Samenvatting

There are two conflicting viewpoints about partner violence: either that it involves a considerable degree of mutual combat or that it generally involves male perpetrators and female victims. In general, results supporting the former viewpoint are usually reported in studies of general population samples, while data that supports the latter viewpoint is usually collected in samples that were recruited in shelters, through victim support, or that was studied through police and court data. This article describes results from a Dutch study that investigated two different research groups: a sample of respondents from the general population and a group of offenders who had been in contact with the police and the law for domestic violence. In line with the literature on this topic, one of the most striking differences between the research groups from the general population and the judicial population is the fact that the former group consisted of more women than men (57.8% versus 42.2%), whereas the second group consisted nearly only of men (93.1% were men). This article explores a number of possible explanations for the strongly divergent proportion of men and women in the two research groups. The most probable explanation seems to be that, although both men and women commit domestic violence, the more serious types of injury are caused more often by men, as a result of which predominantly men come into contact with the police and the law for domestic violence. Moreover, there are some indications in the literature that male victims are less likely to report domestic violence to the police.