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Opressive to women and children  http://www.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/Hamm.htm

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The catholic church endorses "The Rules Of Marriage" enabling men to beat their wives in the 15th century

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The catholic church endorses "The Rules Of Marriage" enabling men to beat their wives in the 15th century

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https://www.projectpeacemakersinc.org/historical-facts-about-domestic-vio

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Domestic violence has been visible throughout history. In early Roman society, a woman was deemed the property of the husband and was therefore subject to his control. According to early Roman law, a man could beat, divorce, or murder his wife for offenses committed by her, which besmirched his honor or threatened his property rights. These were considered private matters and were not publicly scrutinized. (Violence Against Women 1994).

The Catholic Church's endorsement of "The Rules of Marriage" in the 15th century exhorted the husband to stand as judge of his wife. He was to beat her with a stick upon her commission of an offense. According to the "Rules," beating showed a concern for the wife's soul. The common law in England gave a man the right to beat his wife in the interest of maintaining family discipline. The phrase "rule of thumb" referred Domestic Abuse 3 to the English common law, which allowed a husband to beat his wife as long as he used a stick that was no bigger than his thumb. (Violence Against Women 1994). Women were not the only ones subject to abuse. In 18th Century France, if it became public that his wife had beaten a man, he was forced to wear an outlandish costume and ride backwards around the village on a donkey. ( www.vix.com/men/battery/commentary).

In early America, English law greatly affected the decisions of the colonial courts. The Puritans openly banned family violence. The laws, however, lacked strict enforcement. It was not until the 1870's that the first states banned a man's right to beat his family. The laws were moderately enforced until the feminist movement of the 1960's started bringing the problems of domestic abuse to the attention of the media. By the 1980's most states had adopted legislation regarding domestic violence. (Violence Against Women 1994). The reason that history has been brought into this report is to demonstrate that there is no quick fix. As a civilized society we must identify the problems before we can mend them. Our goal is to continue to make progress and an impact on breaking the cycle of domestic abuse in all relationships of society no matter age, gender, sex, or ethnicity.

(Above text insert can be located on https://www.cji.edu/site/assets/files/1921/domestic_abuse_report.pdf)

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Historical Facts about Domestic Violence | Project: PeaceMakers

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Domestic violence has been visible throughout history. In early Roman society, a woman was deemed the property of the husband and was therefore subject to his control. According to early Roman law, a man could beat, divorce, or murder his wife for offenses committed by her, which besmirched his honor or threatened his property rights.

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Puritans ban family violence, but don't do much to punish it "to protect marriage" 1641

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Puritans ban family violence, but don't do much to punish it "to protect marriage" 1641

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https://origins.osu.edu/article/private-matter-or-public-crisis-defining-and-responding-domestic-violence

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On February 15, 2014, NFL star Ray Rice and Janay Palmer, who were then engaged, were both arrested on assault charges in Atlantic City after getting into what Rice's attorney then described as a "minor physical altercation" in an elevator.

A few days later, TMZ released a video showing Rice dragging an unconscious Palmer out of the hotel elevator. Rice was indicted on third degree aggravated assault charges, to which he pled not guilty. He was accepted into a pretrial intervention program, which is rarely used in domestic assault cases, for first-time offenders that would clear him of all charges in six months.

In late July 2014, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also handed Rice a two game suspension. Many felt that the punishment was too light, and it incited criticism of the NFL's personal conduct policy on domestic violence. In response, the NFL revised its policy and instituted a six game suspension for first time offenders.

Controversy around the incident, however, erupted again in early September 2014, when TMZ released another video, this one of the fight that occurred in the elevator. It showed Rice punching Palmer and knocking her to the ground.

Goodell, having already faced criticism for punishing Rice too lightly, tried to argue that he had never seen that particular footage and that Rice had misrepresented the incident to him. He suspended Rice indefinitely. When Rice appealed his suspension this past November, however, a judge ruled that Rice had not lied or misled the NFL about what happened in the elevator. His suspension was lifted.

The fact that there was public outrage not only over Ray Rice's transgressions, but also the NFL's handling of those transgressions, reflects important changes in public and legal reactions regarding violence towards women.

These public acts confirm that the extensive work that feminist activists and battered women themselves did in the 1970s has been, in some measure, successful in changing policies and attitudes about domestic violence.

These activists made domestic violence visible, defined it as a significant social issue, and demanded that those in positions of power impose consequences on abusers.

They argued that domestic violence was, like rape, a problem rooted in the abuse of power and it was perpetuated because it had never been seen as a problem in the first place. They highlighted police departments' policies of looking the other way when men beat women and a social-service system ill-equipped to deal with battered women.

Feminist activists in the 1970s responded in two broad ways.

First, they established shelters for victims, often organized, funded, and run outside of the existing social-service system. These became places where women could not only find immediate help but also change their domestic situation.

Second, activists fought for the adoption of mandatory arrest policies, which require police to arrest a perpetrator when there is probable cause to believe that a domestic assault has occurred.

Despite the radical transformation in how we view domestic violence that has characterized recent years, the process has been anything but straightforward.

Among many hurdles, activists for years have struggled over where the boundaries of public and private are found in family life. And this distinction has been crucial to how American law and police approach violence within the family.

Those concerned with domestic violence have consistently grappled with the question of what kind of violations necessitated public scrutiny and intervention in a marriage or family, otherwise private institutions.

Invoking a right to privacy in the family has historically served to shield domestic abusers from consequences, as well as to naturalize the home as a place in which some violence is socially acceptable.
Legislating Against Domestic Violence in the New England Colonies
Of course, feminists of the 1970s were not the first activists to address domestic violence. In 1641, the Massachusetts Bay colony passed a law making spousal abuse illegal. These Puritans also relied heavily on community policing to regulate violence in the home.

Privacy was not a paramount concern to the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony of the seventeenth century. The success of their New World endeavor-their "city on a hill"-rested on the creation of a community that was peaceful, stable, and godly.

Family violence was one of the many sins that had the potential to rupture the stability of their desired community. It put both the individual's and the community's relationship with God in jeopardy, and could therefore threaten the success of the entire project.

"In Puritan society, meddling was a positive virtue," historian Elizabeth Pleck argues. Community policing, moral shaming, and nosiness were among the primary ways in which the Puritans dealt with domestic abuse.

They saw husbands who beat their wives without reason as violating the bonds of matrimony, and these men were dishonored in the eyes of the community.
Puritans never went so far as to argue that violating those bonds of matrimony, at least by husbands, justified the dissolution of marriages. They believed in preserving the family unit above protecting the physical safety of victims, and so Puritan courts were reluctant to separate wives from husbands.

Sometimes they would allow wives to live separately from husbands, but only until the husband was "reformed." Most often, perpetrators of family violence were sentenced to pay a fine or to be whipped.

Puritans did believe that some violence in the home was justified.

Because they believed so strongly in hierarchy and authority, Puritans also thought that wives could provoke violence. For example, wives who "nagged" their husbands too much, neglected their families, or committed adultery were not seen as blameless victims if their husbands hit them.

So, although the Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641) included a provision that stated, "Everie marryed woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husband, unless it be in his owne defence upon her assault," it also provided for the use of "legitimate" force in the home.

Husbands, as head of households and therefore the closest to God, could use physical violence to punish disobedient wives, children, or servants. In Puritan society and law, wives, children and servants did not have the authority to justify violence against male heads of households.

Legislating against domestic violence made the Puritans unique in their time. Most other communities accepted family violence as normal, acceptable, and even necessary to the good functioning of society.

The Puritans' motivations for opposing spousal violence came from their distinctive project in the New World, and not out of an altruistic concern for wives who were abused. Their insistence on upholding the hierarchy of the patriarchal family and the authority of husbands would profoundly influence the way domestic violence was perceived.

The belief that some violence in the home, especially violence that was meant to control "disobedient" wives, was acceptable persisted.

This idea, combined with the later Victorian belief that the home was the ultimate pillar upholding personal privacy in the 1800s, made it difficult for 19 th century women activists to question these power relationships at the heart of the male-dominated family. Instead, in order to address domestic violence, Victorian activists would have to tackle alcohol consumption first.
Temperance Activists take on Domestic Violence:
Roughly 200 years after the Puritans established the Body of Liberties, temperance reformers became the first American activists to consider domestic violence a serious social problem.

