Perpetrators of intimate partner violence and mandatory reporting laws: The perspectives and experiences of perpetrators who seek help voluntarily compared with those of victims of intimate partner violence

Treatment for perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) is a crucial preventive measure for IPV. However, professionals working with IPV perpetrators might be mandated by law to intervene when they suspect future IPV, creating a potential conflict for perpetrators seeking help for their problems. There is limited research on IPV perpetrators’ perspectives on mandatory reporting of intimate partner violence (MR-IPV). We aimed to add to this research by examining knowledge, experiences, and perceptions of MR-IPV among perpetrators who had voluntarily sought help for IPV and comparing them with those of IPV victims recruited from IPV help services. Forty-one IPV perpetrators who voluntarily had sought help from help services answered a questionnaire about MR-IPV. Descriptive statistics were used to examine their knowledge, experiences, and perceptions of MR-IPV. Mann–Whitney U tests, chi-square tests, and multivariate logistic regression were used to compare the IPV perpetrators with 86 victims. Results showed that though the majority of IPV perpetrators reported having been informed about MR-IPV (58.5%), few reported knowing the MR-IPV law (19.5%), though 43.9% reported knowing it to some extent . Only 17.5% had experienced MR-IPV. The IPV perpetrators varied in their perceptions of MR-IPV. More IPV victims had experienced MR-IPV compared to IPV perpetrators, and this difference remained statistically significant when controlling for conceptually informed variables (IPV persistence, IPV severity, and the presence of children), sociodemographic characteristics, and participation mode. Despite a modest sample size, our findings bring new insights concerning voluntarily help-seeking IPV perpetrators’ perspectives on MR-IPV. Our findings suggest that professionals must ensure that information about MR-IPV is adequately understood by IPV perpetrators. Despite the fact that there was a difference between perpetrators and victims in IPV characteristics, this could not account for the difference in MR-IPV experience. This suggests that the MR-IPV law might not be practiced uniformly for IPV perpetrators and victims.