A life course perspective explores the stability and change in behaviors across the life span, making it a useful perspective from which to study family violence. Chapter 1 explains the life course approach and how it can enhance the interdisciplinary study of family violence. Chapter 2 focuses on research methods for examining family violence, focusing particularly on methods that privilege life stages, trajectories, and transitions. Chapter 3 explores criminological theories of family violence, recommending ways in which a life course perspective can be incorporated to enhance them. The next three chapters focus on different forms of family violence--child abuse, intimate partner violence, and elder abuse--exploring their historical context, prevalence, and nature. The life course perspective considers the importance of the life path, transitions in life stages, and turning points for understanding the changing forms of violence and its impact at different life stages. Chapters 7 through 9 focus on the criminal justice system response to family violence. Chapter 7 explores the various ways in which the police and social service agencies become involved in various stages of the lives of family members experiencing family violence. Chapter 8 investigates the role of courts in managing both offenders and their victims while chapter 9 turns to a discussion of the various types of punishment for offenders, examining the goals of punishment and the role of treatment alternatives for offenders and their families. Chapter 10 examines the co-occurrence of family violence, in which more than one form of family violence occurs in a household. The prevalence of co-occurring violence is explored along with the effects of witnessing co-occurring violence, and the impact of this violence on children, mothers, and social service workers. Chapter 11 concludes the book with a summary of family violence from a life course perspective. Figures, bibliography, indexes