Mainstreaming domestic and gender-based violence into sociology and the criminology of violence

Sociological and criminological views of domestic and gender-based violencegenerally either dismiss it as not worthy of consideration, or focus on specificgroups of offenders and victims (male youth gangs, partner violence victims). Inthis paper, we take a holistic approach to violence, extending the definition fromthat commonly in use to encompass domestic violence and sexual violence. Weoperationalize that definition by using data from the latest sweep of the CrimeSurvey for England and Wales. By so doing, we identify that violence is currentlyunder-measured and ubiquitous; that it is gendered, and that other forms of violence (family violence, acquaintance violence against women) are equally ofconcern. We argue that violence studies are an important form of activity forsociologists

Changing violent men

Londonix, 210 p.; 23 cm

Programmes for violent men: recent developments in the UK

The results are presented of a telephone survey of British therapeutic and educational programmes specifically for men who are violent towards women partners. The following issues are considered: the organisational status of projects, funding, systems of referral, resistance to the creation of programmes, relationship with women's refuge organisations and theoretical and ideological orientations. The findings suggest some resistance has been experienced, most importantly from probation officers and women's groups. The programmes are predominantly cognitive-behavioural in orientation and around half of all projects take men as part of a court order. The significance of these findings is discussed in the light of the recent encouraging evaluation of two pro-feminist and cognitive-behavioural criminal justice programmes