This comprehensive, two-volume work examines domestic abuse in the United States and worldwide, providing research, personal stories, and primary documents that reveal the extent of the problem. An estimated 1,300 to 1,800 Americans are murdered by intimate partners each year. Far from being a problem that only impacts women, domestic violence hurts society as a whole both socially as well as financially, with an estimated direct and indirect cost of nearly $6 billion annually in the United States. This book provides a timely and thorough reference for educators, students, scholars and activists seeking to better understand the global issue of domestic abuse. The entries document the history of the domestic violence prevention movement, provide explanations for abuse, identify warning signs of hidden abuse, describe types of victims and offenders, and supply information on interventions and prevention programs. Written by an array of experts in the field, the book also integrates the personal stories of survivors and addresses abuse as a global issue by covering topics such as acid attacks and female genital mutilation.

This two-volume encyclopedia surveys all aspects of violence and abuse in domestic/family environments, including specific types of abuse, laws and legal issues, and the impacts of abuse. Wide-ranging and authoritative, this resource provides extensive coverage of widely recognized forms of violence and abuse in family settings, including physical, verbal, and emotional abuse of spouses and intimate partners (both female and male) as well as children. In addition, the encyclopedia scrutinizes less recognized types of violence and abuse in households, such as abuse of siblings by other siblings and abuse of parents or grandparents by children and grandchildren (both minor and adult). Family Violence and Abuse is a valuable resource for readers seeking a better understanding of the true scope and impact of these various forms of violence and abuse; important factors that contribute to incidence of family violence and abuse; and the various laws, programs, and therapy alternatives that have been created to help victims of abuse and rehabilitate offenders.

The first edition of this book was also the first volume in the Issues in Children′s and Families′ Lives book series. Like the others in the series, this volume is devoted to issues affecting children and their families. The decision to devote the first volume to family violence was made because it was recognized that violence remains one of the major factors undermining the quality of family life, especially for women and children. It can be acknowledged that there has been some progress in the areas of social policy and clinical practice and yet the number of individuals and families affected by violence is still at an alarming level. The chapters in this second edition testify to the ongoing expansion of knowledge in the field of family and intimate violence. They attempt to summarize some of the best of current scholarship conducted by family violence researchers. Several chapters address issues of prevention, treatment, and intervention services. The contributors are all leaders in the field and reflect a variety of disciplines and different approaches. The diverse perspectives brought to bear on the subject by professionals from a range of disciplines add to the richness of this volume.

"Thought-provoking and insightful, this book encourages readers to question assumptions, evaluate information, formulate hypotheses, and design solutions to problems of family violence in the United States. Using an ecological framework, the authors engage readers in an informative discussion on the most well recognized forms of maltreatment in families, as well as on less understood and more controversial forms, such as maltreatment of male partners, of parents, and within LGBT relationships. Rich in useful scholarly references and practical case materials, the book also reviews and evaluates major efforts at intervention and prevention."--

Since its publication in 1979, Family Violence has proved to be one of the most popular volumes for professional and text use in its area. The second edition reflects new concerns of family violence studies and advances in Gelles' own work. It includes topics that have emerged since the first edition - such as elder abuse and adolescent-to-parent violence - as well as the discovery by Gelles and his colleagues of a drastic drop in the incidence of family violence over the last decade.

The field of Domestic Violence research has expanded considerably in the past decade and now includes work conducted by researchers in many different disciplines, notably political science, public health, law, psychology, sociology, criminology, anthropology, family studies, and medicine. The SAGE Handbook of Domestic Violence provides a rich overview of the most important theoretical and empirical work in the field, organized by relationship type. The handbook addresses three major areas of research on domestic violence: - Violence against partners - Violence against children - Violence against other family members. This Handbook is a unique and timely publication and a long awaited, valuable resource for the vast amount of Domestic Violence research centres and individual researchers across the globe.

This series of articles portrays the state of the art on family violence and abuse research, crystallizes the key interdisciplinary issues confronting family violence and abuse researchers, and suggests a research agenda for the coming years. Although the chapters cover a broad spectrum of issues and controversies in the areas of wife abuse, child abuse, the sexual abuse of children, and marital rape, a number of common themes and issues emerge. First, many chapters share the perspective that violence and abuse emerge from the nature of social arrangements. Second, even though many different forms of family violence and abuse are discussed, several chapters explore their commonalities and important etiological differences. A number of articles examine the common effects of victimization across various forms of family violence and abuse. A third common theme of the papers is an expansion of research efforts to groups other than victims of family violence and abuse, as there are chapters that examine the individual and social characteristics of male perpetrators of both wife abuse and child abuse as well as chapters that focus on the attitudes and behaviors of professional groups concerned with the treatment of victims of family violence and abuse. The volume shows great methodological diversity and attention to theoretical detail; the research presented reveals the possibility of a more comprehensive social science approach to the study of family violence and abuse. In work related to theory building, one chapter explains a number of findings in the child abuse and neglect literature using propositions derived from evolutionary biology; another paper distills propositions from several theoretical traditions. In conjunction with these efforts, several chapters report research designed to test competing propositions. Chapter references and research data are provided.