DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04579.v1
title: Exploring Women's Histories of Survival of Violence and Victimization in a Midwestern State, 2004-2005
title: Version 1

description: This study explored the histories of physical and sexual
 victimization reported by incarcerated and non-incarcerated women. It
 sought to identify the survival strategies women activated at various
 points in their life span. In Phase One, 424 women were interviewed
 from March 2004 to March 2005 on a variety of topics covering
 victimization and disclosure experiences and risk and protective
 factors. Information from those interviews is contained in Part 1,
 Phase One, Interview Data. In Phase Two, 17 women from the prison
 and/or the community who had participated in the Phase One interviews
 were again interviewed in an effort to provide more depth about their
 experiences of victimization and of the resources, social services,
 and supports they may have received or not, subsequent to the
 victimization(s). Information from these qualitative follow-up
 interviews is contained in Parts 2-18. Variables cover topics such as
 personal attitudes, health and well-being, relationships with family
 and friends, coping with stress, emotional health, alcohol and drug
 use, childhood maltreatment, intimate partner violence, sexual
 experiences, services and resources received, traumatic experiences,
 suicide, resource generating strategies, legal issues, and
demographics.
description: The focus of the study was to explore certain
 similarities and differences in life experiences as they occurred
 between and within several groups of women. Those groups included
 women who reported having been victims of personal violence and who
 were incarcerated at the time of the study, women living in the
 community and who received services for their victimization
 experiences sometime in the 12 months prior to the initiation of data
 collection, and women who may or may not have been victimized and who
 had not received services in the 12 months prior to the initiation of
 the interview. The two primary areas of inquiry explored in this
 research were (1) women's access and opportunities for various types
 of social services and (2) their current personal status on various
 measures of health, mental health, substance use, incarceration, and
 suicidality. 
 The study was conducted in two phases. In Phase One, 424 women were
 interviewed on a variety of topics covering victimization and
 disclosure experiences and risk and protective factors.
 The overall goal of this research was to compare the life
 experiences of female victims of intimate partner violence, sexual
 violence, and youth maltreatment who are living in disparate settings:
 the state's Women's Correctional Facility (WCF) and in urban and rural
 communities within the state. The specific objectives of the research
 were: (1) To determine whether victimized women residing the in the
 community (a) were offered and (b) participated in, one or more social
 service and social support interventions that may have had an impact
 on their health, mental health, alcohol or illegal substance use, and
 incarceration status. Specific attention was directed toward exploring
 the type and range of involvement of those systems that may have been
 available to provide assistance to abused and injured women at earlier
 points in their lives. These systems include schools, sexual
 assault/domestic violence programs, law enforcement, medical
 providers, mental health providers, agencies responsible for ensuring
 the protection and safety of children, religious and faith-based
 groups, and family or friends. (2) To determine the rate of
 co-occurrence of sexual assault with intimate partner violence and
 other forms of familial abuse and youth maltreatment among and between
 incarcerated and non-incarcerated women. (3) To suggest implications
 for improving policy and practice strategies within the criminal
 justice system, for both incarcerated and never-incarcerated victims
 of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and youth
 maltreatment.
 The essential goal of the study was to examine the consequences,
 (defined as the health, mental health, substance use, incarceration,
 and suicidality) of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and
 youth maltreatment and victimization, in order to identify at-risk
 populations, modifiable risk and essential mediating factors, and
optimal times for intervention.
description: The study was conducted in two phases. In Phase
 One, 424 women were interviewed from March 2004 to March 2005 on a
 variety of topics covering victimization and disclosure experiences
 and risk and protective factors. All women recruited from the Women's
 Correctional Facility (WCF) and the community venues were asked to
 participate in face-to-face interviews. The total sample included 424
 women: 158 women incarcerated in the correctional facility, 157 women
 who had been recipients of services for intimate partner violence
 and/or sexual assault within the 12 months prior to the research
 interview, and 109 women from the community at large who had not
 received services in the prior 12 months.
 The face-to-face interviews of the women incarcerated in the
 correctional facility were conducted on the prison grounds at regular
 intervals each month over a 12-month period. Every interview took
 place in a private office or meeting room. Interviewing staff were
 provided with a tour of the women's correctional facility and training
 on safety and security issues prior to the data collection.
 For women in the community, a similar data collection protocol was
 implemented. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in a mutually
 agreed upon location that was determined prior to each actual meeting.
