Why do some people experience repeated violence and abuse over the lifecourse?

What is it about?

Why are people who have had adverse experiences early in life at a higher risk of falling victims of future violence and abuse? This article shows how negative experiences at each stage of life may create the conditions which make the victim susceptible to new abuse in other settings. This to some extent explains why those who have experienced violence and abuse as children or adolescents are at a higher risk of violence and abuse as adults. On the other hand, one adverse experience must not inevitably lead to the next. Using the example of one woman with a long history of violence and abuse, this article shows how each experience of violence and abuse took place in particular situations, at a particular historical time and in a specific social environment. These environments both make the violence possible, but also offered positive opportunities that could have led to a different outcome. Thus the article, despite showing how experiences of victimization accumulate over the life course, also argues that at several points over her life course, this women's trajectory of being abused could have been interrupted, if institutions and the people that populate them had been better equipped or had responded more adequately.

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Why is it important?

The article shows the importance of social explanations of violence, and shifts the focus from the individual victim to social institutions, thereby challenging contemporary approaches, which tend to focus on individual risk-factors, thereby falsely translating statistical risk at group level into individual destiny.