Wendy C. Regoeczi

Domestic violence has a devastating impact on partners, spouses, families and communities. This resource explores the emotional and physical toll of domestic violence as well as the programs and reforms that have been crafted to intervene in abuse situations and provide assistance to victims. This book helps readers understand the extent to which domestic violence permeates American society, the socioeconomic and psychological drivers of that violence, and efforts to reform legal and law enforcement systems to make their policies and practices more sensitive to those who have been abused and victimized. It asks and answers questions related to root causes of domestic violence, risk factors, legal options for people in domestic violence situations, and violence prevention programs and services.

Using multiple data sources and methods, this book involves a micro-historical analysis of the nature of change and stability in homicide situations over time. It focuses on the homicide situation as the unit of analysis, and explores similarities and differences in the context of homicide for different social groups. For example, using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we investigate whether various social groups (e.g., men vs. women, teenagers vs. adults, strangers vs. intimates, Blacks vs. Whites) kill under qualitatively different circumstances and, if so, what are the characteristics of these unique profiles. The analysis of over 400,000 US homicides is supplemented with qualitative analysis of narrative accounts of homicide events to more fully investigate the structure and process underlying these lethal situations. Our findings of unique and common homicide situations across different time periods and social groups are then discussed in terms of their implications for criminological theory and public policy.