The current state of family violence and related criminal justice research is reviewed with a focus on theory, methodology, intervention, and ethical issues. Criminal approaches to family violence from 1640 to 1980 are reviewed, and factors relating to the decriminalization and criminalization of family violence during various historical periods are discussed. Biological, psychosocial, and cultural factors in family violence are considered; and a biosocial perspective, emphasizing the role of ecological instability is presented. Methodological issues in family violence research are assessed in the areas of data sources, sample characteristics, research context, research design, and measures and their validity. The incidence, prevalence, attitudes toward, and factors in marital violence (marital rape and wife battering) and child abuse are examined; as are less well researched forms of family violence such as elder abuse, adolescent abuse, and sibling violence. The relationship between intrafamily violence and crime and violence outside the family is also examined. Patterns of and factors in desistance of family violence are delineated, as are police and criminal justice responses to victims and offenders. Individual, family systems, cognitive, and behavioral approaches to treatment are evaluated. Finally the jurisprudence of family violence is discussed with reference to the doctrine of family privacy, alternative Government responses and underlying legal theory, and the role of criminal sanctions. Index and chapter abstracts, notes, tables, and references.