Violence in Homes and Communities

Why has there been an increase in domestic, workplace, and community violence, and how can we prevent it? This book, one in a series sponsored by the National Mental Health Association, helps the reader explore, with the talented contributors, the foundations of violence as well as methods to reduce the incidence of violent behavior in families, workplaces, and communities. The first section provides an overview of this topic and covers: child abuse and neglect from an ecological perspective with a close look at those qualities that place some children at higher risk of abuse; the causes of spousal abuse and interventions to reduce the incidence of this behavior; workplace violence from a definitional, demographic, and theoretical perspective; and, ways to identify the causes of community violence using a public health model. The second section examines environmental factors for violence, including television violence and its impact on youth; stereotypes and its relationships to racial, ethnic, and religious hatred and violence; and, mental illness and violence, particularly how the mentally ill are more often the victim rather than the aggressor. The book concludes with a section that discusses efforts to reduce violent behavior in families, youth, and communities. This book will provide a useful resource to graduate students, to practitioners, and program developers who want a comprehensive overview of violent behavior and who want to identify programs that work to reduce violent behavior in specific settings from families to workplace to communities.