The earliest temperance society can be traced to the 1830s and aimed to prohibit the sale, production, and distribution of alcohol. Men controlled this early organization, but by the 1840s the movement had been taken over by white, middle-class women.

These women believed that drinking excessively led to spousal abuse, and sought to eliminate the source of the problem.

Alcohol consumption in the nineteenth century was indeed prodigious. According to scholar Daniel Okrent, in the 1830s American adults consumed seven gallons of pure alcohol every year. Okrent says, "[F]iguring per capita, multiply the amount Americans drink today by three and you'll have an idea of what much of the nineteenth century was like."

Many temperance activists believed that wife-beating was a byproduct of drunkenness and historical evidence suggests they were not wrong.

Some feminists in the movement took the argument further by insisting that it was also a gendered problem, enacted on women by men. Women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Amelia Bloomer-who was most famous for creating the Bloomer costume-campaigned for the liberalization of divorce laws as the logical extension of the temperance movement and its equation of drink with domestic violence.

These antebellum feminists argued that changes to divorce practice were a moral necessity. They considered it a cruel perversion of marriage and motherhood to require a woman to remain married to a husband who was made "brutish" by alcohol.

By 1850, some states granted divorce on the grounds of cruelty, which was vaguely defined, but battered women were dependent on the mercy and judgment of individual judges.

Stanton, Anthony, and Bloomer sought legal changes that would allow women to divorce their husbands on the grounds of drunkenness as well. While these changes would not have directly addressed the issue of domestic violence, advocates hoped that they would expand women's access to divorce and allow them to more easily call on state intervention in their marriages.

Most American women, however, were not supportive of the campaign to liberalize divorce laws.

The 250,000 women who belonged to the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), one of the largest women's reform organizations of the nineteenth century, remained focused on their goal to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol, assuming related social problems would disappear as a result.

Frustrated by a lack of support for their crusade to expand divorce laws, Stanton and Anthony both resigned from the New York State Temperance Society in 1853. Although they continued their campaign to change divorce laws, neither one ever joined another temperance society again.

While they did not endorse strategies such as liberalizing divorce and child custody laws for abused women, the women of the WCTU did seek to redefine the patriarchal family as one in which women held the power to reform abusive husbands.

These reformers believed that the home was a place where women held moral authority and could potentially (as the Puritans thought) shame their husbands into behaving themselves.

When Frances Willard ( right), president of the WCTU from 1879 to 1898, died, both the WCTU's influence and the focus on women's issues in the fight for prohibition began to wane. This was partly due to Willard's death and partly due to the rising popularity of the Anti-Saloon League (ASL), which took up the campaign until the passage of prohibition.

Although the battered wife who populated the WCTU's literature and rhetoric would not completely disappear from the campaign, she was no longer its central figure.

After the Constitutional amendment barring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol took effect in 1920, domestic violence almost completely disappeared from public consciousness.

As Elizabeth Pleck says, "There was virtually no public discussion of wife beating from the turn of the century until the mid-1970s."

For most of the twentieth century, social workers concerned with domestic matters focused on poor, immigrant, or African American households. They blamed individual failings for the violence they found in these households and concentrated primarily on abuse of children.

If alcohol had been considered a root cause of family violence during the temperance era, then it was poverty, the cultures of immigrants, and racial and ethnic differences that were seen as the sources of wife beating in the decades that followed.

Domestic violence would not again be connected to a social movement until the 1970s with the emergence of a new generation of feminists. And with them came a new idea: that violence in the family was the result of a systemic assault on women by men.
Feminists in the 1970s Take on Domestic Violence:
In 1976, a Washington Post headline announced "Home Called More Violent than Street."

The story covered a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in which a panel of criminologists declared, "the problem [of domestic violence] is worse than crime on the streets."

The panel attributed part of the problem to the "reluctance of the police, the courts, and the government to pass and enforce laws that intrude on the family." American notions of the need to protect the individual from state intrusion, and of the paramount importance of privacy, prevented leaders and victims in the United States from confronting domestic abuse.

In the 1970s, feminists "rediscovered" domestic violence and defined it as a serious social problem.

This was only possible because the women's movement of that era inspired women to look inward and think critically about their most personal and private relationships. It also encouraged women and men to question the nature of the patriarchal family.

Feminists argued that sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence, and all kinds of sexual violence were not a natural part of family life and that they result from an abuse of power rather than a gratification of sexual needs.

One of the ways in which feminists came to this analysis of domestic violence was through their participation in consciousness-raising groups. These were discussion groups where women gathered together to discuss their personal lives.

In the course of talking about their personal experiences, women would find that they were not the only ones to be abused by their husbands or partners. They came to the collective conclusion that, contrary to what they had been told or previously believed, they did not deserve nor did they cause the abuse they suffered.

Many of the first domestic violence shelters emerged out of these consciousness-raising groups.

For example, in 1972 a group of women in Bangor, Maine established a battered women's shelter called Spruce Run.

The women who founded this shelter discovered, in a consciousness-raising group, that they had all experienced intimate partner violence. Unable to see that abuse as part of a larger pattern of gendered power relationships, and with few resources to help them analyze their own lives or build new ones, they remained in abusive relationships far longer than they wanted.

Lou Chamberland, a founding member of Spruce Run, explained, "[T]he original idea was just a safe place.... I mean, that's where we started from. Which goes, if you had a place, then people could go there and they'd be safe. At least they'd be safe."

Literally without anywhere to escape from violence, battered women first looked to find spaces where they could feel and be safe. From there, they built programs, like job training, childcare, and transitional housing, to help abused women rebuild their lives and empower themselves.

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Domestic Violence: Private Matter or Public Crisis?

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On February 15, 2014, NFL star Ray Rice and Janay Palmer, who were then engaged, were both arrested on assault charges in Atlantic City after getting into what Rice's attorney then described as a "minor physical altercation" in an elevator.

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Court case happens and maryland becomes the first state to make wife beating illegal in 1883

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Court case happens and maryland becomes the first state to make wife beating illegal in 1883

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https://cite.case.law/md/59/264/

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Domestic violence is made illegal by all US states in 1920

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Domestic violence is made illegal by all US states in 1920

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https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/law/crime-and-law-enforcement/domestic-violence#:~:text=All%20states%20made%20%22wife%20beating,as%20a%20private%20family%20matter.

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All states made "wife beating" illegal by 1920. However, only since the 1970s has the criminal justice system begun to treat domestic violence as a serious crime, not as a private family matter. Domestic violence is any physical, sexual, or psychological abuse that people use against a former or current intimate partner. It refers to a number of criminal behaviors: assault and battery; sexual assault; stalking; harassment; violation of a civil restraining order; homicide; and other offenses that occur in the course of a domestic violence incident, such as arson, robbery, malicious destruction of property, and endangering a minor. No person can validly consent to a breach of the peace or a battery that may result in serious injury or death. Furthermore, most states have abolished the marital rape exemption in toto; this exemption precluded husbands from being prosecuted for raping their wives. Thus, in general, there is no legal distinction between crimes committed against intimate partners and those committed against strangers.

Police, prosecutors, and judges are routinely trained in domestic violence, and aggressive interventions are continually implemented. Individuals across the political spectrum have generally supported these changes, although there is ongoing debate as to which interventions work best. Furthermore, some fear that the pendulum has swung too far, and that those who are accused of domestic violence, particularly men, are presumed guilty rather than innocent. Advocates are concerned that the needs of victims are being sacrificed for higher conviction rates. Indeed, the ongoing challenge for the criminal justice system is to protect the rights of both defendants and victims while at the same time treating domestic violence as a serious social problem. Even though the criminal justice system has come a long way since 1920, it still has a long way to go.

Who are the abusers? Who are the victims?

The majority of those arrested for domestic violence are heterosexual men. However, between 5 and 15 percent of those arrested for battering are women. Many of these cases involve self-defending women who have been mistakenly arrested. While women can be the initial aggressor, female abusers are rarely identified or studied. Thus, most theoretical and practical work on domestic violence, as well as the policies and controversies that are discussed in this entry, assume the male batterer/female victim paradigm.

