This comprehensive overview of domestic violence against women and children in America covers the services meant to combat it, the legal approaches to prosecuting it, the public's attitudes toward it, and the successes and failures of systems meant to address it.

The fight to end domestic violence consists of community-based services for battered women, laws and policies to combat the problem, a broad spectrum of frequently-innovative programs to protect or otherwise support abused women and children, a dramatic shift in media portrayals of violence against women, and a growing public critique of unacceptable forms of power and control in relationships. These volumes offer another weapon in that battle.

Violence against Women in Families and Relationships takes stock of all of the ways in which legislation, programs and services, and even public attitudes have impacted victims, offenders, and communities over the last few decades. Contributors pay special attention to how race, class, and cultural differences affect the experience of abuse. They explore the efficacy of interventions, and they provide compelling real-life examples to illustrate issues and challenges. Our society has made an enormous investment in stopping abuse in families and relationships, but numerous questions still remain. Many of those questions are answered in these pages, as experts uncover the realities of domestic violence and the toll it takes on families, individuals, communities, and society at large.

Evan Stark is professor at the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, and chair of the Department of Urban Health Administration at the University of Medicine and Dentistry School of Public Health.

Eve S. Buzawa is professor and the chairperson of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, MA.