Teen dating violence: prevalence, effects, and offender rehabilitation

Teen dating violence runs cuts across race, gender, and socioeconomic lines. Both males and females are victims, but boys and girls are abusive in different ways (National Teen Dating Violence Prevention Initiative, 2006, p.1). Leon (2009) defines teen dating violence as a pattern of abusive behaviors that are used as a means of gaining power and control over a current or former dating partner. There are four main types of dating violence but any type of abusive or coercive behaviors aimed at controlling one's partner would be considered to be dating violence. The verbal form of violence involves name-calling, putdowns, yelling or shouting, threatening the partner or one of the partner's family members. Emotional abuse includes excessive jealousy, trying to control the partner's activities, trying to keep tabs on one's partner through constant phone calls or pages, telling the partner how to dress and behave and also stalking them. Sexual abuse involves unwanted touching or kissing, forcing the partner to have sex or engage in any unwanted sexual activity or even preventing one's partner from using birth control. In terms of gender, girls are more likely to yell, threaten to hurt themselves, pinch, slap, scratch or kick, while boys injure girls more severely and frequently. Some teen victims experience violence more occasionally while others are abused more often, sometimes daily (National Teen Dating Violence Prevention Initiative, 2006, p.1).

In the first part this paper will discuss the effect of teen dating violence on victim and the second part will analyze the possible reasons that the offenders give for committing the violence. Finally the paper will explore the possible rehabilitations for this type of offender in the third part. Several sources are used in the paper to aid in exploring this phenomenon such as an information from research carried out by suddermann and Jaffe on the violence in teen dating relationship. Others include a book by Miles Ending violence in teen dating relationships: a resource guide for parents and pastor and an article by Leon on Teen Dating violence.

Teen Dating Violence as an Issue to Society and its Prevalence

Teen dating violence is a serious problem in the United States because many of the victims do not report the abuse and abusers and they are also afraid to tell friends and family (CDC, 2009). 72% of 8th and 9th graders apparently "date." 1 in 4 adolescents report verbal, physical, emotional or sexual abuse form a person they were dating, each year. Approximately 10% of students nationwide report being physically hurt by a boyfriend or girlfriend in the past 12 months in the year the study was carried out (CDC, n.d., p.1).Unhealthy relationships start early and last a lifetime which makes it important for the problem to be tackled early. Violence in adolescent dating relationships is a major problem and may at times result in long-term trauma and psychological sequel for victims. Violence is also viewed as a pre-cursor of violence in adult relationships. The American Bar Association (2006) stated that nearly one-half of adult sex offenders reportedly committed their first sexual offences prior to the age of 18 (p.1). 58% of rape victims report being raped between the ages of 12-24 (p.2).

Half of the reported date rapes occur among teenagers (The American Bar Association, 2006, p.2). Teen dating violence not only affects the victims, but the society as well. There is need for community programs to be set up to provide assistance to victims of domestic violence. These programs provide community education, family violence victim advocate court services, service referrals, temporary emergency shelter, individual counseling, support groups, assistance with safety planning and hotline crisis intervention services (The Speaker's Task Force on Domestic Violence, 2010, p.4). These services require funding from federal and private grants, the state Judicial Department and the state Department of Social Services. A part of the Department of Social Services funding for the programs is derived from $20 surcharge assessed on all marriage licences issued in Connecticut. The Speaker's Task Force on Domestic Violence (2010) reported that in the fiscal year of 2009, the domestic violence account at the Department of Social Services exceeded $1 million, but that the regional domestic violence agencies reported that the department did not distribute funds in a timely manner (p.4).

The National Resource Centre on Domestic Violence provided the following statistics on the subject of teen dating violence (2004, p.1). Studies carried out on subjects ranging in age from 13 to 20 years and who were high school students in metropolitan areas in the western and mid-western United States who represented racially and ethnically diverse communities. The male and female student representation was comparable in numbers. Approximately one in five female students reported being physically and/or sexually abused by a partner that they were dating. Dating violence against girls at adolescence age is associated substance use, unhealthy weight control, sexual risk behavior, and pregnancy and suicide tendencies. 17.5% of the girls and 13.3% of the boys reported having had at least one experience of physical violence in a dating relationship. 40% of teenage girls between the ages of 14 and 17 report knowing someone their age who have been hurt or beaten by a boyfriend. Nearly 25% of 14- to 17-year-olds surveyed by the American Bar Association (2006) know of at least one student who was a victim of dating violence, while 11% know multiple victims of dating violence. 33% of teens have actually witnessed such an event (p.2). The same survey found that 20% of male students reported witnessing someone they go to high school with physically hit someone they were dating. 39% of high school female students reported that students talked in school about whether someone is attempting to control the person they are dating. It was also found that 57% of teens knew someone who has been physically, sexually or verbally abused in a relationship. It was found that one in three teens reported to know a friend or peer who had been hit, punched, slapped or physically hurt by someone they were dating. In 9 out of 10 rapes where the offender was under 18, so was the victim. It is with these statistics that teen dating violence is an issue to the society.

