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In this practice report, the author describes the setting up of Chiswick Women's Aid, the first refuge1 for the care and treatment of battered women and their children. A key differentiation is made between ‘battered women’ and ‘violence‐prone women’ and the author summarises past objection and opposition to her work and theories.It is then contended that the issue of family violence must be seen in the personal and psychological realm, rather than in the political domain, and this is discussed in relation to a statistical survey of answers provided in questionnaires self‐completed by 100 female residents of Chiswick Women's Aid, London during 1975. This study shows evidence of a link between violence in childhood and the recreation of violent relationships in adult life and thus suggests that violence appears to be intergenerational.

The purpose of this paper is to recount the author's experience of developing the first ever refuges for domestic violence, and the lessons learned about working with “violence-prone” people.

This is a first hand, narrative account, interspersed with observations and commentary on the lessons learned.

The author first identifies the author's own experience, as the child of several generations of violent parents, as central to the author's ability to empathise and work with women with similar histories. Learning together, and refusing to take responsibility away from the mothers, becomes central to the approach. Recognising the roots of violence requires in-depth, long-term relationship building with peers. The concept of “therapeutic chaos” sums up the way the spontaneous turmoil of the households seems to match and manage the cathartic expression of the residents’ world.

As a first hand account, this reportage challenges the assumption that constructive practice must all be based on someone else's prior, “evidence based”, practice.

The refuge and network that arose from the work at Chiswick Women's aid was a pioneer in addressing domestic violence. This is a unique voice, and an opportunity to place this personal account in the record for future work on inter-generational emotional damage, addictive violence and social-environmental therapeutic treatments.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of gender in intimate partner violence (IPV) and, based upon the author’s experience as an expert witness, 25 years of clinical experience working with IPV perpetrators and victims, and a review of the relevant scholarly literature, provide judges, attorneys, mental health professionals and expert court witness suggestions for the adjudication of cases involving IPV in homicide and other cases.

The author reviewed the extant general domestic violence research literature, depending largely on results from findings from the Partner Abuse State of Knowledge Project, a series of 17 literature review published in five issues of the peer-reviewed journal, Partner Ause. Other relevant research articles were found via a search of the PschInfo database, using the keywords “intimate partner homicides,” “domestic violence homicides,” “intimate partner homicides and gender” and “domestic violence homicides and gender.”

The judicial response to IPV perpetration has been limited by common misconceptions, among them the confusion between most forms of IPV, which are primarily bi-directional and less consequential and battering, which involves more serious assaults and is typically motivated out of a desire to dominate and control one’s partner. Another misconception is that women are much more likely than men to perpetrate IPV in self-defense or to express emotion. On the other hand, there is no question that female victims are much more likely to experience severe physical injuries, and that women account for approximately three-quarters of homicide victims.

These include the following: this concise review of IPV research provides a clearer understanding of IPV, useful for anyone working in the field. Mental health professionals working with IPV perpetrators, as well as victims, can draw from this research best practice suggestions in working with more problematic cases. The paper should be especially useful to anyone involved in the adjudication of IPV cases, including lethal cases. In particular, prosecutors and attorneys working for the defense are given suggestions on how to obtain more reliable research data, choose more fruitful questions for their clients, and better conceptualize a case overall.

This paper presents a more nuanced and evidence-based conceptualization of serious and lethal IPV, drawing on a broad research base not generally available to members of the legal profession.

This chapter explores the episodes of Doctor Who featuring the Weeping Angels, in order to explore how their femininity impacts their monstrosity. Other (male) monsters in Doctor Who kill the victims outright: Daleks exterminate their victims and Cybermen upgrade (essentially extracting all of their humanity, turning them into mindless robots) their victims. The only reoccurring feminine monsters, the Weeping Angels, do not kill anyone. They don’t take away their humanity; they simply transport them to another time. They live out their entire lives in this new time, unharmed beyond the inconvenience of temporal displacement.

The Weeping Angels could be analysed as a reversal of Barbara Creed’s monstrous feminine (1993); as their femininity makes them more human and more compassionate instead of more monstrous. They also could be thought of in terms of feminist ethics à la Nel Noddings’ feminist approach to care. In this chapter, I will argue that though traditionally villainous women are made monstrous via their femininity; in the case of the Weeping Angels, their femininity gives them a sense of humanity and compassion, thus making them less monstrous.

Criminological, historical, and sociological research has continually underestimated women’s violent potential in the German Neo-Nazism movement. Contemplating this leads to questions about female agency in the Third Reich, a link that has not been established yet. This chapter seeks to expose this link, arguing that regardless of social environment, changing gender roles or political situation, Neo-Nazi women and women, in general, have a potential for violence in the public sphere.

The chapter looks at female perpetrators in both the Third Reich and the contemporary Neo-Nazi period and examines their involvement from the overarching theoretical viewpoint that women are not any less capable of violent crimes than men.

The scope of Neo-Nazi women’s aggression and violence is not a modern phenomenon or an exception. Their invisibility is not a result of their suggested passive involvement; it stems from the public’s and institutions’ inability to perceive them as agents of violence. Bourdieu developed the concept of symbolic violence to characterize the violence experienced by victims who accept their societal subordination. It is shown that because researchers, officials, and the public reified the concept; they overlooked the reality that women can exercise their agency beyond the limits of their roles as wife and mother and commit violent acts.

Reliable data are not available on the number of violent female Neo-Nazis. It is likely, however, that the numbers given are an underestimation.

Law enforcement agencies have long overlooked women as potential offenders. A basic change in perspective is needed to better identify female perpetrators.

The chapter is based on the murders of ten immigrants between 2000 and 2006, which puzzled investigators over a decade. Nobody suspected a woman was a key member of the group thought to be responsible for these murders.

Discusses abusive management – extreme behaviours that can result in a subordinate or work group being plagued by uncertainty, anxiety, and fear. Examines the prevalence of the problem and its implications for management development, in terms of both the development of abused employees and the control of the abuser. Describes abusive behaviours, considers some likely antecedents of workplace abuse, examines subordinates′ reactions to abuse, and suggests ways organizations can diffuse or prevent these behaviours through management development.

Resource constraints at all levels of the criminal justice system as well as the lack of a widely accepted, validated screening scale have made it difficult to screen adequately for serious mental illnesses (SMI) in offender populations. This study examined the use of the K6 scale, a recently developed and validated screening tool for SMI, using a sample of past-year arrestees. Among the main findings were that 18% of the sample screened positive for SMI. In contrast, commonly used screening questions misidentified a large proportion of arrestees with SMI. Based on these findings, we recommend the use of K6 scale to more accurately identify offenders with SMI.