Free Essay: Child Abuse and Inter-parental Violence Result in Adulthood Family Violence

The paper analyses the myth that child abuse, inter-parental violence, and adolescent violence contribute to intimate partner violence in adulthood. It analyses two articles concerning the subject matter.

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Herrenkohl, T., & Jung, H. (2016). Effects of child abuse, adolescent violence, peer approval and pro-violence attitudes on intimate partner violence in adulthood. Criminal Behaviour And Mental Health, 26(4), 304-314. doi:10.1002/cbm.2014

Introduction

The article analyses the effects of child abuse, adolescent violence, peer approval and peer-violence attitudes on intimate partner violence in adulthood. According to Herrenkohl & Jung (2014), studies on violence and violent offending in adolescents and adults often relate to the 'cycle of violence' that usually exist within families. In this case, there is an identified pattern where children who are exposed to violence later become the committers of the vice and direct it to their peers and partners. The rates of self-reported and officially recorded violent crimes during adolescence and early childhood are high among children who were maltreated. Moreover, these children are also at a higher risk of being re-victimized.

Methodology

Herrenkohl & Jung obtained data from the Lehigh Longitudinal Study that began in 1973-1974 as a portion that evaluates child abuse and neglect treatment and prevention programme in eastern Pennsylvania. The sample was selected over a 2-year period through referrals from two county child welfare agencies on cases that were at least one abused or neglected on children that were 18 months to 6 years present in their homes.

The study used a sample of 457 children with 248 males and 209 females. The racial and ethnic composition of the sample consisted of 5.3% African American, 80.7% White, 11.2% more than once race, 1.5% other races and 1.3% unknown. The variables under consideration include child abuse, adolescent violence victimization, adolescent violence perpetration, pro-violence attitudes, peer approval of violence and adult intimate partner violence (IPV). The control variables, on the other hand, included age, gender, and childhood SES. The males were coded as 1 and females as 0. The age focused on the adolescent level, and childhood SES used a composite measure of the parent's occupational status, levels of education and family income among others.

The research used a Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) method of estimation to address any missing data that was later presented in descriptive statistics. The analyses were performed in Mplus 7.11. Logistic regression was used to analyse the dichotomous measures of adult IPV victimization and perpetration. The Ordinary Least Squares Regression method was used to perform counts of IPV victimization and perpetration.

Results

The results of the study show that the majority of the sample experience one or more forms of psychological IPV (78.6%). Physical violence stood as 16.7% of the sample, 11.8% enacted sexual IPV against their partners and 13.9% were victimized sexually. Physical injuries that resulted from IPV victimization was as low as 5.3% while 3.4% enacted IPV that resulted in physical injury. Females recorded more physical perpetration resulting from IIPV victimization (25.3% compared to males' 10.6%).

Child maltreatment was associated with sexual IPV perpetration that resulted in physical injury and the overall count of the IPV perpetration types. Dating violence victimization was also associated with physical IPV victimization and injury. The pro-violence attitudes that relate to dating and other forms of violence do not significantly relate to later IPV perpetration and victimization.

Discussion

The results of the study show that earlier forms of victimization and peer approval of dating violence during adolescence provide the strongest prediction of adult IPV victimization and perpetration. The findings provide a link between earlier and later forms of violence and also raise the chances that the type and time of a child's exposure to violence are likely to influence the IPV risk.

Heyman, R., & Amy M. Smith Slep. (2002). Do Child Abuse and Interparental Violence Lead to Adulthood Family Violence? Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(4), 864-870. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3599988

Introduction

This article analyses if child abuse and inter-parental violence result in adulthood family violence. According to Heyman & Smith (2002), the cycle of violence indicates that victimized children grow up to victimize others, including their friends and spouses. The cycle of violence, therefore, involves child victimization and exposure to inter-parental violence that result in violent criminal behaviour during adolescence and adulthood. Child maltreatment and victimization result in maltreatment perpetration and partner abuse victimization in adulthood. Exposure of children to inter-parental violence result in child maltreatment perpetration and partner abuse victimization during adulthood.

Methodology

The research uses a sample of 6,002 participants (both men and women) where 5,015 were recently married, 240 were cohabiting as a heterosexual couple, 563 were divorced, widowed or separated within the last two years and 183 as single parents with a child under the age of 18. The perpetration of partner abuse and victimization analysed the selected respondents from the married (2,188 men and 2,826 women) and cohabited (115 men and 126 women) groups. Child maltreatment focused on analysing participants with at least one child under 18 years living within a household.

The conflict tactics scale was used to measure parent-child and partner physical aggression. Each item was rated based on its frequency of occurrence during the past year. Two sets of questions were used to inquire about violence in the family of origin.

Results

The results of the study show that:

In the case of fathers, violence in the family of origin, i.e. parent-parent only, parent-child only, was significant in causing father-child abuse over the past years. In the case of mothers, there is a significant relationship between violence in the family-of-origin and other-child abuse in the past year. Moreover, mothers exposed to both parental violence and parent-child victimization had a probability of more than twice to physically abuse their children than those exposed to only one form only.

On the aspect of exposure to family-of-origin violence, men had a significant relationship between exposures to violence from the family-of-origin and partner abuse victimization. On the other hand, there was a significant association among women between the reported family-of-origin violence and the reported forms of partner abuse victimizations. Moreover, women exposed to both forms of family-of-origin violence had a higher probability of reporting partner abuse victimization that those who experience one form.

Discussion

The results support the hypothesis of cycle-of-violence that violence in the family-of-origin increases the risk of violence in adulthood families. For men, one major effect is the exposure to father-to-mother violence in the family that increases the risk of adulthood violence perpetration. For women, the major effect involves mother-to-child violence that increases the risk for partner abuse victimization.

The results highlight the importance of both physical victimization and exposure to inter-parental violence in understanding the concept of the cycle of violence. Generally, the results point toward a same-gender modelling effect for the perpetration of violence towards partners and children. The risk of women being in a partner abusive relationship was increased by their childhood victimization.

References

Herrenkohl, T., & Jung, H. (2016). Effects of child abuse, adolescent violence, peer approval and pro-violence attitudes on intimate partner violence in adulthood. Criminal Behaviour And Mental Health, 26(4), 304-314. doi:10.1002/cbm.2014

Heyman, R., & Amy M. Smith Slep. (2002). Do Child Abuse and Interparental Violence Lead to Adulthood Family Violence? Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(4), 864-870. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3599988