 The criteria for identifying a safe place to meet included the
 proximity of the location to the participant, the level of comfort in
 discussing private concerns, and the safety of the participant and the
 researcher. Locations included offices within agencies or domestic
 violence shelters, local restaurants, and local public libraries.
 Permission from the manager of the selected site was secured prior to
 interviewing. Interviews were not held in the homes of any of the
 participants in an effort to protect the safety of the participants as
 well as the researcher. These community interviews were conducted
 throughout a 12-month period.
 Experienced translators translated the recruitment flyers and the
 survey instrument into Spanish, ensuring that the language of the
 survey instrument was culturally appropriate and linguistically
 accurate. Several of the research interviewers were bilingual, and
 one of the translators reviewed and field tested the final Spanish
 version of the survey to double check its conformity to the English
 version.
 In Phase Two, if a person met the qualifying criteria, she was
 asked if she would be interested in participating in an interview with
 a researcher, which was intended to go into more depth about her
 experiences of victimization and about the resources, social services
 and supports she may have or have not received subsequent to the
 victimization(s). Ten women from the prison and seven women who
 resided and/or received services in one of the urban communities
 agreed to participate in another face-to-face interview. In order to
 accurately capture the narrative data, after providing information
 about the nature of this in-depth interview, every respondent gave her
 informed consent for both her participation and the tape recording of
 the interview. The taped interviews were later transcribed using the
 appropriate privacy safeguards and the data were entered into a
 computer database.
 Participants were interviewed in-depth on several topics related to
 the quantitative portion of this research (Phase One), in interviews
 consisting of open-ended questions and probes. Additionally, the
 respondents were asked about their disclosure experiences, including
 to whom, when, and how they disclosed their victimization experiences.
 The face-to-face interviews of women residing in the WCF took place in
 a private room provided by the facility. For women in the community,
 face-to-face interviews were conducted in a mutually agreed upon
location determined prior to the actual meeting.
description: In Part 1, Phase One, Interview Data,
 respondents were read a series of statements regarding their personal
 attitudes and traits and asked to rate how strongly they agreed with
 each statement. For example, respondents were asked how strongly they
 agreed with such statements as, "It is difficult for me to make new
 friends," "I like to cook," or "Failure just makes me try harder."
 Respondents were also asked questions regarding their general
 health and whether their health limited them in doing vigorous
 activities, climbing one flight of stairs, or walking several
 blocks. Additionally, respondents were asked if their physical or
 emotional health affected daily activities. The women were also asked
 how often, during the past week, they felt such things as, "full of
 pep," "calm and peaceful," or "tired." Respondents were also asked if
 they had any chronic medical conditions, and if so, what these
 conditions were.
 Furthermore, the women were asked how strongly they agreed with a
 series of statements regarding family and friends. Statements included
 such items as, "My friends respect me," "I am really admired by my
 family," and "I feel valued by other people."
 Next, respondents were asked about ways they coped with stress.
 They were read a series of statements and asked how often they
 performed each statement. Statements included such things as, "I've
 been turning to work or other activities to take my mind off things,"
 "I've been criticizing myself," and "I've been expressing my negative
 feelings."
 Respondents were read statements regarding their emotional health
 and asked how often the statement applied to them during the past
 week. Statements included such items as, "I was bothered by things
 that usually don't bother me," "I felt fearful," and "I felt that
 people disliked me."
 The women were also asked questions regarding their use of alcohol
 and other drugs.
 Respondents were asked if they had experienced any abuse or
 maltreatment as a child such as being hit by a parent, being touched
 sexually without giving consent, or engaging in intercourse without
 giving consent. For each experience, respondents were asked who did
 the act, how often it happened, how old they were the first time it
 happened, whether they told anyone, and if so, who they told, and what
 happened after they told someone.
 The women were also read a series of behaviors that women have
 reported have been used by their intimate partners and asked to
 estimate how often each happened to them. Statements included such
 items as the intimate partner "called you a name and/or criticized
 you," "Put down your family or friends," "Slapped, hit, or punched
 you," and "Choked or strangled you." Respondents were asked how often
 they experienced such things as "physical pain lasting more than an
 hour" or "a fractured or broken bone" as a result of the physical or
 emotional behavior of their intimate partner. They were also asked if
 they told anyone, and if so, who they told and what happened after
 they were told.
