Issues in Family Violence

Spring/Summer 2002

Batterers and their Children: New Research into Batterers' Perceptions

David Mandel

Earlier this year, the Non-Violence Alliance began research into how batterers think about their children’s exposure to their violence and how those perceptions may effect batterers’ decision making. In a pilot study, using a newly designed instrument call the Cognitive Assessment of Abusive Father’s or CAAF, we sampled a group of abusive men involved in various batterer intervention programs in Connecticut.

The instrument uses self reports to explore batterers’ thoughts about (a) their children’s overall exposure to their violence, (b) their children’s feelings about that violence, (c) the short and long term effects of that violence, (d) the relative distress they feel about different potential negative effects of their violence, (e) the actions they might take if they were aware their children were being harmed by their behavior and (f) their desires for their children’s positive perceptions of them.

Our hope is that data from this sample and the larger national sample to follow this winter may offer guidance to child protection workers, juvenile court judges and others attempting to engage batterers in intervention programs. It may help batterer treatment program staff target their counseling and education efforts. Information gathered in this study and subsequent studies may also be of use to medical, mental health and substance abuse professionals attempting to work with batterers and their families.

A portion of the preliminary analysis of our initial sample of 69 men indicates the following results:

80% of the men had children of their own or were with a partner who had her own children.

The men perceived that their children felt the following feelings as a result of exposure to their physical violence and verbal abuse respectively: scared (52%,56%), confused (48%,52%), and sad (44%,50%).

50% of men with male children were "somewhat" or "very worried" that their boys would grow up to abuse their partner.

60% of men with female children were "somewhat" or "very worried" that their girls would grow up to be abused by their partner.

(c) 2002, The Non-Violence Alliance. Permission to reprint with the following information "Originally published in Issues in Family Violence, Volume 4, Issue 3 Spring/Summer 2002, The Non-Violence Alliance, www.endingviolence.com."