PTSD can also significantly alter the personality, making an individual seem like a different person.