DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DEFINITION

Domestic violence, most commonly known as battering, is a pattern of behaviors intended to establish coercive control over another adult within the context of an intimate relationship.

Key Elements of Domestic Violence:4

 1.  A pattern of purposeful behavior, directed at achieving compliance from, or control over the victim.
 2.  Conduct perpetrated by adults or adolescents against their intimate partners in current or former dating, married or cohabiting relationships.  Perpetrators and victims may include heterosexuals, gay men, and lesbians.
 3.  A pattern of behaviors including a variety of tactics--some physically injurious and some not, some criminal and some not--carried out in multiple, sometimes daily episodes. Each episode serves to lend enhanced meaning to successive episodes. Therefore, the threat of violence may be as effective in inducing compliance as actual violence.
 4.  A combination of physical attacks, terrorist acts, and controlling tactics used by perpetrators that result in fear, as well as physical and psychological harm to victims and their children.

 

CHILD ABUSE DEFINITION

Abusive acts against children.  Most state laws define a child as a person 18 years of age  or less (although children can be followed by state agencies up to age 21 after initial identification).
 
 Abusive Acts May Include:
 1.  Physical abuse
 2.  Emotional/psychological abuse
 3.  Sexual abuse

 And Various Forms of Neglect Including:
 1.  Physical neglect
 2.  Emotional neglect
 3.  Financial neglect
 4.  Health/medical neglect
 5.  Educational neglect