Legal and Psychological Approaches to Understanding Domestic Violence for American Indian Women

This chapter presents two studies: the first examined the influence of anti- American Indian attitudes on culpability decisions for domestic violence when the man's and woman's race (American Indian/European American) and alcohol use (intoxicated or not) were varied; the second examined what constitutes domestic violence for both American Indian and European American women from the same geographic region. The research has implications for a number of issues in the fight to end domestic violence. For example, biases in culpability decision making when American Indian women are involved in domestic abuse have implications for federal intervention and prosecution of non-Indian abusers on reservations and for urban cases as well.