The Military Environment and Child Abuse

Analysis of 591 cases of confirmed physical abuse of Air Force children was conducted to compare the rate of child abuse in this military community with rates reported for the civilian population, and to investigate 'aspects of military life which may account for differences between military and civilian rates of child abuse and differences within the military. The findings suggest that child abuse is somewhat more prevalent in the military. Contrary to civilian populations, fathers were more abusive than mothers. Within the military, the following factors were found to be related to higher rates of child abuse: (1) geographical isolation (2) low rank (3) assignment to an occupational situs-in this case, type of "commandB--with a violent mission (4) a specific military duty or job involving violence. The findings are interpreted as supporting social structural, social stress, and social learning theories of child abuse, but alternative plausible interpretations are also suggested. THE MILITARY ENVIRONMENT The Air Force is in many respects a microcosm of the general society. It has shared with the rest of the nation the general neglect and also the recent concern about aggression and violence occurring within the family (Helfer and Kempe, 1974). The military's response to this concern was prompted by Helfer's assertion that "child abuse in the military is apparently three times as great as.in the civilian population, with 10% of these cases resulting in a fatality in contrast to a 3-4% rate in the civilian population" (Acord,1977). There is both theoretical reasons and some rudimentary evidence indicating that child abuse is more prevalent in the uniformed services (Miller,1976). There is also an equally sound rationale, and some hard data, suggesting that child abuse is not more of a problem than in the civilian community (Acord,1977; Myers,1977). Our first objective then, will be to determine and examine rhe *This paper is based on the M.A. Thesis of the same title as this paper by the first author (University of New Hampshire, 1979). The research is one of a series sponsored by the Family Violence Research Program of the University of New Hampshire, and supported by NIMH grants MH27557 and T32 MH15161 and by the University of New Hampshire. A program bibliography and list of available publications will be sent on request to Straus. The authors wish to acknowledge with thanks the advice and assistance of Professors Arnold S. Linsky, Lawrende C. Hamilton, and Stuart H. Palmer.