Outcomes of Child Abuse

She would go downtown and take out warrants out on him and restraining orders, and he’ll go back, and one night she took and killed him. You know, they got into a fight, and one night she took and got it. They got into a fight, and she grabbed a pistol and shot him in the head.

—EDDIE, fortysomething African American man, North Carolina

This chapter will focus on the impact that experiences with and exposure to violence in childhood have on experiences with family violence, and intimate partner violence in particular, in adulthood. The chapter will be broken into two sections: the impact on girls who experience physical or sexual abuse (or both) in childhood and their probability for experiencing family violence in adulthood, and the impact on boys who witness violence growing up and their likelihood of battering their partners in adulthood. This chapter will include both statistical and ethnographic data that illustrate the significance of these relationships. Objectives

To provide an overview of the three forms that childhood sexual abuse takes: premature sex engagement, incest, and child prostitution

To provide examples that illustrate the long-term impact of CSA on young women

To provide examples that illustrate the long-term impact that witnessing intimate partner violence has on young boys

To note the statistical relationship between CSA among girls and the likelihood of being a battered woman in adulthood

To note the statistical relationship between boys’ witnessing IPV in their home and the likelihood that they will batter in adulthood