No Escape: Mass Incarceration and the Social Ecology of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women

Abstract

Women in heavily policed and incarcerated communities face extremely high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV)—but how criminal legal system contact affects such violence remains poorly understood. This study explores the social ecology of IPV by fitting structural equation models to longitudinal, dyadic data from households in contact with the criminal legal system ( N = 2,224) and their local communities. Results suggest that a complex of factors at multiple social-ecological levels—including adverse local conditions, dysfunctional couple conflict, and men's behavioral health and perceptions of their neighborhoods—may put women at heightened risk of IPV victimization in a time of mass incarceration.