Next Millennium Conference: Ending Domestic Violence; Building a Prevention Vision and Agenda for the 21st Century

• NCJ Number: 184573
• Author(s): Mark Rosenberg; Carol Simpson; Elsa Soler; Bernadine Dohrn; Irma Guevara; Barbara Shaw; Susan Schechter
• Date Published: August 1999
• Length: 58 pages
• Grant Number(s): 1999-WT-VX-0002
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Conference Material

Annotation

This conference presentation discusses the principles of public health that apply to the development of prevention polices for domestic violence; a panel discusses issues pertinent to the prevention of domestic violence.

Abstract

The first public health principle of prevention is that this is a "cause-and-effect world." Things happen for reasons, and if these reasons can be identified and understood, the effects can be changed. The second principle is that the focus should be on future health, i.e., policymakers should focus on what is going to happen, not only on what is happening now. This involves focusing on children and how their future can be guided. The third principle is that public health is everyone's health, including the least advantaged and the disadvantaged; therefore, prevention policy must be comprehensive. The fourth principle is that change is constant, and knowledge and research must keep pace with changes. The panel members focus on the importance of challenging every manifestation of popular culture that fosters violence as acceptable behavior in a relationship. A victim of domestic violence advises that victims must speak out about what has happened to them as a means of informing the public and policymakers about the need for preventive action. Another panel member discusses the importance of educating, agitating, protesting, and protecting in order to challenge every manifestation of domestic violence and the factors that fuel it.