 The women were also asked a series of questions regarding whether
 they had sexual experiences. Questions included, "Had sexual
 intercourse when you both wanted to?", "Found out that someone had
 obtained sexual intercourse with you by saying things the person
 didn't really mean?", or "Have you ever been raped?". This was
 followed by how often the women experienced such things as "physical
 pain lasting more than an hour" or "a fractured or broken bone" as a
 result of their sexual experiences. They were also asked if they told
 anyone and, if so, who they told and what happened after they were
 told.
 Respondents were also read a list of services or resources they may
 have received in the past for abuse experiences they had as an adult
 or child. They were asked whether they had received such a service,
 and if so, how helpful the service was. Included were such services as
 "emotional support from friends or family," "visit to a medical
 provider," "educational support," or "Child Protective Services." They
 were also read a series of statements related to possible barriers or
 challenges that prevented them from getting help for their abuse
 experiences. They were asked whether each statement was true.
 Examples included "My health insurance would not cover services," "I
 was concerned about how much money it would cost," and "I thought it
 would take too much time or be inconvenient."
 The women were also asked about other traumatic experiences they
 may have had such as a life-threatening illness, being present when
 another person was killed, seriously injured, or sexually or
 physically abused, or being involved in a natural disaster.
 Respondents were also asked a series of questions regarding suicide
 including whether they ever thought about committing suicide, whether
 they ever made a plan for committing suicide, and whether they had
 ever attempted suicide.
 Respondents were asked how often they engaged in a series of
 activities in order to generate income. This included such things as
 working full-time, selling recyclable items, writing bad checks, or
 pawning personal or family items.
 Next, the women were asked whether they had ever been arrested and,
 if so, for what.
 Lastly, respondents were asked a series of demographic questions
 including year of birth, racial or ethnic group, number of children,
 education, living arrangements, income, whether they had ever applied
 for or received welfare, home ownership, community description, who
 lived in their home for most of their childhood, their family's
 economic situation while they were growing up, how they found out
 about the study, and whether they had received domestic violence or
sexual assault services in the last 12 months.
description: none
description: Response Rates: Not applicable.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Several Likert-type scales were used.
description: One of the goals of this research endeavor was to
 obtain an ethnically/culturally diverse sample. Special efforts were
 made to achieve this goal. Two of the communities from which sampling
 occurred had significant ethnic minority populations, including
 persons of the African American and Hispanic heritage.
 For Phase One (Part 1), the research sample was drawn from five
 different communities in one Midwestern state. Three urban
 communities, one rural community, and the only correctional facility
 for women in the state were selected in an attempt to secure a
 racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse sample of women aged
 18 and older. Community referrals were generated through recruitment
 of women seeking assistance from sexual assault and domestic violence
 programs and from the community at large. The goal was to recruit at
 least 200 women from the Women's Correctional Facility (WCF), at least
 200 women from domestic violence and sexual assault service providers
 in the four communities, and at least 100 women from the general
 population of all four communities. In the end, the final sample fell
 slightly short of this goal, though achieved the proportionality
 desired with 158 women recruited from the prison, 157 from domestic
 violence and sexual assault programs, and 109 from the four
 communities at large.
 For Phase Two (Parts 2-18), time constraints and an assessment by
 the principal investigators that a certain data saturation level had
 been reached, once the 17 participants were identified and
 interviewed, resulted in the ceasing of recruitment for additional
Phase Two interviews.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Phase One, Interview Data
DS2: Phase Two, Interview 1 Data
DS3: Phase Two, Interview 2 Data
DS4: Phase Two, Interview 3 Data
DS5: Phase Two, Interview 4 Data
DS6: Phase Two, Interview 5 Data
DS7: Phase Two, Interview 6 Data
DS8: Phase Two, Interview 7 Data
DS9: Phase Two, Interview 8 Data
DS10: Phase Two, Interview 9 Data
DS11: Phase Two, Interview 10 Data
DS12: Phase Two, Interview 11 Data
DS13: Phase Two, Interview 12 Data
DS14: Phase Two, Interview 13 Data
DS15: Phase Two, Interview 14 Data
DS16: Phase Two, Interview 15 Data
DS17: Phase Two, Interview 16 Data
DS18: Phase Two, Interview 17 Data
description: All female residents of a Midwestern state from March
2004 to March 2005.
description: face-to-face interview