Considering ‘Treatment’ and Gender in Programmes for Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators

This chapter explores the notion of ’treatment’ in relation to programmes for men who are violent to their female partners, and the tensions this exposes with regard to gendering of violence. Although traditionally used within the medical field to refer to remedies to improve the health of patients suffering disease or injury, the word ‘treatment’ has increasingly been used to describe how we deal with and intervene in social problems. While originating from, and largely situated within, a generally ‘corrective’ crime related framework, perpetrator programmes at the same time exemplify the shift towards more medicalised and individualised models of crime and social control, as documented by, for instance, Zola (1972), Foucault (1979) or Garland (1990). In some ways these shifts toward more individualised notions are also reflected in parallel discussions regarding masculinities and IPV. The chapter looks at the development and location of perpetrator programmes in these shifting discourses, raising questions about the ‘theory of change’ underpinning such programmes.