Desisting from domestic abuse: Influences, Patterns and Processes in the Lives of Formerly Abusive Men

Abstract

This article argues that domestic violence perpetrator programmes in the UK have paid insufficient attention to how perpetrators actually desist from abusive behaviour in the long term. It draws on evidence from a 2010 study which investigated how a sample of men accomplished desistance from abusive behaviour. It reveals that even men committed to desistance may require programmes to support them over a period of several years, and confirms that desistance is best understood as a process and not an outcome. The article concludes that these men's experiences underline the need for interventions to be substantially more desistance-focused than they are at present.