No Idle Threat: Coercive Control and Enacted Violence in the Pre-Prison Relationships of Incarcerated Women

Women's Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence While Incarcerated: The Measurement Structure, Reliability, and Validity of a Novel Instrument

While incarcerated, women may continue to experience intimate partner violence (IPV), perpetrated by partners who reside in the outside community. Power and control dynamics of abusive relationships may intensify as the abuser exploits their partners' incarceration. The current study assessed IPV experiences of 832 incarcerated women (50% white, 76% mothers), testing a novel instrument. Results validated a two-factor structure: (a) general abuse (i.e., verbal, physical) and (b) deny or threaten to deny (i.e., leveraging the women's incarceration to intimidate or control). This study introduces a novel instrument to measure IPV while incarcerated and provides implications for research and practice.

The Model of Systemic Relational Violence: Conceptualizing IPV as a Method of Continual and Enforced Domination

This paper provides a theoretical and historical background of explanatory and descriptive models of domestic, family, and interpersonal violence and introduces a new model that seeks to correct aspects of those models that have been heavily critiqued. The Model of Systemic Relational Violence reconceptualizes violent relationships with coercive control and emotional and psychological violence at the core and more traditional event-based markers of relationship violence as peripheral enforcement tactics in a more extensive system of interpersonal domination. This new model is built on the insights and perspectives of survivors of relational violence and the service providers who support them. It has been developed to be applied in a variety of diverse relationships and contexts.

Linking Women Experiencing Incarceration to Community-Based HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Care: A Qualitative Study

Women experiencing incarceration (WEI) in the United States are disproportionately impacted by HIV, yet HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is underutilized by women in the United States. In order to inform an intervention to promote PrEP initiation during incarceration and facilitate linkage to PrEP care following release from incarceration, we conducted individual, semistructured qualitative interviews with WEI (N = 21) and key stakeholders (N = 14). While WEI had little or no previous knowledge about PrEP, they viewed it as something that would benefit women involved in the criminal justice system. Participants stated that HIV-related stigma and underestimation of HIV risk might serve as barriers to PrEP initiation during incarceration. Participants reported that competing priorities, difficulty scheduling an appointment, and lack of motivation could interfere with linkage to PrEP care in the community. Further, cost, substance use, and difficulty remembering to take the medication were cited most commonly as likely barriers to adherence.