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The vital importance of treating victims and perpetrators of family violence is not to be denied. Clearly, the personal safety of victims of family violence must be assured, through law enforcement intervention, battered women's shelters, child protective services, and other intervention strategies. Societal level prevention of family violence ultimately involves reduction of the violence that permeates our society. The concept of primary prevention is borrowed from the fields of public health and mental health. In sharp contrast to the response to child abuse, the problem of wife abuse came to public attention within a distinctly political context. Government officials and the public at large preferred to think of wife abuse as a problem faced mainly by lower-class women at the hands of "sick" husbands. The personal safety of victims of family violence must be assured, through law enforcement intervention, battered women's …