Parenting and Women Arrested for Intimate Partner Violence Offenses

Background: The connection between parenting concerns and intimate partner violence (IPV) is well established in the literature. However, linkages made to date focus on families where the father is the IPV offender and the mother is the victim/survivor. In these families, conflict between the parents, ranging from arguments to abuse, is often reported to “spill-over” into parenting resulting in both increased parental stress and increased use of physical discipline (e.g., Levondowsky, Huth-Bocks, Shapiro & Semel, 2003; Levendosky, Lynch & Graham-Bermann, 2000). Although a great deal of research addresses concerns in families where the father is the IPV perpetrator, only one empirical study published to date includes the relationship between parenting and IPV in families where the woman is identified as the offender (Margolin & Gordis, 2003). To remedy this gap in knowledge, the current study addresses the following research questions.

RQ1 What beliefs about parental discipline and parental locus of control do women arrested for IPV related offences report about appropriate methods for disciplining their children?

RQ2 What is the relationship between (a) beliefs about parental discipline and parental locus of control and (b) justification for using violence against a partner in a group of women arrested for IPV related offenses?

Method: The current study utilized a non-experimental exploratory research design data collected for the primary purpose of assessing 121 women arrested for IPV related offenses. Measurement instruments include a demographic questionnaire, the Parent Punitiveness Quiz (Hyman, 1997), Parental Locus of Control (Campis, Lyman, & Prentice-Dunn, 1986), and the Attitudes About Marriage Index (Garcia-O'Hearn, & Margolin, 2000).

Results: Findings indicate the majority of the women in the current study reported beliefs about child discipline that are congruent with those typically reported by non-abusive parents and professionals (Hyman, 1997), an internal locus of control, and healthy parental beliefs. However, significant correlations were found between attitudes toward using violence against one's partner and parental discipline.

Conclusions/Implications: Findings of the current study “promotes sustainability and (re)builds strengths” by identifying parenting as a key component that can be used by people working with women arrested for IPV. Indeed, in this population it appears that violence is not “spilling over” into parenting even though a relationship between using violence toward one's partner and using physical discipline toward one's child is found. The importance of these findings are relevant to those working in the IPV treatment arena as they highlight the need to acknowledge this population's strength's as parents while simultaneously addressing their use of violence. Implications for policy, practice and future research will be addressed in this presentation.