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Relationship Between Religious and Spiritual Factors and the Perpetration of Intimate Personal Violence

NCJ Number
233352
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 25 Issue: 8 Dated: November 2010 Pages: 745-753
Author(s)
Robbin G. Todhunter; John Deaton
Date Published
November 2010
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This study examined the relationship between intimate partner violence and the influence of religious and spiritual factors among a group of young Christian men.
Abstract
Despite some understanding of general correlates and possible antecedents to intimate partner violence (IPV) within the Christian community, the impact of religious and spiritual factors tends to be confounded by other factors and is often misjudged. Archival data from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were used to examine the impact of nine religious and spiritual factors on the probability of IPV perpetration by males, aged 18 to 26, who nominally classified themselves as Catholic, Protestant, or Christian. Logistic regression results indicated that IPV perpetration could not be adequately predicted from the religious and spiritual factors. Given the geographic breadth and the size of the Add Health sample, no finding of a predictive model for Christian male-perpetrated IPV challenges the paradigm that religious and spiritual factors should be overtly addressed in faith-based batterers' programs targeting young adult males. Tables and references (Published Abstract)