Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Battered Women Whose Cases Have Gone Through The System: The Role Of Social Support, Heather Melton, Joanne Belknap, Cris Sullivan, Ruth Fleury-Steiner, Amy Leisenring

Faculty Publications, Sociology

This paper explores the role of social support in the lives of battered women whose cases have gone through the criminal justice system. Using longitudinal data collected from almost 200 battered women whose cases went through the criminal justice system in three jurisdictions in the United States, explored are the types of support they received, variations in who receives support, differences between informal support and formal support, and the implications of social support in terms of violence and victims use of the criminal justice system.