Domestic Violence and Deployment in Us Army Soldiers

Abstract

Although military deployment has been suggested as a possible cause of increases in domestic violence, little is known about it. The purpose of this study was to determine if deployment of 6 months to Bosnia predicted early postdeployment domestic violence. Active duty recently deployed (N = 313) and nondeployed (N = 712) male soldiers volunteered to take an anonymous questionnaire. Deployment was not a significant predictor of postdeployment domestic violence. However, younger soldiers, those with predeployment domestic violence, nonwhite race, and off-post residence also were more likely to report postdeployment domestic violence. The predicted probability of postdeployment domestic violence for a deployed 20-year-old, nonwhite soldier with a history of predeployment domestic violence and who lives on-post was.20. For the soldier without a history of predeployment domestic violence, it was.05. Prevention and intervention programs for postdeployment domestic violence shortly after return should target age and persons with a domestic violence history rather than deployment per se.

Intimate Partner Violence and Relationship Dissolution Among Reserve Soldiers

“…Our analyses revealed younger age and more stress to be associated with IPV. The former result is consistent with a number of other studies that have found younger age to be significantly associated with IPV (Fonseca et al, 2006;Forgey & Badger, 2006;McCarroll et al, 2003;Newby et al, 2005;Rosen et al, 2003). Fewer previous studies have examined the association between stress and IPV: our earlier study (Fonseca et al, 2006) revealed this association among a mobilizing sample, and the current study found stress to be significantly associated with IPV among a demobilizing sample.…”

“…On the one hand, among 26,835 active duty Army soldiers, McCarroll and his colleagues (2000) found the rate of severe IPV to increase with increasing lengths of deployment. On the other hand, a comparison of 313 active duty soldiers deployed to Bosnia and 712 nondeployed soldiers found no significant difference between these groups in the rate of IPV (McCarroll et al, 2003). Another comparison of 368 wives of deployed soldiers with 528 wives of nondeployed soldiers found no differences in the rate of IPV, which averaged 9.75% across samples and pre-and postdeployment assessments (Newby et al, 2005).…”

Drinking and Spouse Abuse Among U.S. Army Soldiers

“…Despite this acknowledged shortcoming, the association between the ACR alcohol item and self-reported drinking ascertained in another setting (the HRA) suggests that the ACR measure has some validity. Finally, there are some potential risk factors identified in the literature that we could not take into account, including military deployment, drug use, and personal history of victimization (Chamberlain et al, 2003;McCarroll et al, 2000McCarroll et al, , 2003Rosen et al, 2003).…”

Families Under Stress: An Assessment of Data, Theory, and Research on Marriage and Divorce in the Military

“…Research on intimate partner violence in military marriages has supported all these ideas. With respect to qualities of the partners, several surveys of married male service members have found higher rates of self-reported intimate partner violence among individuals who are nonwhite, younger, have a history of depression or violent behavior, and abuse alcohol (N. S. Bell et al, 2004;McCarroll et al, 2003;Rosen et al, 2003). With respect to qualities of the relationship, one of these same surveys reports that, independent of their individual characteristics, those reporting lower marital satisfaction report higher rates of intimate partner violence (Rosen et al, 2003).…”