The Process of Primary Desistance From Intimate Partner Violence

Walker, Kate; Bowen, Erica; Brown, Sarah; sleath, emma

doi:10.1177/1077801217722238

Cited by 16 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…However, our analysis resonates with criminological research on desistance from intimate partner violence (Giordano et al 2015; Walker et al 2018). For instance, Walker et al (2018, 857) highlight that desisters emphasize a process of recognizing “that their behaviors were abusive and violent.” Similarly, in their study of violent men’s change, Dobash et al (2000) found that an important element in the processes was for violent men to start explicitly reflecting on routinized thoughts and actions. While desistance processes may not have single, definitive turning points or epiphanies, these are nevertheless essential for moving away from violence (Gottzén 2019).…”

Section: Perceiving Violence Differentlysupporting

confidence: 64%

“It’s Not Just Dad Who’s Got Problems”: Feminist Phenomenology and Young Men’s Violence Against Women

Berggren

Gottzén

2023

Men and Masculinities

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Research on men who have been violent against women has often shown how these men justify or excuse their violence, minimize their responsibility, as well as construct dominant forms of masculinity. However, as attitudes in support of intimate partner violence are declining around the world, we might expect perpetrators to become less self-righteous and more self-critical about their violence. This article reports data from a qualitative interview study with 14 young partner-violent men in Sweden. While our participants sometimes downplayed their responsibility, more often they condemned violence in intimate relationships, and reflected upon the place of violence in their lives. This included experiences of domestic violence as children, as well as their processes of moving away from violence. Drawing on feminist readings of phenomenology, particularly Heidegger, we suggest that phenomenological conceptualizations of embodiment, consciousness and practice are helpful in understanding the experiences of partner-violent men.

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Section: Perceiving Violence Differentlysupporting

confidence: 64%

“It’s Not Just Dad Who’s Got Problems”: Feminist Phenomenology and Young Men’s Violence Against Women

Berggren

Gottzén

2023

Men and Masculinities

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“…It should be noted, however, that the majority of the perpetrators in that study had child victims. More recent feminist violence research confirms Harris' findings and suggests that desistance from IPV is not linear with identical stages for each individual but could rather be an 'uneven and contradictory process' (Downes et al, 2019: 279; see also Gottzén, 2019b;Walker et al, 2018). Achieving desistance may require years of commitment and include setbacks and relapses, and desisters do not always easily produce straightforward narratives of the self (Gottzén, 2019b).…”

Section: Desistance and Ipvmentioning

confidence: 92%

Queering desistance: Chrononormativity, afterwardsness and young men’s sexual intimate partner violence

Berggren

Gottzén

Bornäs

2020

Criminology & Criminal Justice

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Queer criminology has primarily focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people as victims and perpetrators of crime, as well as on the criminalization of non-heterosexual practices. In this article, we contribute to the emerging discussions on how queer theory can be used in relation to criminological research by exploring desistance processes from a queer temporality perspective. Desistance research emphasizes how and why individuals cease offending and is often guided by a teleology in which individuals are expected to mature and develop new, non-criminal identities. Work on queer temporality, in contrast, has developed thinking that destabilizes chronology and troubles normative life trajectories. In this article, we draw on queer temporality perspectives, particularly the concepts of chrononormativity and afterwardsness, in analysing narratives of young men who have used sexual violence against women partners in Sweden. We demonstrate how criminal identities may develop in retrospect, after desisting, and that identity and behaviour may not necessarily go together.

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“…Fagan (1989) argued that the outside threat of legal consequences was likely necessary to induce desistance. Some researchers have described a process in which individual-level factors (e.g., age, feelings of guilt or shame about violence) interact with contextual factors (e.g., dyadic relationship characteristics, events outside the relationship) to produce a likelihood of persistence or desistance (Bottoms et al, 2004;Walker, Bowen, Brown, & Sleath, 2018). In their qualitative study, Giordano and colleagues (2015) employed a social learning perspective, focused on changes across the life course; they argued that understanding desistance requires capturing how dyadic patterns affect individuals' thinking about their roles and behaviors in their unions.…”

Section: Desistance From Intimate Abusementioning

confidence: 99%

Relationship Churning and Desistance From Intimate Abuse

Halpern‐Meekin

Turney

2018

J Interpers Violence

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It is essential to understand how desistance from intimate abuse occurs so it can be facilitated for those experiencing it. Recognizing the category of churning relationships—in which partners separate and reunite—gives us analytic leverage in identifying the relationship dynamics that predict abuse desistance. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal survey of parents in urban areas, we compare desistance among churners (who experience a breakup only) with those who repartner (who experience a breakup and a new partnership) and those who are stably together (who experience neither a breakup nor a new partnership). We examine whether abuse desistance patterns are distinct for those who breakup and reconcile versus those who breakup and form new partnerships—that is, we can separate out the association between abuse desistance and the breakup versus the new partnership. We find that, among those with a history of intimate abuse, churners and those who later repartner are overrepresented. However, among those who do experience abuse, the repartnered are most likely to experience desistance from intimate abuse, controlling for individual sociodemographic characteristics. In breaking up and entering a new relationship, the repartnered may be most successful in developing a healthier relationship dynamic than the churners who reunite with one another.

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The Process of Primary Desistance From Intimate Partner Violence

Cited by 16 publications

References 92 publications

“It’s Not Just Dad Who’s Got Problems”: Feminist Phenomenology and Young Men’s Violence Against Women

“It’s Not Just Dad Who’s Got Problems”: Feminist Phenomenology and Young Men’s Violence Against Women

Queering desistance: Chrononormativity, afterwardsness and young men’s sexual intimate partner violence

Relationship Churning and Desistance From Intimate Abuse

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