State Laws on Intimate Partner Violence Witnessed by Children in the United States.

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Journal of Public Health Policy, 2025, v. 46, no. 2: State Laws on Intimate Partner Violence Witnessed by Children in the United States.
• Journal Article:
  Journal of Public Health Policy
• Personal Author:
  Reott, Erica Cook ; Hulkower, Rachel ; Lancaster, Christiana ; Frey, Meghan T. ; Smith, Rachel Clark ; Thomas, Cameron ; Godoshian, Valerie
• Description:
  Intimate partner violence (IPV) is common, and almost half of all IPV takes place in relationships with children in the home. We inventoried laws in the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the United States of America (USA) focused on addressing IPV committed in the presence of children, as these laws could help prevent or remediate this critical health and social issue. Using WestLaw, a web-based legal research service, we identified over 1,200 statutes and 500 regulations. We documented the laws' key attributes and heterogeneities and coded 557 laws from 31 states. We determined that the most commonly prescribed penalty was stricter sentencing, followed by mandates to pay for counseling for any child witnesses, separate additional criminal charges, mandated receipt of counseling or intervention services, and a period of supervised parenting. Future research could assess the possible impacts of these laws on children's short- and long-term wellbeing.
• Content Notes:
  Author manuscript
• Subjects:
  • Humans
  • Intimate Partner Violence
  • Child
  • State Government
  • Female
  • Male
  • Child Abuse
• Keywords:
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Domestic violence
  • Child witnessing
  • Adverse childhood experiences
• Source:
  Journal of Public Health Policy, 2025, v. 46, no. 2
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-025-00550-4
• ISSN:
  0197-5897 ; 1745-655X
• Pubmed ID:
  39824981
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC12119228
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Pages in Document:
  284-294 (11 pdf pages)
• Volume:
  46
• Issue:
  2
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/261761/cdc_261761_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 78.85 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:19af7e9f76627ac3b8f2d7008312f53b0232c275cba3956c3171570850d35409176d2d2f9cdc9a5232bde563f8dfc91c04745566ffda4d5212c89c6863ec570e