Intrafamily Violence, and Crime and Violence outside the Family

Abstract

Research on violent behavior over the past fifteen years has generally assumed that violence between family members is fundamentally different from violence "in the streets." Criminologists and family violence researchers have been reluctant to conceptualize family violence as a form of criminal violence, and there has been little theoretical or empirical work on commonalities in violence across family and nonfamily settings. An analysis of three data sets from general populations (two national household surveys and a student survey) shows a link between physical assaults in the family and assaults and other crime outside of the family. Evidence was found for both victimization effects and offender effects. Both adult and child victims of violence are more likely to perpetrate assaults and other aggression outside the family than are nonvictims. Violent offenders in the family are also more likely to assault nonfamily members. These victim and offender effects do not disappear when controlling for socioeconomic status, gender, or severity of family violence. The findings support the social learning thesis that training in violence is generalizable across settings and across targets.

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