What Can Patterns of Arrest and Injury Data Over Time Tell Us about the Nature of IPV?

Whereas there are now a number of studies confirming that acts of violence to partner (IPV) decrease across adulthood (e.g., O’Leary, 1999), it is not clear whether other important indicators of IPV, including arrests for IPV, and frequency and severity of injuries resulting from IPV, decrease with age in a similar fashion. Some researchers have posited that there are two types of IPV, namely common couple violence and patriarchal or intimate terrorism (Johnson, 1995), with the latter being much more severe and one-sided (usually male to female). If this were the case, it would be reasonable to expect that those who are engaging in IPV when developmentally it is more normative (i.e. early adulthood), but who later desist, would be more likely to be engaged in common couple violence than intimate terrorism, whereas those who persist or engage in IPV when it is more deviant from a developmental standpoint, might be more severe or engaged in intimate terrorism. If this case, it might be expected that arrests for IPV would not decrease with age (since they may be associated with more severe IPV occasions); that over time there would be fewer less severe but more severe IPV acts and injuries, and that the ratio of injuries to women versus men would increase.

We take the alternative view that IPV is both similar to other forms of crime that are related to poor inhibitory control, and dyadic in nature, and thus it will be related to aggressive histories of each partner, show relatively undifferentiated improvement with age, and will be largely mutual. Thus we predicted that (1) IPV arrests would decrease with age similar to reported acts of IPV; (2) both less and more severe injuries would decrease; (3) the ratio of injuries to women versus men would remain unchanged. Hypotheses were tested on a community sample of men (at risk due to the neighborhoods where they lived in childhood) involved in a longitudinal study, and their women partners. IPV act and injury data were collected from 21-35 years of age (8 study time points), using reports of both perpetration and victimization from the man and the woman. Arrest data were collected from the police. Findings indicated that as expected, the overall prevalence and frequency of IPV and IPV-related injuries decreased with age. There was no indication that the types of IPV, including types reported in the police reports associated with arrests, grew more severe over time. Further, as predicted, the types of injuries reported did not become more severe over time, and overall there was no support for the possibility that the ratio of females to males injured increased over time. The association of arrests and injuries to antisocial behavior for both the men and women will also be examined. Overall, findings provide support for a model of IPV related to risk from antisocial behavior and dyadic interaction rather than for the Johnson typology of violence.