The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project: Implications for Law Enforcement Responses to Domestic Violence

A systematic review of risk factors for intimate partner violence was conducted. Inclusion criteria included publication in a peer-reviewed journal, a representative community sample or a clinical sample with a control-group comparison, a response rate of at least 50%, use of a physical or sexual violence outcome measure, and control of confounding factors in the analyses. A total of 228 articles were included (170 articles with adult and 58 with adolescent samples). Organized by levels of a dynamic developmental systems perspective, risk factors included: (a) contextual characteristics of partners (demographic, neighborhood, community and school factors), (b) developmental characteristics and behaviors of the partners (e.g., family, peer, psychological/behavioral, and cognitive factors), and (c) relationship influences and interactional patterns. Comparisons to a prior review highlight developments in the field in the past 10 years. Recommendations for intervention and policy along with future directions for intimate partner violence (IPV) risk factor research are presented.

Four types of individual partner violence are identified based on the dyadic control context of the violence. In intimate terrorism, the individual is violent and controlling, the partner is not. In violent resistance, the individual is violent but not controlling; the partner is the violent and controlling one. In situational couple violence, although the individual is violent, neither the individual nor the partner is violent and controlling. In mutual violent control, the individual and the partner are violent and controlling. Evidence is presented that situational couple violence dominates in general surveys, intimate terrorism and violent resistance dominate in agency samples, and this is the source of differences across studies with respect to the gender symmetry of partner violence. An argument is made that if we want to understand partner violence, intervene effectively in individual cases, or make useful policy recommendations, we must make these distinctions in our research.