Valli Rajah

CUNY Graduate Center, New York City, NY, USA

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Publications (7)7.81 Total impact

  • Article: Community violence, social support networks, ethnic group differences, and male perpetration of intimate partner violence.
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    ABSTRACT: The authors examined how witnessing community violence influenced social support networks and how these networks were associated with male-to-female intimate partner violence (IPV) in ethnically diverse male college students. The authors assessed whether male social support members themselves had perpetrated IPV (male network violence) and whether female social support members had been victimized by intimates (female network victimization). The results indicated an association between community violence and male network violence; both factors were significantly associated with higher levels of IPV. Furthermore, the relationship between community violence and IPV was partially mediated by male network violence. Additionally, the results indicated a moderated relationship such that male participants who reported the highest levels of exposure to community violence and male network violence were at highest risk for IPV. However, this relationship did not hold across all ethnicities and races. The findings suggest that the mechanisms associating community violence, networks, and IPV are multifaceted and differ across ethnicity and race.
    Journal of Interpersonal Violence 04/2009; 24(10):1615-32. · 1.64 Impact Factor
  • Article: Harnessing the Power of Advocacy-Research Collaborations: Lessons From the Field.
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    ABSTRACT: The advocacy-research partnership has been identified as a key method of conducting the feminist and activist research that is important to domestic violence. However, these partnerships are often fraught with challenges that may jeopardize their development, sustainability, and potential impact on policy. Previous commentators have identified key challenges to engaging in advocate-researcher collaborations. This article takes particular care to set forth an advocate perspective through the authors' experience of planning and executing a collaborative study on the effects of mandatory arrest. The authors use a study that was specifically designed to affect policy to offer insight into the challenges faced and to make recommendations for successfully incorporating social action in advocacy-researcher collaborations.
    Feminist criminology. 10/2008; 3(4):247-275.
  • Article: Dual Arrest and Other Unintended Consequences of Mandatory Arrest in New York City: A Brief Report
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    ABSTRACT: In jurisdictions across the United States, the mandated arrest of individuals perpetrating domestic violence crimes termed “mandatory arrest” or “pro-arrest” policies has become a key policy solution to the issue of domestic violence. The purposes of the policies are to standardize the police response to, and increase the number of, arrests stemming from domestic violence incidents by removing or reducing police discretion to arrest. In 1994, the New York state legislature passed the Family Protection and Domestic Violence Intervention Act, which contained provisions enacting a mandatory arrest statute. Using information from 183 callers to a telephone helpline for victims of domestic violence, we describe four unintended consequences of the policy: “unwanted,” “dual,” “retaliatory,” and “no” arrest. Bi- and multivariate analyses are used to identify victim and perpetrator sociodemographic, situational, and legal factors associated with each arrest type. Results are discussed in the context of the effects of mandatory arrest policies and minimizing problems associated with it in the future.
    Journal of Family Violence 07/2007; 22(6):397-405. · 1.17 Impact Factor
  • Article: "Aren't I a victim?": Notes on identity challenges relating to police action in a mandatory arrest jurisdiction.
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    ABSTRACT: The mandated arrest of domestic violence perpetrators is a policy response to the problem of partner violence. Mandatory arrest can result, however, in unintended and sometimes undesirable arrest outcomes, including dual arrests (when both parties are arrested), retaliatory arrests (when the perpetrator has his or her partner wrongfully arrested), and failures to make an arrest (when one is warranted by law). Using an interactionist perspective, this research focuses on one negative effect of mandatory arrest: the identity challenge faced by female victims of domestic violence who experience undesirable arrest outcomes. The authors discuss policy implications, focusing on the potential empowerment effects of mandatory arrest.
    Violence Against Women 11/2006; 12(10):897-916. · 1.33 Impact Factor
  • Article: The relationship between drug abuse and sexual performance among women on methadone. Heightening the risk of sexual intimate violence and HIV.
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    ABSTRACT: Through in-depth interviews with 38 women recruited from methadone maintenance treatment programs (MMTPs), this paper examines subjective experiences regarding the effects of illicit drugs on the women's sexual behavior and that of their male sexual partners, mainly changes in libido, performance, and pleasure. This paper addresses several questions: (1) How does drug use affect women's sexual performance? (2) How does drug use affect their partners' sexual performance and the sexual dynamics in their relationship? (3) How does drug use affect these women and their partners differently? (4) How are sexual disparities between women and their partners, heightened by drug use, linked with sexual and physical violence and risk of HIV? Three major themes are discussed: some women believe that drugs, particularly heroin, increase their sexual performance, libido, and pleasure, but for others, drugs, particularly crack cocaine, inhibit their sexual performance and desire. Many of the women believe that crack cocaine and heroin enhance a man's sexual desire, performance, and pleasure. However, other women deem that these drugs are responsible for their partners' abusive and coercive behavior. The data further indicate that gender disparities, in how crack cocaine and heroin affect the sexual dynamics between drug-involved couples, often lead to sexual coercion and physical abuse. This in-depth narrative study of abused women in MMTPs draws implications from their subjective experiences for understanding the contextual mechanisms linking drug use, intimate sexual abuse, and HIV risk. It also suggests implications for designing HIV prevention programs that take into account the differential effects of drugs on sexual intimate violence and HIV risk. Education about the effects of drugs on sexuality and on the risks of sexual violence and HIV transmission is crucial for drug-involved women.
    Addictive Behaviors 11/2003; 28(8):1385-403. · 2.09 Impact Factor
  • Article: Fear and violence: Raising the HIV stakes.
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    ABSTRACT: Examined 3 contexts that delineate the co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and sexual risk behaviors among 68 women (mean age 37 yrs) on methadone. First, it explores the ways in which the presence of physical abuse in an intimate relationship prevents women from asking their partners to use a condom. Second, it describes the ways in which the couple's drug involvement increases the risk of physical and sexual violence, and concomitant sexual HIV risks. Third, it discusses the context in which sexual assault and rape occur in these established intimate relationships and how these abusive events increase women's risks of becoming infected with HIV. The research is guided by feminist theory, which affords powerful insight into the contexts in which women are put at risk for HIV and partner violence. The findings indicate that 1 of the reasons that women failed to ask their intimate partners to use condoms was fear of and experiencing violent behavior. The study provides a discussion on the implications of the findings to HIV prevention for women who are risk for both HIV and partner violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
    AIDS Education and Prevention 03/2000; · 1.59 Impact Factor
  • Article: It doesn't happen here: eating disorders in an ethnically diverse sample of economically disadvantaged, urban college students.
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    ABSTRACT: The bulk of eating disorder studies have focused on white, middle-upper class women, excluding ethnically and economically diverse women and men. Accordingly, our knowledge of prevalence rates and risk factors is reliant on this narrow literature. To expand upon the current literature, we examined eating disorders in ethnically diverse low-income, urban college students. We surveyed 884 incoming freshmen during an orientation class to assess the frequency of eating disorder diagnosis and the risk factors of child physical abuse and sexual abuse before and after age 13. We found 10% of our sample received an eating disorder diagnosis, 12.2% of the women and 7.3% of the men. The majority of these students were Latino/a or "other," with White women receiving the fewest diagnoses. For all women, both child physical abuse and both indices of sexual abuse contributed equally to the development of an eating disorder. For men only the sexual abuse indices contributed to an eating disorder diagnosis. These results indicate that ethnic minority populations do suffer from relatively high rates of self-reported eating disorders and that a history of trauma is a significant risk factor for eating disorders in these diverse populations of both women and men.
    Eating Disorders 15(5):405-25.