How Neighborhoods Influence Intimate Partner Violence: A Qualitative Inquiry with Men in Batterer Intervention Programs

Background: Previous literature has established that a relation exists between neighborhoods and intimate partner violence (IPV), yet very little is known about how neighborhoods affect IPV incidence. Moreover, comparatively little research has explored IPV from men’s perspective, instead viewing it primarily from women-as-victims perspective. While research focusing on women is important and has made significant impacts on women’s services and related health, the lack of research into men’s use of violence against women drawing from men’s perspective hampers progress within the IPV field. As such, the following research question was addressed, “What are potential mechanisms by which community and individual factors affect the occurrence of male to female IPV?”

Methods: Sampling from two batterer intervention programs, 32 men participated in one of five focus groups from October 2015 to January 2016. Focus group questions explored the processes by which neighborhoods influenced men’s use violence against their partners. Grounded theory guided the study design, sampling, and analysis. Specifically, after the completion of each focus group, two researchers independently coded transcripts. Beginning with open coding, we then moved to focused coding, and axial coding. After coding each transcript, resultant codes were discussed and a codebook was developed after the second focus group. Upon coding completion of subsequent focus group transcripts, the codebook was expanded to reflect new codes and refined to eliminate or collapse codes. This process facilitated theoretical sampling, i.e., focus group questions were eliminated after achieving or expanded to achieve saturation with research topics. All transcripts were re-coded with the final codebook. Finally, theoretical coding was completed through a series of hypothesis testing using peer debriefing and data reexamination.

Results: Three intersecting core categories representing processes by which neighborhoods affect men’s use of IPV emerged: Adverse Childhood Events (ACE) and Trauma, i.e., deeply distressing experiences that overwhelm one’s sense of safety and control, Structural Forces, i.e., positive and negative elements affecting social processes within neighborhoods, and Systemic Forces, i.e., macro-level influences on neighborhoods’ physical and social makeup. Theoretical coding resulted in a preliminary theory depicting a chronological narrative explaining that men experienced ACEs and trauma via unstable home lives and later experienced ACEs and trauma on the streets. Traumatic events in early life challenged basic foundations of safety and trust needed for intimate relationships in later life. Moreover, the types of neighborhoods men lived in enhanced or diminished further risk of re-traumatization and, subsequently, the risk of IPV. Neighborhoods with positive and negative Structural Forces were coined “villages” by men in the study. Neighborhoods with solely negative Structural Forces were labeled “islands,” a term I coined based on men’s descriptions. Finally, Systemic Forces fueled the proliferation of island-neighborhoods, i.e., risk-laden environments.

Implications: Confirmatory studies should test the power of the neighborhood-level predictors of IPV along with mediating processes identified by study participants. Intervention programs should incorporate trauma-informed principles into curricula for men in batterer programs. Prevention programs should engage communities to develop neighborhoods with village-like qualities; village-neighborhoods, characteristic of positive and negative structural forces, reduced the risk of trauma exposure.