The relationship between criminal behaviour over the life-course and intimate partner violence perpetration in later life
| Author | Amanda L Robinson,Janna Verbruggen,Christopher D Maxwell,Arjan Blokland |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370818825344 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370818825344
European Journal of Criminology
2020, Vol. 17(6) 784 –805
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370818825344
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The relationship between
criminal behaviour over
the life-course and intimate
partner violence perpetration
in later life
Janna Verbruggen
Cardiff University, UK
Arjan Blokland
Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), The Netherlands
Amanda L Robinson
Cardiff University, UK
Christopher D Maxwell
Michigan State University, USA
Abstract
This study examines the relationship between criminal behaviour over the life-course and intimate
partner violence (IPV) perpetration and general violence in later life. The study uses data on a
subsample (N = 585) from the Dutch Criminal Career and Life-Course Study, and combines
officially registered longitudinal data on convictions with self-reported data on IPV perpetration,
violent offending and several individual factors, collected at age 60. The results show that those
with a history of persistent general and violent offending over the life-course are at increased
risk of perpetrating IPV and other violent crimes in later life. Additionally, certain background and
current factors are also related to IPV perpetration. Men who have experienced family violence
in childhood and those who are married are more likely to report IPV perpetration, whereas
relationship quality and employment are associated with a reduced likelihood of IPV perpetration.
The findings suggest that an integrated theoretical approach is most useful to understand IPV
Corresponding author:
Janna Verbruggen, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII
Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WT, UK.
Email: verbruggenj@cardiff.ac.uk
825344EUC0010.1177/1477370818825344European Journal of CriminologyVerbruggen et al.
research-article2019
Article
Verbruggen et al. 785
perpetration, with the ultimate aim of informing evidence-based interventions necessary for
reducing IPV in society.
Keywords
Intimate partner violence, life-course, offending trajectories, violent offending
Introduction
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an important social problem. An EU-wide survey on
IPV showed that, across the 28 EU countries, on average 22 percent of women have
experienced physical IPV since the age of 15, and 4 percent reported being victimized in
the past year (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights [FRA], 2014). Although
there is a large body of literature on IPV, this has developed separately from life-course
criminology research on general offending. Although it has been 35 years since Fagan
et al. (1983: 49) asked whether we are studying ‘Violent men or violent husbands?’, it is
only more recently that we find a growing interest in investigating the relationship
between general offending and IPV perpetration (for example, Johnson et al., 2015;
Moffitt et al., 2000; Piquero et al., 2014).
Different theoretical explanations make different predictions about the extent to
which IPV perpetration is related to general criminal and/or violent behaviour. Most
theories that were developed specifically to understand IPV perpetration do not see a role
for general criminal behaviour in explaining IPV, given the specific context in which IPV
takes place (that is, current or former intimate relationships). For example, feminist
explanations of IPV focus on gender inequality inherent in patriarchal society, and on
how prescribed gender roles justify men’s use of violence in relationships to assert and
maintain control over female partners (Dobash and Dobash, 1979). The family systems
perspective points to the importance of characteristics unique to the family setting, such
as power dynamics and conflict in explaining IPV (Straus et al., 1980). Individual-level
theories of IPV state that witnessing or experiencing family violence in childhood con-
tributes to later IPV perpetration via social learning processes (Mihalic and Elliott, 1997;
Widom, 1989), or argue that certain personality traits, such as borderline personality
traits, jealousy and hostility, increase the risk of IPV perpetration (Dutton, 1995;
Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart, 1994), and some recognize that certain subgroups of IPV
perpetrators are characterized by antisocial personality traits (Holtzworth-Munroe and
Stuart, 1994; Holtzworth-Munroe et al., 2000).
More recently, the movement towards multi-factor models has helped to reveal the
relationship between general antisocial behaviour and IPV. For example, the dynamic
developmental system (DDS) model (Capaldi and Kim, 2007; Capaldi et al., 2005) looks
at an individual’s background to understand how antisocial behaviour can contribute to
the risk of IPV perpetration (Capaldi and Clark, 1998; Kim et al., 2008). Still, the DDS
model stresses that IPV needs to be understood in the context of the relationship, and
therefore argues that a variety of other factors are also important for explaining IPV,
including relationship factors such as interaction patterns between partners (Capaldi and
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