Analysis of Selected Correlates of Spouse Abuse and the Policy Implications for the Criminal Justice System.

Research on spouse abuse has received greater attention during the last 3 decades around the world. This research was conducted to investigate the selected correlates of alcohol use, drug use, and marital status and the effects they have on use of weapons and violent behavior. The secondary data used was from a study done in Chicago from 1995-1998, called the Chicago Community Crime Prevention and Intimate Violence Study. There were 210 domestic violence victims studied in one Chicago area. Each victim was asked a series of the same questions. It was found that 39.4% of the domestic violence cases involved an alcohol problem, and 45.1% of them involved drugs. It was found that divorced subjects had the highest percentage of the use of a weapon (67%). In the overall cross tabulations, alcohol, drug use, and marital status were not significantly related to the use of a weapon and violent behavior. It was also found that alcohol consumption and violent behavior was significant at the .10 level of significance