Gay men and lesbians constitute only a small percentage of those arrested for domestic violence. As with female abusers, we know surprisingly little about domestic violence in same-sex relationships. Same-sex victims receive fewer protections and face many more social consequences when reporting domestic violence to the authorities than heterosexual victims. For example, many states define domestic violence in a way that excludes same-sex victims, and some states with sodomy laws also require victims to acknowledge that they are in a domestic relationship, forcing victims to admit to a crime before receiving legal protection.

How many people are victims of domestic violence? The honest answer is that we just do not know. The federal government and a majority of the states collect statistics on domestic violence, but there are wide variations in how each jurisdiction defines offenses, determines what is counted, and measures or reports incidents. Statistics on the incidence and prevalence of domestic violence vary greatly. Thus, it is imperative that when evaluating data one considers the source and the methodology. It is vital to have an accurate picture of domestic violence in order to formulate appropriate policies and maintain intellectual integrity.

There are two official federal measures of crime, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) of the F.B.I. The NCVS gathers information about crime and its consequences from a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents. It surveys respondents about any crimes experienced, including their relationship to the perpetrator. However, there is no way to independently verify this information or to determine how many incidents go unreported to authorities. In fact, it is estimated that about one-half of the incidents of intimate violence experienced by women are never reported to the police. This percentage is likely higher for both straight and gay men and lesbians given that the traditional definition of domestic violence is "wife beating."

The UCR tracks crimes reported to law enforcement. However, it does not require local law enforcement to maintain data on the relationship between victim and offender except in the case of murder. The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), authorized by Congress in 1995, will include and standardize data collection on domestic violence. However, NIBRS has not yet been implemented nationally.

Data compiled in 1996 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics yielded the estimate that women experienced 840,000 rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault victimizations at the hands of an intimate, down from 1.1 million in 1993. Men experienced about 150,000 such victimizations, with little variation between 1992 and 1996. In 1996, just over 1,800 murders were attributable to intimates, and in almost three out of four of these killings, the victim was a woman. By comparison, in 1976, there were nearly 3,000 victims of intimate murder (Greenfeld). Other studies have suggested that as many as four million women are battered each year, and that 14 percent of women report having been violently abused by a spouse or boyfriend at some time in their lives. (Healy, Smith, and O'Sullivan).

Most intimate relationships are established between people of the same racial and economic background. Domestic violence occurs across all demographic groups. However, official rates of nonlethal, intimate violence are highest among women aged sixteen to twenty-four, women in households in the lowest income categories, and women residing in urban areas (Greenfeld). Couples who cohabitate experience more violence than those who are married (Holzworth-Munroe). Other studies have found that abused women are more likely to live in communities with the highest rates of stranger violence (Fagan). African American women comprise the largest group of victims, although they are also more likely to report intimate victimizations to the police than any other group. However, ethnicity and race are not significant correlates with domestic violence when controlling for other socio-demographic variables, such as income, employment status, and age.

Official statistics may be overinclusive of the poor and minorities. Women with higher incomes often have the resources to deal with domestic violence privately without involving the criminal justice system. Furthermore, the police may be more likely to arrest people in poor and middle-class neighborhoods than in upper-class neighborhoods. However, those with fewer resources also face more stressors, and while stress itself does not lead directly to violence, it can exacerbate the risk of violence (Holzworth-Munroe).

The causes of domestic violence

There are many theories as to the causes of domestic violence. Feminist-inspired theories look to the institution of patriarchy and argue that battering mirrors male power and control over females. Family-based theories examine the level of family conflict and the indirect lessons children learn about the relationship between violence and love. Individual-based theories attribute domestic violence to personality disorders or biomedical factors, such as head injuries or mental illness. Evolutionary theorists have suggested that male violence against females, both in primates and cross-culturally, is a strategy used to control the female's reproduction and, in humans, is often precipitated by male sexual jealousy (Daly and Wilson).

Furthermore, domestic violence researchers are exploring how race, class, religion, and culture, as well as psychological variables such as low self-esteem and abusive childhoods, affect one's experiences with violence. As a result, we are beginning to understand how the battering experience is both common and unique among abusers and victims.

No single causal model can explain why people hurt those they claim to love. As research becomes more interdisciplinary, and policies are driven as much by empirical data as by politics, theories will have to account for the complicated interplay of biological, social, economic, cultural, and individual factors that lead to domestic violence.

Federal approaches to domestic violence

Local and state governments are responsible for enforcing most domestic violence crimes. However, in 1994, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Among its many provisions, VAWA makes certain offenses federal crimes, such as interstate stalking and violation of a protection order. In addition, the 1996 Lautenberg Amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits the transfer, possession, or receipt of both firearms and ammunition by anyone convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence offense. These laws reflect a larger trend to federalize the criminal law, and they are controversial. Advocates applaud them as providing for a fundamental change in the criminal justice system's response to domestic violence. Opponents argue that they are overreaching, ineffective, and grant excessive power to the federal government, and insist that combating domestic violence is best left to local, not federal, law enforcement. It is too early to access VAWA's impact on curbing domestic violence.

Arrest policies

Prior to 1984, most police could not legally make a warrantless arrest unless a misdemeanor occurred in the officer's presence, or the officer had probable cause to believe that a felony had taken place. Since most domestic violence cases involve simple assault and batterya misdemeanorthe police could not make an arrest at the scene. Advising the husband or boyfriend to "take a walk around the block" was often the extent of police intervention.

In 1984, the U.S. Attorney General recommended arrest as the standard police response to domestic violence. This recommendation resulted from a landmark Minneapolis controlled experimental study that compared the deterrent effects of arresting the suspect, mediating the dispute, and requiring the batterer to leave the house for eight hours. The study found that arrest more effectively deterred subsequent violence than did the other courses of action. The results were widely publicized.

That same year, Tracy Thurman received a $1.9 million settlement from the Torrington, Connecticut, Police Department for its policy of nonintervention and nonarrest in domestic violence cases. After the Thurman case, police departments concerned about similar lawsuits began to rethink their policies. All fifty states now provide for warrantless arrests in domestic violence cases.

Since arrest statutes have been broadened, many jurisdictions have adopted mandatory or pro-arrest policies. Under these policies, an arrest is either required or preferred if the police officer has probable cause to believe that a domestic battery has taken place, regardless of the victim's wishes. These policies have received mixed reviews. Some advocates maintain that mandatory arrest not only substantially reduces domestic assaults and murders, especially when prosecution follows, but also provides police officers with clear guidelines on how to proceed, correcting the "take a walk around the block" mentality. Opponents argue that these policies fail to account for the criminal justice system's historic mistreatment of minorities. Furthermore, when officers are either unable or unwilling to discern who was the initial aggressor, mandatory arrest policies can result in both parties being arrested. Thus, these pro-arrest policies have the unintended consequence of penalizing rather than protecting victims. Others argue that police ought to have more discretion to handle domestic violence situations on a case-by-case basis.

Does arrest work? The research is inconclusive. For example, when the Minneapolis study was replicated in other jurisdictions, the results differed significantly. Specifically, arrest consistently deterred employed batterers, but increased repeat violence among unemployed batterers. Yet, these findings were largely ignored. Furthermore, between 1992 and 1996, while the police responded to 90 percent of calls for assistance, in only 20 percent of the cases was the alleged abuser arrested immediately (Greenfeld). These findings raise questions as to how effective arrest policies have been in reducing recidivism or changing police practices.

Prosecution and sentencing policies

Prosecutors routinely fail to initiate cases and follow through with prosecution. Victim noncooperation is often cited as the major reason for dismissing a domestic violence case. Thus, once police began to arrest alleged batterers, advocates began to focus reform efforts on prosecution practices. As a result, prosecutors are undertaking new initiatives. Many have established specialized domestic violence units. A few units specialize in same-sex battering, while others target teenagers in dating relationships, where experimentation with violence often begins. Vertical prosecution, in which one prosecutor is assigned to handle the case from arraignment to completion, thus providing the victim with ongoing support, is becoming common. Increasingly, jurisdictions are employing social workers to counsel victims and their families. Some courts expedite, or rocket docket, domestic violence cases. Others divert first-time offenders into batterer treatment prior to trial.

Most controversial, many jurisdictions are implementing no-drop policies. Under such policies, prosecutors cannot routinely dismiss charges at the victim's request, but are required to pursue a case if enough evidence exists to substantiate the charge. Moreover, the prosecutor usually signs the charge, relieving the victim of responsibility. At least four states have adopted legislation encouraging the use of no-drop policies, and VAWA has authorized grants to local law enforcement agencies that adopt aggressive prosecution policies.

