Domestic violence and its prevention

Domestic violence as a negative social phenomenon of our society has started to be considered as a serious topic in the Czech Republic in the last few years. It has started to be discussed in public in the 90's. Before, it was considered as a private matter not supposed to be governed by the law or any other state regulations. The aim of this thesis is to describe domestic violence in the light of criminological aspects of this topic. It is focused on concept and definitions of domestic violence, its phenomenology and etiology. Attention is paid to the victim of domestic violence, influence of domestic violence on her psyche and behavior, consequences of domestic violence and relationship between the victim and the aggressor. At least but not last there is mentioned a prevention of domestic violence and efficient help offered to victims. There are many definitions of domestic violence and we cannot say that only one is correct. Domestic violence is very comprehensive and a complicated phenomenon so it is not possible to assign only one definition as generally valid. However, it has some typical features: domestic violence differs from other violent acts in the existence of intimate relationship between aggressor and his victim, it happens in privacy and mostly without witnesses, it happens..