The Effect of Teen Dating Violence on the Victim

Teen dating violence differs from adult domestic violence in that when a teenager is abused, she becomes isolated from her peers due to the controlling behavior of her partner. Intimate partner violence among adolescents is associated with an increased risk of substance use, unhealthy weight control behaviors, sexual risk behaviors, suicide and pregnancy (American Bar Association, 2006, p.2). According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund (2009), teenage victims of dating violence are more likely that their peers who have not undergone abuse to smoke, use drugs, engage in unhealthy diet behaviors, like taking diet pills or laxatives and vomiting (develop bulimia) in an attempt to lose weight. They may also start engaging in risky sexual behaviors and attempt or even start considering suicide (p.1). Apparently one in five female public school students, in a study carried out in Massachusetts, reported having experienced physical or sexual violence form a partner that they were dating were four to six times more likely to become pregnant than their non-abused peers. They were also eight to nine times more likely to have attempted suicide in the past year (Family Violence Prevention Fund, 2009, p.1). When compared with girls who were not abused, those who experienced both physical and sexual dating violence were three times more likely to have been tested for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV and were also twice more likely to report an STD diagnosis (Family Violence Prevention Fund, 2009, p.1).

Teen dating violence poses a threat to the victim's academic performance because it generates a spectrum of negative effects on the students thereby undermining the school's ability to promote academic growth and achievement. Studies have shown that students who have experienced physical and/or sexual violence have a difficult time learning their subjects. Female students experiencing relationship violence often feel self-conscious and afraid thereby not wanting to attend school while at the same time finding it hard to concentrate in their studies. In a study carried out in California among 9th graders, teen dating violence victims were almost twice as likely to have grades of mostly Ds or Fs (California Attorney General's Office and the California Department of Education, 2004, p.3).

The California Student Survey reported that students that reported relationship violence were much more likely to engage in alcohol or drug abuse than the total sample, especially those in the 9th grade. The risky behaviors were apparently not incidental to but rather were responsible for their lack of performance in their learning (California Attorney General's Office and the California Department of Education, 2004, p.3).

Rehabilitation for this type of offender

Peacock & Rothman (2001), in their research on current strategies and new directions when dealing with young men who batter, wrote that juvenile batterer rehabilitation programs have emerged in the United States over the last decade. Most have developed in relative isolation from one another despite of the similar philosophies they may share. They have been developed by courts, survivor advocacy agencies, batterer intervention programs and community based agencies that serve the youth (p.3). This has in turn resulted in the programs differing with regard to structure as well as methodology. These programs are an alternative to incarceration and offer possible methods to re-educate young men about their relationships as well with their use of violence. Many of the juvenile batterer intervention programs use a psycho-educational group format and mostly meet for 1 to 2 hours per week. These group meetings have activities which involve discussions of healthy and unhealthy relationships, sex-role stereotyping, coping with anger and rejection, and the effect of alcohol or drug use on one's behavior among other topics. The atmosphere of these groups is neither intimidating nor social; trained staff works so as to maintain a safe, encouraging yet serious tone. The group cycles last from 12-52 weeks (Peacock & Rothman, 2001, p.3). Parents are also meant to receive orientation information regarding the program and, in some communities, are involved in the intervention on an on-going basis. Intervention for participants who re-offend may be expelled from the group or asked to re-start the program, depending on the program. The participants, who get expelled, in some communities, face more severe penalties from a probation department or court (Peacock & Rothman, 2001, p.3).

