Family Violence in the United States: Defining, Understanding, and Combating Abuse

Rich in scholarly references and case materials, Family Violence in the United States: Defining, Understanding, and Combating Abuse, Second Edition by Denise A. Hines, Kathleen Malley-Morrison, and Leila B. Dutton is a thought-provoking book that encourages students to question assumptions, evaluate information, formulate hypotheses, and design solutions to problems of family violence in the United States. Using an ecological framework, the authors provide an informative discussion not only of the most well-recognized forms of maltreatment in families, but also of less understood and more controversial issues such as the maltreatment of male partners, of parents, and within LGBT relationships. It reviews and evaluates major efforts at intervention and prevention.

Denise A. Hines, Ph.D., is a Research Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Clark University, where she is also the Director of the Family Impact Seminar Series and the Co-Director of the Clark Anti-Violence Education Program. She completed her doctoral degree in Psychology at Boston University, and then spent two years as an NIMH postdoctoral research fellow at the University of New Hampshire’s Family Research Laboratory with Drs. Murray Straus and David Finkelhor. She is the author or co-author of over 30 articles or book chapters, and two books on issues of family violence, both published by Sage. She has also been the principal investigator on five major grants, focusing on issues of the etiology of partner violence; prevention of dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking on college campuses; and the mental and physical health of male victims of partner violence and their children.

Kathleen Malley-Morrison, Ed.D., is a Professor of Psychology at Boston University. She has conducted considerable research on family violence since 1980 when she was a postdoctoral fellow on the family violence team at Children′s Hospital in Boston. She regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate courses focusing on family violence. She is the lead author Treating Child Abuse: Family Violence in Hospitals, along with Eli Newberger, Richard Bourne, and Jane Snyder. She has also co-authored Studying Families (SAGE, 1991) with with Anne Copeland, and Family Violence in a Cultural Perspective (SAGE, 2004), with Denise Hines. Her current focus is primarily on cross-cultural and international perspectives on family violence and abuse as well as on war and peace.

Leila B. Dutton, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Criminal Justice Department of the University of New Haven. She received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at the University of Rhode Island in 2004. She spent two years as an NIMH postdoctoral research fellow at the University of New Hampshire’s Family Research Laboratory, working with Murray Straus on the International Dating Violence Study. Her research interests include stalking, partner violence, and sexual coercion. She has published her research in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Partner Abuse, and Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. She has written two book chapters on stalking. She is currently on the editorial board of the journal Partner Abuse. She is also the Co-Director of the University of New Haven’s Institute for Social Justice and Co-Director of UNH’s Campus Grant to Reduce Violence Against Women funded by the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women.