Date of Award

2000

Document Type

Project

Degree Name

Master of Social Work

Department

School of Social Work

Abstract

"Our society has generally viewed women as less aggressive and less likely to commit acts of violence in comparison to men. Statistics show that only 13 per cent of the violent crimes in the United States have been committed by women (Steffensmeier and Allan, 1996). However, employees at psychiatric hospitals often report problems of increased violent behavior among their female inpatients. This perception of the female inpatient population is further complicated by the mixed research findings regarding gender and violence. Considering the possible other environmental causations, gender alone should not prove an accurate variable in addressing violent behavior. Variables such as age, location, time, ethnicity, institutionalization and violence to self as opposed to violence to others will likely show significant relevance. This study will attempt to demonstrate how these other biopsychosocial variables play a role in violence prediction for this group of forensically committed patients other than gender."

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