These programs for adolescents who are perpetrators of dating violence face a number of challenges and dilemmas just like other new interventions. Challenges faced include public recognition of teen domestic violence as a phenomenon which is distinct from generalized violence and partnering with a juvenile justice system perceived by many to suffer from pervasive racial and class biases. There are also new directions being taken in juvenile batterer intervention. This is because the field of teen dating and family violence intervention becomes more sophisticated and stakeholders are exploring new strategies, identifying needs and attempting to build on lessons learned in fields related to the subject. One of the new developments involves partnering with school administrators and educators. This is because there is as much a need for change in social norms supporting violence as there is for intervention for the perpetrators. Educators have an enormous potential to affect the social environments in their classrooms as well as their school communities (Peacock & Rothman, 2001, p.3). The school administrators have the power to design, promote and implement policies and curricular approaches which can significantly affect the students' attitudes and behavior. This makes it important for school personnel to receive training on the topic of gender-based violence and also get supported when they link existing literature or social studies themes to social norms regarding violence and gender (Peacock & Rothman, 2001, p.3).

The creation of policy or awarding of funds to intervention programs in the absence of evaluation research potentially places victims at continued risk for abuse and may contribute to waste of resources. It is therefore important for there to be long-term follow-up evaluation studies of juvenile intervention programs are conducted and that the results are widely disseminated (Peacock & Rothman, 2001, p.6). Those responsible for developing programs should base the design of curricula and intervention components on data collected from program participants; optimal interventions will be created if the service population is more fully understood (Peacock & Rothman, 2001, p.6). In 1999, the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence evaluated several violence prevention and intervention initiatives. Those initiatives that utilize ecological approaches were shown to have high success rates with violent juvenile offenders. The ecological approach is where some adult and youth batterer intervention programs attempted to integrate ecological principles into batterer intervention programs.

These approaches have in the common the recognition that the participant is an important access point to the family, community members, including peers and institutions like the faith community, schools and other community based agencies, the juvenile and family courts and to the youth employment agencies. The access they provide makes it possible to enlist family, community members and institutions in holding perpetrators accountable while ensuring victim safety. Some cases, however, discourage the involvement of family members as it is not always appropriate. This involvement of abusive parents may jeopardize the safety of young men who batter (Peacock & Rothman, 2001, p.6). The ecological approaches emphasize individual and community strengths while building on emerging understandings of individual resiliency and community assets. An example given by Peacock and Rothman (2001) was of the MOVE Youth Program where a juvenile batterer intervention program which was based in San Francisco that is implementing a model that involves the entire family and community members in teen dating violence prevention. By doing this, the ecological approaches used in the MOVE serve as important opportunities for engaging in prevention and in this way connect intervention and prevention efforts (p.7).

Studies indicate that "punitive, legalistic approaches" are not likely to be effective on youth not unless they are integrated into policies focusing on funding and prevention efforts. Domestic violence prevention campaigns have been pursued in health care settings in schools and through the media while showing promise in changing attitudes towards the use of violence. Prevention efforts may be enhanced through collaboration with related fields like child welfare and youth violence as well as by developing connections with a range of agencies serving the youth. Partnerships could include forming links fro mentoring programs, employment training sites, arts and recreation programs, rites of passage programs and also literacy and media literacy projects.

Conclusion

There have been many reasons that are given by perpetrators of teen dating violence and some that have been found to contribute to the chances of an individual becoming an offender. The intervention program that a perpetrator will be put into should be determined by the reason behind their actions. I also believe that it is important for those people the offender is close to should be involved to some level in the individual's intervention so as to learn what to do to help them keep away from violence even after the program is over. There is also need for to address risk factors individually so as to come up with effective prevention plans. Some of the probable risk factors include lower education, violence at home, lower job status and under-employment. There is need for the prevention activities to address peer behaviors and attitudes as these are shown to affect boys' choice on their use of violence. Schools should also play a role in prevention of teen dating violence by training their personnel in ways of addressing the issue. This is because, many adolescents spend a good amount of time in schools and that is where they are most likely to come into contact with their peers and possible romantic options. A research carried out by Sudermann and Jaffe (2006) found that 88.9% agreed that schools had a role to play in increasing awareness of the effects of violence as well as methods of preventing it. This was also with regards to the subject of teen violence and also on intervention. There is also an important need for further research in the area of female perpetrators in teen dating violence as well as the probable reasons for their indulgence in this violence. This can be mainly attributed to the fact that male victims never take the violence seriously or simply do not want to appear weak or less masculine for being victims and especially to a female.