Tiltai

The article explores the dynamics of domestic violence in the city of Klaipėda over the period 2010 to 2014, with the aim of demonstrating how the Republic of Lithuania’s Law on Protection against Domestic Violence (LOPADV), passed in 2011, raised a relatively marginalised phenomenon to the level of a relevant social problem. The statistical data presented in the article call for a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the phenomenon in order to identify the social and legal causes of changes in domestic violence, and to anticipate prerequisites for strategies related to the safety of the victims of violence and the prevention of violence. The article analyses cases of violence registered with Klaipėda city’s Chief Police Commissariat, in an attempt to evaluate the social profile of domestic violence, and to highlight the essential characteristics of perpetrators and victims. By transcending the rather narrow boundaries of the psychological treatment of this phenomenon, an attempt is made to identify the most important empirical characteristics that would lead in the long run to an opportunity for the sociological interpretation of the phenomenon.