Partner violence help-seeking in couples affected by incarceration

The racial and socioeconomic targeting of incarceration has made it a common rite of passage for young men and their intimate or co-parenting partners in many urban communities.^1-5 Men are 13 times more likely to be incarcerated than women,⁶ but women are heavily affected as well—particularly through relationships with imprisoned and formerly imprisoned men, which one in five American women has experienced.⁷

We conducted research on these relationships as part of the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting and Partnering (2006–2016; referred to hereafter as the “Multi-site Family Study”). Fully half of study couples reported physical violence during the 6 months after the male partner’s return from prison.⁸

Those who are involved with the criminal justice system (whether directly or through a family member’s involvement) may be particularly reluctant to disclose their experiences or seek help for partner violence because of learned distrust of institutions or concerns about exposing their partners or themselves to further punishment.^20-22

The decision not to access support can have serious consequences, particularly for victims with few resources for whom safety is often unattainable without outside help.^{23, 24} However, help-seeking among couples affected by incarceration (and the unique barriers that may prevent it) is poorly understood. Responding to this gap, we analyzed qualitative data from Multi-site Family Study participants, 167 of whom were interviewed near the time of the male partner’s reentry. Using a modified grounded theory analytic approach,²⁵ we tagged deidentified, verbatim transcripts with inductive and deductive codes in ATLAS.ti; reviewed data obtained from Boolean-type queries and identified themes; and prepared analytic memos on each theme.

Liang et al.’s (2005) help-seeking model suggests three distinct processes involved in help-seeking among partner violence victims: recognizing and defining the problem, deciding to seek help, and choosing a source of support.²⁶ All three are influenced by the individual, interpersonal, and sociocultural context (Figure 1).²⁶ Qualitative data from Multi-site Family Study participants indicates that, for couples affected by incarceration, distinct barriers can interfere with each of these processes.

Figure 1

Influences on partner violence help-seeking in couples affected by incarceration

Couples affected by incarceration describe a set of formidable barriers to help-seeking for partner violence. Their stories call attention to the unique obstacles that many victims face in defining their victimization experiences as a problem, deciding to seek help, and identifying sources of help. They also suggest how first- or secondhand experiences with imprisonment and reentry from prison might exacerbate the already-significant obstacles to help-seeking that other marginalized victims commonly face: a general shortage of intimate partner violence services in low-income neighborhoods; a lack of culturally specific services; fearfulness and distrust of institutions; social isolation; cycles of “honeymoon” and revictimization; and the strains of parenting, poverty, and unaddressed behavioral health concerns that can overwhelm victims’ abilities to prioritize their own abuse-related needs and discernment processes.^{22, 39}

The variety of barriers highlights an ongoing need for partner violence services and policies that respond to intersecting influences at each level of the Social-Ecological Framework.⁶ Table 1 displays strategies to dismantle the multilevel barriers to help-seeking that Multi-site Family Study participants identified.

Some individual- and interpersonal-level barriers could be addressed (at least in part) by expanding the availability of formal supports tailored to the needs articulated by justice-involved individuals and their partners. Ongoing work by advocates and service providers to “reduce the gap between intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors’ expressed needs and the services that IPV programs most typically offer” may also be highly relevant to victims in couples affected by incarceration.⁴⁰ This work focuses on individualized service delivery in staff-client relationships that emphasize authenticity and shared power.⁴⁰

Creating the kinds of environments in which intimate partner violence victims in couples affected by incarceration will seek and find meaningful help will require more than adjustments in service delivery approach, however. Indeed, researchers and domestic violence advocates have characterized “community change and systems change”^{13, 40} or “robust systems advocacy”⁴⁰ as an indispensable component of programs’ efforts to end violence. Meaningfully addressing the sociocultural barriers to help-seeking identified by Multi-site Family Study participants will require just such efforts. For example, longer-range strategies could replace punitive institutional practices in communities that have been heavily affected by mass incarceration with richer and more-effective preventive and protective functions that communicate the value of the individuals and communities served.

Efforts to support help-seeking by partner violence victims in couples affected by incarceration represent a key part of larger efforts in the fields of domestic violence and victim services to improve the accessibility of services in marginalized communities and better meet complex victim needs. Our findings suggest that involvement with the criminal justice system (whether directly or through a family member) introduces unique individual, interpersonal, and sociocultural barriers to defining one’s experiences as a problem, deciding to seek help, and selecting sources of help. Opportunities exist not only to tailor service delivery approaches in ways that overcome the individual and interpersonal obstacles that affect victims, but also to pursue longer-range shifts in public policy and community infrastructure that will address broader and more-entrenched barriers to help-seeking.

The authors are indebted to participants in the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting and Partnering for sharing the experiences and insights that made our work possible. We also wish to thank the National Institutes of Justice, and particularly Senior Science Advisor Angela Moore, for supporting this research. Finally, we appreciate the anonymous peer reviewers whose feedback strengthened this work and the RTI staff who brought it to publication, including Pamela Williams, Claire Korzen, and Sonja Douglas.

RTI Press Associate Editor: Pamela Williams