Mary-Louise Corr

Young teenagers' experiences of domestic abuse

This article reports on the first findings from the Boys to Men Research Project. In total, 1143 pupils aged 13–14 years completed a questionnaire to assess their experiences of domestic abuse as victims, witnesses and perpetrators. Overall, 45% of pupils who had been in a dating relationship reported having been victimised, 25% having perpetrated it, with the only difference in rates of victimisation and perpetration between boys and girls being in relation to sexual victimisation. Of the whole sample, 34% reported having witnessed it in their own family. There was a relationship between victimisation and perpetration with the vast majority of perpetrators (92%) also reporting experiencing abuse from a boyfriend/girlfriend. There was also a relationship between experiencing abuse and help seeking from adults, with those who have been victimised less likely to say they would seek help if they were hit by a partner than those who had yet to experience any abuse. The relationship between help seeking and experiences of abuse is further complicated by gender, with girls twice as likely to seek help than boys, but with girls who have previously hit a partner among the most reticent group. The paper concludes with highlighting the implications of these findings for those undertaking preventative work in schools.

Moving on, not out: when young people remain homeless

This article explores the contours of continued housing instability among a group of young people who are participants in a qualitative longitudinal study of youth homelessness in Dublin, Ireland, and considers the limitations of the ‘acculturation’ thesis in explaining long-term homelessness amongst the young. Baseline interviews were conducted with 40 young people, aged 14–23 years, in 2004, and follow-up interviews were conducted with 30 research participants successfully ‘tracked’ in 2005–06. By the time of follow-up, 17 of those interviewed had exited homelessness and 13 remained homeless. The article focuses on the latter group with the aim of exploring the processes and experiences associated with their continued homelessness. The findings presented demonstrate the adverse impact of their ongoing movement through emergency services targeting the under-18s, including their greater immersion in drug and criminal lifestyles. A majority had experienced one or more period of incarceration by the time of follow-up, and many were users of adult homeless services. Whilst some dimensions of young peoples accounts are suggestive of a process of acculturation to street and hostel life, we argue that their continued homelessness is better explained as a consequence of their ongoing and unresolved transience and, in particular, their continued dependence on emergency hostel accommodation. The implications of the findings for policy and service provision for homeless young people are discussed.

Young people exiting homelessness: an exploration of process, meaning and definition.

In the past decade in particular, research attention has shifted from an almost exclusive focus on routes or pathways into homelessness towards the investigation of exits from homelessness. As well as demonstrating the multiple paths possible for young people who become homeless, recent research, and longitudinal studies in particular, has contributed to a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of the homeless pathways of young people. Nonetheless, knowledge and understanding of the nature of homeless exits, and of the mechanisms that facilitate the transition out of homelessness, is far from complete. This paper explores the processes surrounding the exit routes taken by young people out of homelessness and the meanings attached by them to these housing transitions based on selected findings from an ongoing qualitative longitudinal study of homeless youth in Dublin, Ireland. More broadly, the paper considers the utility of distinguishing between the types of routes that young people take out of homelessness, with particular attention to the notions of ‘independent’ and ‘dependent’ exits. The paper aims to further the discussion and debate on the conceptualisation of homeless exits and also discusses a number of policy implications arising from the studys findings.

This is abuse… or is it? Domestic abuse perpetrators' responses to anti-domestic violence publicity

Social marketing has become a key component of policy initiatives aimed at reducing the incidence of domestic abuse. However, its efficacy remains debated, with most measures of effectiveness being somewhat crude. More subtle effects of social marketing, such as the boomerang effect whereby the message engenders the opposite effect to that intended, have been detected, suggesting a need for modes of analysis sensitive to the multiple ways in which viewers react to social opprobrium. This article attempts to deliver just this. It begins with a short history and critique of the concept of social marketing. It then proceeds to explore the utility of the more complex notion that viewers often identify with the subject positions thrown open by social marketing on a quite temporary basis, before reconfiguring them. Using the responses of domestic abuse perpetrators exposed to the UK Government’s This is Abuse campaign film, the article shows how contradictory identifications with both anti-violence messages and victim-blaming discourses are negotiated by those young men prone to perpetrating domestic abuse. The article concludes by exploring how effectiveness might be better conceptualised and assessed with regard to the impact of anti-violence social marketing that speaks to domestic abuse perpetrators.

Young People’s Early Offending: The Context of Strained Leisure Careers

Criminology has witnessed a growth of interest in the later stages of criminal careers with less attention given to providing an understanding of the onset of offending which goes beyond identifying the precipitative or ‘risk’ factors. Drawing on findings from a study of young people’s offending careers in Ireland, this article provides a contextualized understanding of the onset of crime located in young people’s biographical experiences and transition through youth more specifically. It focuses on one particular dimension of this process, suggesting that early offending can be understood as emerging in the context of strained leisure careers. The findings also highlight the close interaction between the development of young people’s leisure careers and their experiences of the local neighbourhood and social networks. It argues that responses to the early stages of youth offending must widen their focus from the individual to incorporate an understanding of broader socio-economic and cultural contexts.

Young People’s Offending Careers and Criminal Justice Contact: A Case for Social Justice

This article draws on an analysis of young people’s offending careers. The research was initiated against a backdrop of changing discourse around youth justice in Ireland with a shift towards prevention of offending and diversion from the criminal justice system. Locating crime and criminal justice contact within a biographical context indicated that participants’ offending, and lives generally, was bound up in marginalized transitions to adulthood, and embedded within social and economic environments characterized by high deprivation. The findings support a further shift in focus towards addressing social injustice as a necessary prerequisite to tackle the origins of youth offending.

Beyond Typologies: Foregrounding Meaning and Motive in Domestic Violence Perpetration

ABSTRACT In this article we use a single case study to query the presumption, inherent in typological approaches to domestic violence perpetration, that offender motivations are unchanging and deducible from self-reports and official records. We highlight the need to engage interpretively with the specific meanings acts of violence hold for domestic violence perpetrators–informed, as they can be, by sexist perceptions of entitlement and histories of conflict, suspicion and grievance–and how these can change self-perceptions in the aftermath of assaults and breakups, as the foreground of crime is reincorporated into a background narrative.

Young Men and Domestic Abuse

1. Introduction 2. Scale of the Problem 3. Young Peoples Attitudes Towards Domestic Abuse 4. Preventative Education 5. Social Marketing as Domestic Abuse Prevention 6. Young Mens Accounts of Victimisation 7. The Impact of Exposure to Domestic Violence on Boys 8. Young Mens Accounts of Domestic Abuse Perpetration 9. Under Responsiveness to Young Men Involved in Domestic Violence 10. Conclusion

Like Father, Like Son? Young Men's Responses to Domestic Violence Between Parents

Why do some young people, especially some young men, respond to experiences of violence in childhood by reproducing the same behaviour in their own relationships? Are they necessarily behaving just like their fathers? Should their aggression be understood as a negative psychological effect arising out of exposure to domestic? What of some young men’s wishes to be different from the adult men who have abused their mothers? What of young men’s resilience to exposure to other men’s violence? This chapter begins by reviewing the literatures on the effects of domestic violence on children while explicating its limitations. It then examines the more qualitative literature that has highlighted young people’s resilience in the context of violence between parents, without necessarily recognising the gendered dimensions of this resilience. The chapter then attempts to deliver such an analysis through the use of case study derived from the ESRC funded ‘From Boys to Men Project’ (RES-062–23-2678). The chapter’s discussion points to the need to discern the meanings of particular incidents of violence and aggression in which young men are implicated, before assumptions are made about whether they too are ‘perpetrators’ just like their fathers.