Responding to Adolescent to Parent Violence through Juvenile Justice

• In Event: System Responses to Domestic and Family Violence: Critical Perspectives

Abstract

Violence from adolescent children towards their parents is a complicated phenomenon incorporating a continuum of behaviour ranging from teenagers verbally abusing and using threats of violence towards their parents to damaging parental property and physically assaulting their parents. However, this unique form of family violence has only recently attracted criminological attention and it remains on the periphery of the social policy agenda. APV is a problem that arises frequently within juvenile justice and presents very particular difficulties for determining how best to respond. Patterns of blame and culpability in APV are complex and there are many grey areas, in contrast to the black and white constructions of parenthood and childhood in common discourse and within criminal justice. If we are to avoid zero-sum notions of blame then we need to make space for interventions that recognise the harm caused by violence and the suffering of a victim of violence without over-criminalising young people who perpetrate this violence. The paper argues that although APV is a problem that must be taken seriously, requiring a rigorous response, this response needs to hold the age of the adolescent and the complexities of the parenting relationship in the foreground.

Author

• Rachel Condry, University of Oxford