Pro-prosecution policies are often characterized as either hard or soft no-drop policies. Under hard policies, cases proceed regardless of the victim's wishes when there is enough evidence to go forward. This can include subpoenaing the victim to testify and requesting that the judge issue an order of contempt if the victim refuses to cooperate. Most states recognize an exemption to marital privilege laws in cases in which one spouse is charged with a crime against the other and, thus, the vast majority of victims can be compelled to testify as a witness for the state and incarcerated for refusing to do so. Some jurisdictions go forward without the victim's testimony, just as if it were a homicide case, by introducing other evidence, such as 911 tapes, photographs, medical records, and testimonies of police officers and expert witnesses.

Under soft policies, victims are provided with support services and encouraged to proceed, but are never mandated to participate. The state will not proceed if the victim insists that the case be dropped.

Those supportive of aggressive prosecution argue that no-drop policies take the burden off the victim by removing her as the "plaintiff." They contend that the batterer has less incentive to try to harm or intimidate his victim once he realizes that she no longer controls the process. Furthermore, aggressive prosecution sends a strong message that domestic violence is a crime against the state as well as the individual. However, many advocates for battered women argue that the use of hard policies has the unintended effect of punishing or revictimizing the victim for the actions of the abuser. It also fails to take into account the effect that prosecution will have on family income or children. The state should neither force the victim into a process over which she has no control, nor undermine her autonomy or decision-making.

Do aggressive prosecution policies work? It is difficult to measure the difference between policies as written and policies as practiced. While early data indicate that aggressive policies can reduce domestic homicides, lower recidivism rates, and change attitudes within the criminal justice system, more research is needed to verify these findings (Hanna, 1996).

Despite these reforms, most domestic violence cases still end in arrest. Of those cases that are prosecuted, many are charged or plead down to misdemeanors even though the conduct constituted a felony. When prosecutors do go forward, the final disposition is most often a period of probation. A growing number of defendants must also complete a batterer's treatment program as a condition of probation. Only a small percentage of domestic violence offenders are sentenced to incarceration (Hanna, 1998).

How do domestic violence cases compare to nondomestic violence cases? As of 1999, no empirical evidence supported the assertion that the criminal justice system treats domestic violence offenses less seriously than other violent crimes. One study in the mid-1980s found that offenders closely related by blood or sexual ties to their victims were usually given probation or had their cases dismissed, but so too were offenders unrelated to their victims (Ferraro and Boychuck). According to a 1998 study of all inmates incarcerated in state prisons, the median sentence for assault was four years longer if the victim was the offender's spouse rather than a stranger (Greenfeld). Given the changes in arrest and prosecution policies, as well as increased public pressure on law enforcement to treat domestic violence as a serious crime, it is likely that domestic cases are being treated more seriously than nondomestic cases.

Batterer treatment programs

In 1984, the Attorney General's Task Force on Family Violence concluded that treatment for domestic violence is most successful when the criminal justice system mandates it. Although the Task Force report recommended incarceration for serious offenses, it encouraged the use of batterer treatment programs in cases where the injury to the victim was not serious. Since then, the criminal justice system has adopted faith in treatment as a matter of policy. Some states require courts to order attendance into a batterer treatment program as a condition of probation. Others have pretrial diversion programs in which first-time offenders can avoid conviction by completing a batterer treatment program. VAWA also endorses batterer treatment for violations of its criminal provisions.

Many states mandate the length and content of treatment programs that can be court ordered, although there is no convincing evidence that either the length or model of the treatment determines its effectiveness. Most court-ordered programs are six months to a year long. Program content varies greatly. Early programs were based on the premise that poor conflict management skills within the relationship caused violence and, therefore, treated both parties. Most court-ordered programs today, however, reject couple's therapy and treat the batterer only. While some programs focus on anger control and the individual's history with violence, increasingly, the majority of court-ordered programs adopt the premise that battering is an outgrowth of patriarchy and focus on the use of violence by the batterer to establish power and control over his victim. Most of these programs will not accept batterers who have substance abuse problems, although more than half of those incarcerated for domestic violence had been using drugs or alcohol at the time of the incident for which they were incarcerated, suggesting that many abusers are in need of multiple interventions (Greenfeld).

Does batterer treatment work? Some available data suggest that court-ordered treatment correlates with a reduction in physical violence, although treatment neither terminates violence in many cases nor curbs the more subtle forms of abuse. However, whether treatment, or simply individual motivation brought on by legal intervention, causes the reduction of violence is unclear. In fact, some studies have found that men arrested and treated resume violent behaviors as frequently as do men arrested and not referred to treatment, and that there is no significant difference between men who complete batterer's treatment and men who drop out of the program (Rosenfeld). The available research on batterer treatment is hampered by the lack of a control group. As of 1999, no study has randomly assigned abusers to incarceration, treatment, or unsupervised probation. A control group would give researchers confidence that treatment, and not some other variable, such as threat of incarceration, individual motivation, support from one's partner, social stigma, or other factors, are influencing a change in behavior. Additionally, many studies are methodologically unsound. Sample sizes are often too small to draw valid conclusions and drop-out rates are high. Even more troubling is that most studies that report treatment successes include only subjects who have no substance abuse problems, no psychiatric difficulty, and high motivation. Thus, the complex question of which programs work best for whom, and under what circumstances, remains largely unanswered.

Finally, some jurisdictions have established specialized probation units. Probation officers trained in domestic violence intensively supervise abusers, following their progress in treatment and at home. This is considered to be the last loophole that the criminal justice system needs to close in order to hold abusers accountable for their crimes.

Future of the system's response to domestic violence

One of the most promising developments in the prevention and treatment of domestic violence is research on batterer typologies. Despite popular misconceptions, all abusers are not equally dangerous, nor are they all alike. It is estimated that only two percent of the total male population is repeatedly severely abusive to women in any given year (Dutton). Most men arrested for domestic violence are low-risk offenders, and are violent only with family members. Those who pose the greatest risk often have extensive criminal histories, including property crimes, drug or alcohol offenses, and violent offenses against nonfamily victims (Dutton). This research will help law enforcement to better screen cases and develop interventions that account for the differences among abusers. In addition, research on the relationship between violence and biomedical conditions is likely to lead to treatments for abusers that involve both medical and behavioral therapy.

The criminal justice system also needs to expand its understanding of domestic violence beyond the male abuser/female victim model and to provide adequate protections for all victims regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Further research into why most men do not engage in intimate violence is imperative to understand what role gender does play in domestic violence.

Only time and solid research will tell if the criminal justice system can successfully reduce domestic violence. None of the initiatives described above will work in isolation. The best research suggests that a coordinated community response, which involves police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, probation officers, victims' advocates, treatment providers, and medical professionals, is essential. And, while both lethal and nonlethal intimate violence declined in the 1990s, so too has nondomestic violence. Thus, we must be cautious before attributing progress solely to more aggressive criminal intervention. Nevertheless, many remain optimistic that treating domestic violence as a serious public crime and not a trivial family matter will make for a safer society.

Cheryl Hanna

See also Family Abuse and Crime; Homicide: Behavioral Aspects; Justification: Self-Defense; Scientific Evidence; Stalking; Victims; Violence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Attorney General's Task Force on Family Violence. Final Report, U.S. Department of Justice.

Bachman, Ronet, and Salzman, Linda E. "Violence against Women: Estimates from the Redesigned Survey (NCJ-154348)." Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1995.

Buzawa, Eve S., and Buzawa, Carl G. Domestic Violence: The Changing Criminal Justice Response. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1992.

. Domestic Violence: The Criminal Justice System Response. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1996.

. Do Arrests and Restraining Orders Work? Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1992.

Daly, Martin, and Wilson, Margo. Homicide. Aldine de Gruyter, 1988.

Dutton, Donald G., with Golant, Susan K. The Batterer: A Psychological Profile. New York: Basic Books, 1995.

Edelson, Jeffrey L. Intervention for Men Who Batter: An Ecological Approach. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1992.

Fagan, Jeffrey. "The Criminalization of Domestic Violence: Promises and Limits." Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1996.

