ABSTRACT
Nearly four decades have passed since the first studies of family violence were published in a 1971 issue of the Journal of Marriage and the Family. During that time research on and interventions for violence against women, and family violence in general, have burgeoned. There are now several academic journals devoted to family violence, including the increasingly influential international periodical Violence Against Women. In Canada alone, violence prevention programmes are available across the nation and there are more than 550 shelters for victimized women and their children (Taylor-Butts, 2007). Innovative court responses exist in several locations and domestic violence legislation is present almost everywhere in the country (Johnson, 2006). Although such efforts have been crucial, family violence continues to be a major national and global social problem and there is much to learn to improve the efficacy of prevention efforts. For example, while batterer intervention programmes are useful and undoubtedly save lives, research on their efficacy for preventing recidivism has shown that their effect is minimal beyond the effect of being arrested (Babcock, Green, & Robie, 2004).
