Dear Colleagues,

Abuse and violence in a family context is an unfortunate and well-known socioenvironmental issue across the world due to the alarmingly high frequency of annually reported cases.

The term domestic violence designates all acts of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occur within a family or family unit or between current or previous spouses or partners. In fact, it is also defined as intimate partner violence, and statistically, it is more frequently initiated by men compared to women.

Domestic violence in all its forms—including all acts of violence that cause or are likely to cause harm or suffering of a physical, sexual, psychological or economic nature—represents a violation of human rights and includes threats to commit such acts, as well as the coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberties in both public and private life.

The recent pandemic, with its imposed strict measures of social distancing and domestic isolation, had extremely serious consequences, especially on a socio-economic level, with an increased risk of violence within the home as one of the possible side effects of such measures.

The central manifestation of domestic violence consists of the development of the idea that a violent act against another person is the only solution to a profound emotional conflict, whose real nature remains below the threshold of the consciousness of the subject.

Focusing on these questions, this Special Issue is looking to publish research articles of both clinical and forensic interest in order to analyse the causes and effects of domestic violence.

Manuscripts related to the following key scientific areas are all welcome for this Special Issue:

1. Case reports of domestic violence;
2. Reviews of literature about domestic violence;
3. Case series of feminicides;
4. Metanalysis;
5. Papers concerning bioethics.

Dr. Cristian D’Ovidio
Dr. Michele Treglia
Dr. Enrica Rosato
Dr. Martina Bonelli
Dr. Margherita Pallocci
Prof. Dr. Luigi Tonino Marsella
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forensic Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• violence
• abuse
• family abuse
• forensic
• forensic science
• murder
• overkill
• killing
• suicide
• legal medicine
• sexual harassment
• sexual assault
• feminicide
• matricide
• patricide
• fratricide