Men Who Batter

Men who act abusively have their own story to tell, a journey that often begins in childhood, ripens in their teenage years, and takes them down paths they were hoping to never travel. Men Who Batter recounts the journey from the point of view of the men themselves.

The men's accounts of their lives are told within a broader framework of the agency where they have attended groups, and the regional coordinated community response to domestic violence, which includes the criminal justice workers (e.g., probation, parole, judges), and those who staff shelters and work in advocacy. Based on interview data with this wide array of professionals, we are able to examine how one community, in one western state, responds to men who batter.

Interwoven with this rich and colorful portrayal of the journey of abusive men, we bring twenty years of fieldwork with survivors and those who walk alongside them as they seek safety, healing and wholeness for themselves and their children. Women who have been victimized by the men they love often hold out hope that, if only their abusers could be held accountable and receive intervention, the violence will stop and their own lives will improve dramatically as a result. While the main purpose of Men Who Batter is to highlight the stories of men, told from their personal point of view, it is countered by reality checks from their own case files and those professionals who have worked with them. And finally, interspersed within its pages is another theme: finding religious faith or spiritual activity in unlikely places.

Nancy Nason-Clark, Ph.D., is a Professor (and Chair) of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. She is the author or editor of over 10 books, including No Place for Abuse (2nd ed., 2010 with Catherine Clark Kroeger), The Battered Wife (1997) and the co-edited collection, Understanding Abuse: Partnering for Change (2004) as well as over one hundred peer-reviewed articles or chapters.

Barbara Fisher-Townsend, Ph.D., teaches Sociology at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick. For more than ten years her research agenda has focused on how best to change the thinking and behaviour of religious men who have acted abusively in order to bring peace and safety to those impacted by violence. She has authored and co-authored articles and book chapters with Nancy Nason-Clark, and others, which appear in The Journal of Religion and Abuse, Social Work and Christianity, Critical Social Work, the Handbook on Sociology of Religion and Social Institutions, and American Sociology of Religion: Histories. Barbara served as an author and editor of Beyond Abuse in the Christian Home: Raising Voices for Change (2008), Responding to Abuse in Christian Homes: A Challenge to Churches and their Leaders (2011), and the third volume in this series entitled Strengthening Families and Ending Abuse: Churches and their Leaders Look to the Future (2013).