Ferraro, Kathleen J., and Boychuck, Tascha. "The Court's Response to Interpersonal Violence: A Comparison of Intimate and Nonintimate Assault." In Domestic Violence: The Changing Criminal Justice Response. Edited by Eve S. Buzawa and Carl G. Buzawa. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1992. Pages 209ff.

Fineman, Martha, and Mykitiuk, Roxanne, eds. The Public Nature of Private Violence. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Gelles, Richard, and Loseke, Donileen R., eds. Current Controversies on Family Violence. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1992.

Goldfarb, Sally. "Describing Without Circumscribing: Questioning the Construct of Gender in the Discourse of Intimate Violence." George Washington Law Review U.S. Department of Justice. 64 (1996): 582631.

Gondolf, Edward W. "Who Are Those Guys? Toward a Behavioral Typology of Batterers." Violence & Victims 3 (1980): 187.

. "An Exploratory Survey of Court-Mandated Batterer Programs, Responses to Victimization." Women & Children 13 (1990): 7.

Greenfeld, Lawrence, et al. "Violence By Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes By Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends." Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1998.

. "The Paradox of Hope: The Crime and Punishment of Domestic Violence." William & Mary Law Review 39 (1998): 15051584.

Healy, Kerry; Smith, Kristen; and O'Sullivan, Chris. Batterer Intervention: Program Approaches and Criminal Justice Strategies (NCJ 168638). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1998.

Hilton, N. Zoe, ed. Legal Responses to Wife Assault. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1993.

Justice Research and Statistics Association. Domestic and Sexual Violence Data Collection: A Report to Congress Under the Violence Against Woman Act (NCJ 161405). Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, 1996.

Knudsen, Dean D., and Miller, JoAnn L., eds. Abused and Battered. New York: A. de Gruyter, 1991.

Miller, Neal. "Domestic Violence Legislation Affecting Police and Prosecutor Responsibilities in the United States: Inferences from a 50-State Review of State Statutory Codes." Presentation to the 5th International Family Violence Consequence, University of New Hampshire, http://www.ilj.org/dv/dvvaw.html (1998).

Pence, Ellen, and Paymar, Michael. Education Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model. New York: Springer, 1993.

Sherman, Lawrence. Policing Domestic Violence: Experiments and Dilemmas. New York: Free Press, 1992.

Smuts, Barbara. "Male Aggression Against Women: An Evolutionary Perspective." In Sex, Power, Conflict. Edited by David M. Buss and Neil Malamuth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pages 231268.

Steinman, Michael, ed. Woman Battering: Policy Responses. Highland Heights, Ky.: Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Northern Kentucky University, 1991.

Straus, Murray, and Gelles, Richard, eds. Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1990.

Yllo, Kerti, A., and Bograd, Michele, eds. Feminist Perspectives on Wife Abuse. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1988.

Zorza, Joan. "Must We Stop Arresting Batterers? Analysis and Policy Implications of New Police Domestic Violence Studies." New England Law Review 28 (1994): 929990.

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All states made "wife beating" illegal by 1920. However, only since the 1970s has the criminal justice system begun to treat domestic violence as a serious crime, not as a private family matter. Domestic violence is any physical, sexual, or psychological abuse that people use against a former or current intimate partner.

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The state/Law started to actually intervene in domestic violence cases 1970s

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The state/Law started to actually intervene in domestic violence cases 1970s

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http://www.pacwrc.pitt.edu/Curriculum/310DomesticViolenceIssuesAnIntroductionforChildWelfareProfessionals/Handouts/HO3DomesticViolenceTimeline.pdf

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Domestic Violence awareness month is established in October, 1987 

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Domestic Violence awareness month is established in October, 1987 

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https://ncadv.org/2021DVAM

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Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM) was launched nationwide in October 1987 as a way to connect and unite individuals and organizations working on domestic violence issues while raising awareness for those issues. Over the past 30+ years, much progress has been made to support domestic violence victims and survivors, to hold abusers accountable, and to create and update legislation to further those goals.
Donate to NCADV in Honor of DVAM
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NCADV's 2020 DVAM Toolkit: #WeAreResilient

In this toolkit, you'll find information, background, messaging, templates, and content that you'll find helpful when promoting your involvement in #DVAM2021 and your commitment to seeing a national culture where we are all safe, empowered and free from domestic violence.

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NCADV | National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

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NCADV is the voice of victims and survivors. We are the catalyst for changing society to have zero tolerance for domestic violence. We do this by affecting public policy, increasing understanding of the impact of domestic violence, and providing programs and education that drive that change.

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NYT study on how to work through effects of abuse and prevent it 1989

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NYT study on how to work through effects of abuse and prevent it 1989

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https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/24/science/sad-legacy-of-abuse-the-search-for-remedies.html

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Credit... The New York Times Archives

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

CHILDREN and adults who were victims of child abuse are coming under intensified study by researchers who hope to learn what distinguishes those who go on to become abusers themselves from those who grow up to be good parents.

In the hope of finding ways to break the tragic cycle, the new research is identifying particular experiences in childhood and later in life that allow a great many abused children to overcome their sad legacy.

Studies also now indicate that about one-third of people who are abused in childhood will become abusers themselves. This is a lower percentage than many experts had expected, but obviously poses a major social challenge. The research also confirms that abuse in childhood increases the likelihood in adulthood of problems ranging from depression and alcoholism to sexual maladjustment and multiple personality.

The studies are also uncovering specific factors that help many victims grow into a well-adjusted adulthood, and factors that push others toward perpetuating the pattern of violence. The findings should help therapists improve treatment of abused children or formerly abused adults, helping them recover from their trauma.

''Studies showing that a high proportion of troubled adults were abused in childhood tell only part of the story,'' said Dr. Richard Krugman, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Medical School and director of the C. Henry Kempe Center for Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect. ''There are substantial numbers of men and women who were abused as children, but who are not themselves child abusers, drug abusers, criminals or mentally disturbed.''

Key factors found to worsen the long-term impact of abuse are: abuse that started early, abuse that lasted for a long time, abuse in which the perpetrator had a close relationship to the victim, abuse that the child perceived as particularly harmful, and abuse that occurred within a cold emotional atmosphere in the family. These factors, researchers say, help identify which children need treatment most urgently.

Victims of abuse frequently respond to the trauma by denying that any abuse occurred or by blaming themselves for the abuse, which they often view as justified discipline from adults, the studies show. But many victims can overcome the trauma with the emotional support of a friend or relative or through therapy that makes them aware that they were not to blame for abuse inflicted by their parents. Victims of abuse can almost always benefit from therapy to deal with the psychological effects of being so terribly treated, such as a damaged sense of self-worth and conflicts between wanting to love their parents while recognizing the abuse that happened.

''Child abuse'' refers to a range of maltreatment. In addition to physical harm and sexual abuse, researchers also include serious neglect of a child's emotional and physical needs and forms of emotional abuse such as incessant berating of a child. They are finding that the longlasting effects of all these kinds of abuse share much in common.

In any given year, from 1 percent to 1.5 percent of American children are subject to abuse of some kind, according to Dr. Krugman. By the time they reach adulthood, about one in four men and women will have experienced at least one episode of abuse at some point during childhood. The Abused As Adults Numerous studies have found those who were victims of child abuse to be more troubled as adults than those who were not. There are disproportionate numbers of victims of abuse among prostitutes, violent criminals, alcoholics and drug abusers, and patients in psychiatric hospitals.

The more severe the abuse, the more extreme the later psychiatric symptoms. For instance, a study by Judith Herman, a psychiatrist in Somerville, Mass., found that among women who had been victims of incest, although half seemed to have recovered well by adulthood, those who suffered forceful, prolonged, intrusive abuse, or who were abused by fathers or step-fathers, had the most serious problems later in life.

Virtually all those who suffer from multiple personality, a rare but severe psychiatric disorder, have a history of being severely abused; the disorder is thought to stem from ways some children try to mentally isolate themselves against the horror of unremitting abuse.

A 1985 study of all 15 adolescents in the United States who were condemned murderers found that 13 had been victims of extreme physical or sexual abuse. In nine cases the abuse was so severe - characterized as ''murderous'' by the researchers -that it led to neurological damage. Similarly, a study of nine women imprisoned for fatal child abuse found that all of them had experienced severe maltreatment themselves.

