ABSTRACT
Family violence is a serious global health issue, encompassing a range of violent and abusive acts such as intimate partner violence (IPV) and child abuse and neglect. A recent, nationally representative study, suggests that 24 percent of women in the United States experience severe physical aggression by an intimate partner during their lifetime (Breiding, Chen, & Black, 2014). Accordingly, 16 percent of U.S. children aged 17 years or younger report having been exposed to physical IPV during their lifetime (Finkelhor, Turner, Shattuck, & Hamby, 2015), with rates of co-occurring parental physical aggression toward children estimated at 40 percent or higher in domestic violence shelter samples (Appel & Holden, 1998; Jouriles, McDonald, Slep, Heyman, & Garrido, 2008). Although physical abuse is the form of IPV most frequently examined in studies of IPV victimization, a large body of research documents that IPV perpetrators use numerous aggressive tactics of coercion and domination to control and harm their partners and their children (Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 2010; Lindhorst & Tajima, 2008). Indeed, perpetrators engage more frequently in psychological forms of coercion than direct physical or sexual aggression against their partner (Coker, Smith, McKeown, & King, 2000). One well-documented coercive tactic used by IPV perpetrators to influence their partners and children is aggression and violence toward household pets (Ascione, Weber, Thompson, Heath, Maruyama, & Hayashi, 2007; Collins, Cody, McDonald, Nicotera, Ascione, & Williams, 2017; McDonald, Collins, Maternick, Nicotera, Graham-Bermann, Ascione, & Williams, 2017; Volant, Johnson, Gullone, & Coleman, 2008). The intersection of IPV, child maltreatment, and concomitant animal maltreatment will be the focus of the current chapter.
