Understanding Female Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration, Parenting Attitudes, and Batterer Intervention Program Completion

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of parenting attitudes and widely used indicators of intimate partner violence perpetration on program completion in a sample of women required to attend a 26-week batterer intervention program. Methods: This research used a nonequivalent, control-group design in a secondary analysis of 146 women. Results: Analysis showed that (a) logistic regression indicated a statistically significant model for predicting Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory scores using level of education and racial group; (b) logistic regression also demonstrated that treatment completion could be successfully predicted by Revise Conflict Tactics Scale Negotiation score and referral status (e.g., regular court, criminal domestic violence court, and pretrial intervention). Conclusions: These analyses illustrate characteristics of female batterers as they connect to parenting attitudes and offer initial evidence suggesting that women in treatment for intimate partner violence perpetration display a host of negative parenting attitudes. Implications of these results were investigated and considered.