Formal or informal social control? Responding to family polyvictimization

Abstract

Building on his research on co-occurrence of violence within a family, Dr. Chan is the first to develop and apply the concept of family polyvictimization in literature. When studying the co-occurring victimization within a family, current literature often focuses on individual violence and fails to cover three forms of violence or more in a family. Dr. Chan’s studies fill the research gap by using families, instead of individuals, as units and investigating the prevalence and patterns of family polyvictimization. Taking this whole-family approach is more realistic to Asian and Chinese cultures. When adopting formal approach of violence prevention, we should recognize that the professional, formal approach for violence prevention may not be fully applicable in the less-developed Asian contexts. Having been inspired by the strong social informal networks in the Chinese as well as other Asian cultures, Dr. Chan started explores the feasibility and effectiveness of using informal social control for the prevention of family violence. The development of the unique perspective of Asian has led to an approach that allows one to see family as a whole, and to utilize the powerful informal social network to help Asian families build safety support nets for the violence victims.