While all these studies depict an alarming pattern, researchers point out that the statistics do not reflect the large numbers of abused children who do not suffer from these problems.

That abused children need not go on to abuse their own children was shown in a study of more than 1,000 pregnant women, 95 of whom had been abused as children. The report, by William Altemeier, a pediatrician at Vanderbilt University Medical School, and his colleagues, was published in 1986 in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect. Strongest Predictive Factor

The study found that the strongest predicter from childhood of becoming an abusive parent was not having been abused, but rather having felt as a child that one was unloved and unwanted by one's parents - an attitude common, of course, among abused children, but also found in families in which there is no overt abuse.

However, studies in which there have been more careful observations of mothers and their children have found a stronger link between having been abused in childhood and being an abusive parent. In a survey of such studies, Joan Kaufman and Edward Zigler, psychologists at Yale, concluded that 30 percent is the best estimate of the rate at which abuse of one generation is repeated in the next. Responses To Abuse Denial that one has been abused is emerging as a source of trouble later in life. Researchers find that many adults who were abused as children do not think of themselves as having been victimized. For instance, three-quarters of men in one study who described punishments that, by objective standards, constitute abuse -such as being burned for an infraction of a minor household rule - denied that they had been abused.

That phenomenon is common among those who go on to become child abusers, according to Dr. Krugman, and is part of the cycle by which abused children become abusive parents.

''When you ask them if they were ever abused, they tell you, 'No,' '' Dr. Krugman said. ''But if you ask them to describe what would happen if they broke a rule, they'll say something like, 'I was locked in a closet for a day, then beaten with a belt until I was black and blue.' Then you ask them, was that abuse? and their answer is, 'No, I was a bad kid and my parents had to beat me to make me turn out okay.' ''

While there has been much attention by psychotherapists in recent years on women who were sexually abused in childhood, a more recent focus is on men who suffered sexual abuse. Such men are much more reticent than women about admitting what happened to them and dealing with the trauma, according to Mike Lew, co-director of The Next Step Counseling Centre in Newton, Mass., and author of ''Victims No Longer,'' (Nevraumont) about the problem. Treating Abuse Children fare better after abuse, researchers have found, when they have someone in their life - a relative, teacher, minister, friend - who is emotionally nurturing.

In helping a child recover from abuse, ''you need to counteract the child's expectations that adults will be deeply uncaring,'' explained Martha Erickson, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota.

Among adult victims of childhood abuse who are in therapy, a common refrain from patients is that ''it just wasn't that bad,'' said Terry Hunt, a psychologist in Cambridge, Mass., who specializes in their problem. ''The key to their treatment is facing the fact that their parents were so cruel to them; they've bought the parent's word that they were bad and deserved it. The damage shows up in their intimate relationships: they're waiting to get hit or used again.'' The Question of Insight

One of the crucial differences between those abused children who go on to become abusers and those who do not, he said, is whether they have the insight that their parents were wrong to abuse them.

Often, Dr. Hunt finds, the most troubled among his patients are those who were told as children, by adults other than their abusing parent, that the abuse was justified.

''If an abused child thinks, 'that was wrong, they shouldn't have done that to me - I'm not that bad,' then he can still love his parents, but decide not to repeat the abuse when he becomes a parent,'' said Dr. Krugman. ''The child somehow gets the message that what happened is not his fault, that he is not to blame.''

When parents are not the abusers, how they react to its discovery is crucial. In a study of children who had been involved in sex rings, those who had fewest lasting problems in later years were the children whose parents had been understanding of the child, according to Ann Burgess, a professor of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania medical school.

''These kids recovered with no symptoms, while those whose parents blamed them had the worst outcome,'' Dr. Burgess said. Minnesota Study The factors that lead some children to become abusers while others become excellent parents is being revealed in research at the University of Minnesota. Psychologists there are currently studying a group of children born to parents with a high probability of becoming abusers. Not all those in the study were abused as children; they were selected instead because they were poor, single, got pregnant at an early age, and had chaotic households - all factors that correlate highly with child abuse.

In addition to physical and sexual abuse - the two varieties most often studied - the researchers are also studying children whose physical care is neglected, those whose parents constantly berate and criticize them and those whose parents are completely unresponsive to their emotional needs. Followed From Birth

The study, one of the few that has followed children from birth, is finding that there are different emotional effects from each of the different kinds of abuse, and that these effects change from age to age. For instance, children whose mothers were emotionally cold during infancy had emotional and learning problems at the age of six that were as severe as -and sometimes more severe - than those found in children whose mothers had been physically abusive but emotionally responsive during their infancy.

When the same children were studied between the ages of four and six, the most serious problems were found in those whose mothers neglected their physical care.

The study is also finding general effects that come from maltreatment of any kind.

''The earlier the maltreatment occurs, the more severe the consequences,'' said Martha F. Erickson, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota, who is one of those conducting the study. Dr. Erickson, with Byron Egeland and Robert Pianta, two colleagues, will publish early findings from the study in a chapter to appear in ''Child Maltreatment,'' a book to be published by Cambridge University Press in May.

Many of the lifelong psychological effects of abuse stem from a lack of nurturance, they conclude, a lack that lies behind all the kinds of maltreatment.

The Minnesota researchers report that among those abused children who go on to become abusing parents, there is little repetition of a specific type of abuse.

For instance, of 13 women who had been sexually abused, six were physically abusing their children; of 47 who had been physically abused, 8 were physical abusers by the time their children reached six years, while 8 neglected their children, and 6 had homes where children were being sexually abused, often by a boyfriend of the mother.

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Sad Legacy Of Abuse: The Search For Remedies

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2940193/

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Abstract

Keywords: Domestic violence, females, prevalence, perpetrators, perceptions

Introduction

The most prevalent form of violence against females worldwide is domestic violence. Domestic violence against females is a serious public health concern in every community and culture. It has drawn attention from the medical community because it has a negative and harmful impact on the mental, physical and social health of females.

World Health Organization (WHO) has defined domestic violence as "the range of sexually, psychologically and physically coercive acts used against adult and adolescent women by current or former male intimate partners".( 1, 2) Violence is often not restricted to the current husband, but may extend to boy friends, former husbands and other family members such as parents, siblings and in-laws.

Domestic violence against women is highly prevalent in India and the women usually try to hide it. Particularly wife beating or physical mistreatment is a very common phenomenon in many Indian homes. The percentage of women who are exposed to violence by their husbands is 45% in India.( 3) Despite this widespread prevalence, such violence is not customarily acknowledged and has remained invisible. Background conditions of females are found to play a significant role in domestic violence.

It is often difficult to conduct research on violence against females, since most females are reluctant to disclose information they consider confidential and intimate. For eliminating domestic violence against females, it is critical to understand the context of violence and social constructs, which support its perpetuation. There is little empirical data on prevalence of domestic violence and its determinants in India, which needs urgent attention. Particularly, it is important to understand this serious problem in a rural low socio-economic condition with poor educational and economic background of the females.

With the above background, this study was undertaken with the following objectives:

1. To determine the prevalence, characteristics and reasons of domestic violence reported against adult and adolescent females.

2. To determine the socio-demographic correlates of domestic violence, if any.

3. To find out the perceptions of the females to cope with the act of violence and to overcome the situation.

Materials and Methods

Type of study: Community-based cross-sectional observational study.

Place of study: This study was conducted in Dearah village of Singur block, Hooghly district, West Bengal. This village is the field practice area of the Rural Health Unit and Training Center, Singur.

Duration of study: Three months, from August 16, 2006 to November 15, 2006.

Study population: All adult and adolescent females residing in Dearah village.

Inclusion criteria: Adult and adolescent females (aged 10 years and above) who gave consent for the study and who were the permanent residents of the village.

Sampling: Total female population of Dearah village is 1117 and total number of households is ≥50 (according to the records of the Rural Health Unit and Training Center, Singur and Nasibpur Union Health Centre, Dearah). Proportion of female population of >10 years age is 75% (Source: National Family Health Survey-2). Hence, the estimated female population of >10 years age in the village was 838. With an aim to cover 1/5th of the study population, every 5 th household was taken by systematic random sampling. Therefore, the estimated number of study population to be covered was 168 and the estimated number of households to be visited was 110.

However, total number of respondents was found to be 141 during the study period.

