The Victims Of Domestic Violence

Violence in any form can have a lasting effect on a person. Children who witness violence are permanently scarred because of what they are seeing. Children who witness family or domestic violence are affected in ways similar to children who are physically abused. Children are often unable to establish nurturing bonds with either parent and are at a greater risk for abuse and neglect if he or she lives in a violent home. Statistics show that an estimated 3.3 million children are exposed to violence against their mothers or female caretakers by family members in their home each year (Ackerman & Pickering, 1989). When a spouse, woman or male is abused, and there are

Domestic violence is a widespread sociological problem wherein women and children are most often the victims. This sociological problem is compounded by the fact that so much domestic violence goes under-reported, whether against women or children. Domestic violence may take a wide range of forms and may include a variant combination of battery, sexual abuse, verbal abuse or general violence. Targets of such behaviors may include a spouse, child or both. For the purposes of this research, there will be an interest in noting the impact on children who are exposed to violence both directly as the victims of abuse or indirectly as witnesses to spousal abuse. In either instance, the same findings are anticipated. Namely, the primary thesis driving the

“It is estimated that approximately 1.5 million women and 830,000 men experience physical or sexual assault annually in the United States by intimate partners” (De Jong, 2016, p. 201). “In the United States more than 15 million children live in families in which domestic violence occurs and almost half of these children witness severe violence in assaults of a parent” (De Jong, 2016, p. 201).

It is estimated that between 10 and 20 percent of children in the United States are exposed to domestic violence annually (Carrell & Hoekstra, 2010). What are the thoughts and feelings of children who are exposed to violence within the home? Children who are exposed to domestic violence can become fearful and anxious. They tend to be on guard, watching and waiting for the next event to occur, a sense of hypervigilance. What are the outcomes of these children as they get older? Does the cycle of abuse continue as adults? The answers to these questions will be further discussed in this paper.

The one word that best characterizes the experience of domestic violence victims within the criminal justice system is, "complicated." Victims suffer from a two-fold problem when dealing with the criminal justice system. When dealing with law enforcement and courts, many victims might be not taken seriously or their wishes not respected. This poses a significant problem, as if victims feel they cannot trust the system to help them, they will not seek help in the future when they need it. This, in turn, creates the opposite of the deterrent effect the criminal justice system wants, as abusers learn that their victims will not seek help, allowing them full control over them.

Whenever we talk about the subject of domestic violence, the first concern that we have is on adults who have experienced it. However, little attention has been paid to children who were exposed to domestic violence. The tragic reality of a long term effects for who have experienced domestic violence is not only to adult but their children. The younger the children is the harder for them to understand violence and coping with it. Therefore, children who witness their parents being abused are more likely to growing up thinking hurting people is a way to protect themselves or that is okay to being hurt by other. According to a study, nearly “4.8 million acts of physical or sexual aggression are perpetrated against women while 2.9 million physically

A nationwide concern has become prevalent and caused a developed of concern for children who have been exposed to intimate partner violence or domestic violence (DV). A percentage of the likelihood that a child will be exposed to physical domestic violence in the United States in their lifetime has been at approximately sixteen percent (Finkelhor et al. 2015). A child’s exposure to domestic violence might be

Children are exposed to domestic violence in many ways. They may hear parents threating each other, out of control reckless anger, or even se one parent assault the other one. Many children are affected by hearing threats to the safety of one parent whether it results in physical injury or not. Children who live in or around domestic violence are also at increased risk to become direct victims of child abuse. Domestic violence poses a serious threat to children’s psychological, emotional, and physical well being, especially if the violence is chronic.

Over the past twenty-five years there has been an increased interest in the research community in domestic violence and the effects it has on the children who are exposed to domestic violence.

Imagine of a football stadium. Now think of ten football stadiums. In 2014, there were an estimated 702,000 victims of child maltreatment, enough to pack ten football stadiums (“Child Abuse”). Domestic violence and child abuse, the extent of which is often not realized, continues to be ignored and left unaddressed. The reality is that domestic violence continues to be a modern tragedy; however, more attention is being drawn to the issue and more resources are becoming available to provide help, guidance, and assistance.

An estimated 8.2 million children are exposed to violence within their home every year (Alpert). The “American Academy of Family Physicians” stated that “women and men exposed to “Physical Aggression” as a child are 3.5 and 3.8 times more likely to be “perpetrators or victims in adulthood.” Many studies have shown that exposure to violence even when it takes place in another room has shown to be extremely damaging to children as them being abused directly. Thus, parents who display conflict and hostile negative interaction with each other may model unregulated behavior for their children (Violence). The “Center for The Journey of Family Violence” indicated that women who witnessed serious parental conflict during their childhood were much more likely to be victimized by their current partner. Statistics show that 70% of female victims who have grown up in households where they saw violence occur regularly or have experienced being battered themselves are much more likely to become victims of “Intimate Partner Abuse” (therapy).

In America every third or fourth woman has been victim of domestic violence at some point in her life and according to theoretical research as well as practical experiences, most of the abusers are intimate partners of the victims. They have a special bond between each other and spent a lot of good time together. That is why when abusers turn out to be violent initially, the victims don’t even realize that they are actually being abused. They ignore the warning signs because they have no idea what is coming after it and are caught by surprise when something really unusual happens to them. If the victim leaves that trigger the dangerous revenge in abuser and data shows that most of the severe violent incidents happened after the relationship

In the United States, it is said that approximately 1.5 million women and 830,000 men experience some type of physical or sexual assault every year by intimate partners; this type of abuse is widely called domestic violence. Furthermore, more than 15 million children live in families in which domestic violence occurs in the United States. With the massive amounts of children who are exposed to domestic violence, we as a society need to understand that children who are exposed to domestic violence can be damaged not only physically but can also indirectly including the suffering from an unhealthy emotional development. Exposure of children to domestic violence can have long lasting or even permanent harm to the child. With more and more research

The specific population of clients I plan to work with in the future are female victims of domestic violence. I chose this population due to my frame of reference with domestic violence and the plethora of questions,thoughts, and concerns those expereinces left me with. I watched a close friend of my become a victim of domestic violence for over eight years, as well as being exposed to domestic violence myself as a child. What I learned through years of observation of domestic violence is that the physical scars often heal, the emotional and mental turmoil lingers.

Domestic violence affects 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men (NCADV, 2015). Although the devastating effects that domestic violence has on women are well known, there is a population of domestic violence victims that we tend to overlook. These are the children of the women and men who are in domestic violence situations. Children are the invisible victims when it comes to domestic violence. There are many statistics being thrown around when it comes to the number of children who are exposed to domestic violence; they range from as little as 200,000 to even 3-18 million (Sousa et. al., 2011). A 2001 study discovered that in 75% of the cases in their study, children were present in the home during the assaults (Hutchison & Hirschel, 2001).