Women and Men in Jail: Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Domestic Violence

Abstract

This study explores the pre-arrest domestic violence victimization and attitudes towards domestic violence reported by women and men confined in a Midwestern metropolitan jail. Results indicated that women in the jail sample had more fear for the safety of battered women than men in the jail sample. Women in jail were more likely than men in jail to view the legal system as a deterrent to domestic violence. Logistic regression models were constructed to explore associations between jail detainees' pre-arrest experiences of domestic violence and their gender, age, education, race, parental status and other violent victimizations. The variables associated with pre-arrest domestic violence victimization were being a woman, a parent, a victim rape and a victim of threats with a deadly weapon.

Characteristics of incarcerated fathers and mothers: Implications for preventive interventions targeting children and families

“…In another study examining gender differences in inmates, McCellan et al (1997) found that women inmates were more likely than men, both as children and as adults, to have been sexually mistreated or abused or experienced mental/emotional abuse, and to have felt unsafe or in danger. Initial research focusing specifically on incarcerated parents indicates similar traumatic backgrounds (Greene, Haney, & Hurtado, 2000; Ventura, Lambert, White, & Skinner, 2007). Additionally, Glaze and Maruschak (2008) found that mothers in state prison were twice as likely as fathers to report homelessness in the year prior to their most recent arrest (and thus to have been in particularly vulnerable circumstances in regards to events such as abuse), and were 4 times more likely than fathers to report past physical or sexual abuse.…”