Study tool: A pre-designed, pre-tested and structured questionnaire.

Study technique: Interview method.

Methodology: After taking permission from the appropriate authorities, a house-to-house visit was conducted and informed verbal consent to participate in this study was obtained by all the participants. The females were interviewed face-to-face in their homes by the author herself. During the interview, the female was alone with the interviewer. The anonymity of the responses was guaranteed. The operational definition of domestic violence adopted for this study was maltreatment of the adult and adolescent females by the husbands, parents or other family members including minor to major physical harassment. The reference period considered was last one year from the date of interview. The females were asked about their demographic profile, characteristics and reasons of violence and their perceptions towards this.

Analysis of data: Data obtained were collated and analyzed statistically by simple proportions and tests of significance (Chi-square test).

Results

shows that, out of 141 respondents, 33 (23.4%) adult and adolescent females in this village were exposed to domestic violence in the last one year. Statistically significant association is present between the number of females exposed to violence and the demographic characteristics, in case of age, educational and marital status. Maximum prevalence was observed among the females in the age group of 30-39 years (50%), followed by 10-19 years age group (42.86%), whereas minimum prevalence was observed among the females in the age group of 20-29 years (10.53%). Prevalence was highest among the females who were illiterates (46.15%), followed by just literates/below primary schooling (20%). Prevalence was higher among the unmarried females (30%) than married (26.67%) or widowed/divorced females (none).

Table 1

This table also shows that the prevalence of domestic violence was found to be higher among the Muslims than the Hindus (31.25 vs. 19.35%). Prevalence was highest among the females who were unmarried or who did not give birth to a child (28.57%), followed by females with 5 or more children (25%). Prevalence was higher among the females who lived in joint families than who lived in nuclear families (26.92 vs. 19.05%). Prevalence was also higher among the females with per capita income (PCI) of the family ≥Rs. 500 per month than females with per capita income of the family < Rs. 500 per month (33.33 vs. 20%). No respondent in this study had contribution to her family income.

shows the characteristics of violence reported by the respondents. It was observed that, among 33 respondents, maximum number of females (81.82%) reported that they were exposed to domestic violence few times in the last year. Others reported the frequency of violence in last one year as few times in a week and few times in a month (9.09% or three females each). Maximum number of females (72.73%) reported that they had been physically assaulted by their husbands. Fathers acted as perpetrators in case of 27.27% females. Twenty-one females (63.64%) reported that the perpetrators were not intoxicated during the act of violence. Most of the females reported slapping as the specific act of physical assault (72.73%), followed by fist blow and beating with a stick or rod (18.18% each). Only three females reported kicking.

Table 2

depicting the reasons of violence reported by respondents shows that, among 33 respondents, most of the females said the underlying reasons of violence as disobeying elders/perpetrators (27.27%), followed by not having a male child and unemployment of perpetrator (18.18% each). Other reasons were reported as insufficient dowry, relationship with another woman, poor family income and not approving relationship with wives' parents (9.09% or three females each). Thirty females (90.9%) reported the reason causing immediate provocation of violent attack as not obeying or arguing back. Only three females reported that this was for refusing sex.

Table 3

Regarding the perceptions of respondents , it was observed that, out of 141 respondents, maximum number of females (44.68%) reported that they should revolt to cope with the act of violence. Fifty-seven females (40.43%) reported that they should tolerate it. Others reported that they should try to convince the assaulter (8.5%) and seek help outside e.g. relatives, neighbors or social organizations (4.3%). Only three females reported that obeying elders might be a solution to cope with the act of violence.

Table 4

This table also shows that most of the females reported that opportunity of education (31.9%), being economically productive (31.9%) and better family income (23.4%) would help them to overcome the situation. Others reported that de-addiction of assailant and changing herself would be helpful. Six females (4.26%) could not say anything.

Discussion

This study shows the prevalence of domestic violence as 23.4% in the past year. Similar study conducted by Kocacik and Dogan reported that the prevalence of physical violence was 38.3% in the Sivas province of Turkey.( 4) Another study conducted in rural Bangladesh by Bates et al. showed that 67% of the women had ever experienced domestic violence and 35% had done so in the past year.( 5)

Among the socio-demographic variables, age, educational and marital status are significantly associated with the domestic violence in this study. It was observed that the females in 30-39 years age group (50%) and 10-19 years age group (42.86%) were highly exposed to domestic violence. Maximum prevalence was observed among the illiterates (46.15%), followed by just literates/below primary schooling (20%). Unmarried females (30%) were more exposed to domestic violence than married (26.67%) or widowed/divorced females (none). No association is found with other socio-demographic variables like religion, number of children, type of the family and per capita monthly income of the family. No female in this study was economically independent. In a similar study done in the Sivas province of Turkey, families with low-income level showed a higher rate of violence and the rate of domestic violence decreased as the annual income level increased,( 4) whereas the present study does not support this finding. Low level of education was found to be a risk factor for domestic violence,( 4) the finding as corroborated by the present study.

It was observed in this study that the most frequent rate of violence reported by the females (81.82%) was few times in the last year. However, the study by Kocacik and Dogan showed that 45.2% of the women had been exposed to violence several times in a month.( 4)

The present study shows that the husbands were the perpetrators in case of most of the females (72.73%). Twelve (36.36%) females reported that the perpetrators were intoxicated during the act of violence. Slapping was reported by most of the females as the specific act of physical assault (72.73%). Another study conducted by Nair et al. in rural Gujarat showed that slapping (80%), kicking/punching/hitting with an object (74%), pulling by the hair/dragging (27%) and forced sex (27%) were the types of reported physical abuse. The victims were mostly wives (78%) and the perpetrators were their husbands. Frequent physical violence was much less reported than verbal and psychological harassments.( 6)

Economic, cultural and psychological factors were reported as the most prevalent causes of violence in the present study. In the study by Kocacik and Dogan, economic problems were reported as the most important reason for domestic violence (31.4%).( 4)

In this study, 44.68% females reported that they should revolt to cope with the act of violence and 40.43% reported that they should tolerate this. Another study conducted by Nair et al. in rural Gujarat showed that women also shared the notion that husbands have the right to 'discipline' their wives by using force. Majority of the men (72%) as well as women (79%) said that the wife should always follow her husband's and in-laws' instructions and be obedient.( 6)

Most of the females in this study reported that opportunity of education, being economically productive and better family income would help them to overcome the situation.

The above findings can be explained by the concept of violence in Indian culture, where violence against women is tolerated and considered as a means of discipline or punishment. It is a common thing for most men to speak rudely and act aggressively. Most probably, women do not protest or retaliate against the harassments, out of their concerns for social prestige, lack of economic and social support and for the sake of their children. Lack of education and economic independence often make them less confident to disclose their problems freely without any hesitation.

Conclusions

The reasons of violence are various factors such as power, employment and education level. Domestic violence is associated with illiteracy of the females. Most of the females are not aware of their rights. They tend to accept violence as something normal. This might be related to the fact that men culturally possess women; that manhood is associated with violence and that violence is widely accepted as a form of behavior. Husbands justify this act that they have all rights to beat his wife. And, it is told to the girl before marriage that she should adjust to whatever happens after marriage. The Indian culture, which prescribes obedience for women, may also contribute to this, since women consider opposing their husband as a sin. Besides that, domestic affairs are something that is usually kept a secret. The mind set of projecting husbands as the sole authority of the household needs to be changed and this is to be more emphasized by the parents.

This study indicates that justified female empowerment and enlightenment in the form of education, culture and economic productivity may help reduce this social as well as public health problem. In order to effectively address this problem, multidisciplinary approach to formulate fundamentally sound public health measures is essential. There is a need for sustained educational campaign to bring change in the community's attitudes, particularly those of females themselves. Similarly, educational programs to target boys and girls are necessary to prevent violence from being perpetuated generation after generation. There is also a need for organizations that would support and help adult and adolescent females who are victims of domestic violence in the community with shelter, legal aid and awareness increase. Economic and social empowerment of females will enable them to fight for rights and rebuild their life. Panchayat members, village elders, health workers, school teachers, existing women's organizations and mass media exposure in the villages should play a more active role in preventing and reducing domestic violence.

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Profs. R. Biswas and A. Dasgupta, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata for their support and valuable suggestions. The author is also thankful to Dr. Anil Kumar, Rural Health Unit and Training Center, Singur and the health staff of Nasibpur Union Health Center, Dearah for their assistance.

