Domestic Violence: Intimate Partner Abuse

Intimate Partner Violence

Many studies have been conducted on intimate partner violence that focuses on the physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, and mental abuse purposely caused by a former spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or ex-boyfriend, or ex-girlfriend. Each year in the United States more than 5 million women are abused by an intimate partner (Violence Against Women, 2015).

First, intimate partner violence (IPV) which is also known as domestic violence is defined as: “when one person in a relationship deliberately hurts another person either physically, psychologically, or sexually (Violence Against Women, 2015). Similar to The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) (2015) defines domestic and intimate violence as, “a

Historically, courts vested husbands with the legal rights of chastisement and correction over their wives, who were considered their property. In the courts eyes marriage was a domain that was beyond the law and was considered to be in an area that is separate from society (Stoever, 2014). Violence against women act (VAWA) was first introduced in 1994, created to support z permanent federal response to violence against women. Intimate partner violence is as one of the most common forms of violence against women and that it has been estimates that 1 in 3 women will have been psychologically, physically, or sexually abused by a male partner during their lifetime (Chibber & Krishnan,

These victims have experienced high levels of violence. Most victims are more likely to be reassaulted, they will experience more frequent levels of violence and suffer worse injuries. When violence escalates the likelihood of a weapon being used increases. Evidence points to the actual separation from an abusive partner only intensifies the violence. Further quantitative and qualitative research as Stoever (2014) states that, “high-level violence is often the result of the abuse survivor’s departure from the relationship, not the survivor’s failure to leave.” For this reason, a study found that seventy-five percent of the victims were already separated from their batterers when reported being reassaulted. Attempted homicides occurred as the abused women were attempting to leave their relationships,” (Stoever, 2014, p.1025 &