Footnotes

Source of Support: Nil

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

References

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A Study on Domestic Violence Against Adult and Adolescent Females in a Rural Area of West Bengal

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Keywords: Domestic violence, females, prevalence, perpetrators, perceptions The most prevalent form of violence against females worldwide is domestic violence. Domestic violence against females is a serious public health concern in every community and culture. It has drawn attention from the medical community because it has a negative and harmful impact on the mental, physical and social health of females.

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https://imprintnews.org/research-news/abused-children-may-become-abusive-adults/5548

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A study published in April of last year makes an association between being victim of child abuse and becoming a perpetrator of intimate partner violence as an adult, begging a large-scale response, according to the study's principal investigator.

"There is a need for a public health perspective, national campaigns and education," said Lina Millett, a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis.

The study, published in the journal Child Maltreatment, followed more than five thousand children with documented cases of child abuse and neglect. After 16 years of following the participants the researchers gathered intimate partner violence data from arrest records and restraining orders. It is the first study of its size and scope to utilize administrative data rather than rely on participants' recall of abuse.

The study found that child abuse and neglect had a direct effect on adult intimate partner violence perpetration for men. In other words, boys who were abused or neglected are more likely to become abusive with their partners in adulthood than those who had not been abused.

It also found that being abused or neglected as a child is a predictor for juvenile violence and use of mental health services for both genders, and predictive of juvenile substance abuse for males. Further, it was shown that children who have all these risk factors are at much higher risk for becoming abusive in adult relationships.

Social learning theory, which explains that behaviors are learned in a social context purely through observation or instruction, suggests that children may learn violent behaviors through their exposure at home, which then promotes aggression in adolescence. This in turn increases their chances of becoming violent as adults.

To stop this trajectory of well documented, generational abuse, researchers and advocates are pushing a more aggressive public health minded approach to preventing abuse. This kind of approach takes a preventative rather than a reactive approach to child maltreatment.

The last decade has seen a push for a stronger focus on primary and secondary prevention of child abuse and neglect. Primary prevention of child abuse is now being seen as a priority in order to prevent child maltreatment from occurring in the first place. Additionally, secondary prevention with groups at risk has also received priority through interventions like home visitations. Once the abuse occurs, strategic interventions within Child Protective Services (CPS) are implemented in order to ameliorate harm and foster future family cohesion.

"Historically child abuse and neglect has not been seen as a public health concern at all," Millett said.

The approach has mainly been reactive and through CPS. However, many abused children do not go through the CPS system and therefore lack many services, especially in mental health.

Services must be provided at all different levels, at all ages and with all members of the family, according to Millett. Interventions should not only focus on fulfilling the needs of the child abused or neglected as has been the traditional approach, but also with juvenile delinquents, youth with mental health issues and those at risk for violent behavior.

Working with parents should also be a main focus of interventions.

"One thing that is sort of missing even in child prevention literature is that we provide support for children, but I have not seen that much help for parents," Millet added.

Offering parenting classes, fulfilling parents' psychological needs and substance abuse treatment are only some of the ways that current interventions are adding parents to the equation.
Claudia L. Romeu is a Masters in Public Health Candidate at University of California at Berkeley. Her professional interests are maternal and child health, and adolescent reproductive health.

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Abused Children May Become Abusive Adults | The Imprint

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By Claudia L. Romeu A study published in April of last year makes an association between being victim of child abuse and becoming a perpetrator of intimate partner violence as an adult, begging a large-scale response, according to the study's principal investigator. "There is a need for a public health perspective, national campaigns and education," said [...]

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Study on women affected by domestic violence 2014

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Study on women affected by domestic violence 2014

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4244679/

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Problem-Solving and Mental Health Outcomes of Women and Children in the Wake of Intimate Partner Violence

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The environmental stress of intimate partner violence is common and often results in mental health problems of depression, anxiety, and PTSD for women and behavioral dysfunctions for their children. Problem-solving skills can serve to mitigate or accentuate ...

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https://www.verywellmind.com/domestic-abuse-why-do-they-do-it-62639

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Whether alcohol and drug use is a factor or not, domestic violence and abuse is a very serious problem-for the victims and the abusers. Although studies seem to indicate some link between alcohol/drug misuse and domestic violence, others believe that they are two separate issues.﻿﻿

Domestic abuse is not so much about a "loss of control" as it is about total control. Ironically, many batterers do not see themselves as perpetrators, but as victims. This reasoning is common among batterers and many have elaborate denial systems designed to justify or excuse their actions.﻿﻿

All About Control

There are varying theories about what makes batterers abuse those closest to them. One view is that batterers are hardened criminals who commit their crimes in a conscious, calculated manner to achieve the dominance they believe they are entitled to. Others believe abuse is the product of deep psychological and developmental scars.﻿﻿

Experts have reached a consensus on several common characteristics among batterers. Domestic abusers:

Are controlling

Are manipulative

Believe that men have a pre-ordained right to be in charge of all aspects of a relationship

Often see themselves as victims﻿﻿

Mate Retention Behaviors

For some abusers, violence is a tool to keep their intimate partner from leaving the relationship or keeping them from being unfaithful, even if it means physically forcing them to stay.

As one batterer explained after going through treatment, the abuse was all about control: "I could make her do whatever I wanted. I was trying to intimidate her. I wanted to control her for the simple reason that I knew I could do it. It made me feel powerful," he suggested.

The Abuse Cycle

The issues of power and control are essential to an understanding of domestic violence. One way this is accomplished is by becoming familiar with the cycle of violence. Here is an overview of the phases:

Build-Up Phase: The tension builds

Stand-Over Phase: Verbal attacks increase

Explosion Phase: A violent outburst occurs

Remorse Phase: The abuser excuses their behavior ("You shouldn't have pushed me, it was your fault.")

Pursuit Phase: Promises are made ("It will never happen again, I promise.")

Honeymoon Phase: A brief respite before the cycle begins again ("See, we don't have any problems!")

Other Forms of Abuse

Few Resources or Help for Batterers

There are very few resources available for batterers, but generally speaking, many only seek help when ordered by the courts to do so, and most states spend no tax dollars on treatment for batterers, usually offering only incarceration in jail or prison as a solution.

Putting the abuser in jail will stop the violence, but usually only temporarily since no treatment is available. The problem is, the involvement of the police and incarceration can actually trigger greater violence in some cases.

Help for Victims of Abuse

The threat of physical harm plus the economic and physical isolation they usually find themselves in makes getting help even more difficult for the victims of domestic abuse. Simply leaving can provoke more and greater violence.

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Whether alcohol and drug use is a factor or not, domestic violence and abuse is a very serious problem-for the victims and the abusers. Although studies seem to indicate some link between alcohol/drug misuse and domestic violence, others believe that they are two separate issues.﻿﻿ Domestic abuse is not so much about a "loss of control" as it is about total control.

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Corporal punishment studies begin to disable the normalization of hitting children 

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Corporal punishment studies begin to disable the normalization of hitting children 

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https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/21/04/effect-spanking-brain

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Spanking found to impact children's brain response, leading to lasting consequences

Research has long underscored the negative effects of spanking on children's social-emotional development, self-regulation, and cognitive development, but new research, published this month, shows that spanking alters children's brain response in ways similar to severe maltreatment and increases perception of threats.

"The findings are one of the last pieces of evidence to make sense of the research of the last 50 years on spanking," says researcher Jorge Cuartas, a Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who coauthored the study with Katie McLaughlin, professor at the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. "We know that spanking is not effective and can be harmful for children's development and increases the chance of mental health issues. With these new findings, we also know it can have potential impact on brain development, changing biology, and leading to lasting consequences."

The study, " Corporal Punishment and Elevated Neural Response to Threat in Children," published in Child Development, examined spanked children's brain functioning in response to perceived environmental threats compared to children who were not spanked. Their findings showed that spanked children exhibited greater brain response, suggesting that spanking can alter children's brain function in similar ways to severe forms of maltreatment.

The study looked at 147 children, including some who were spanked and some who were not spanked in the beginning years of their lives, to see potential differences to the brain. By using MRI assessment, researchers observed changes in brain response while the children viewed a series of images featuring facial expressions that indicate emotional response, such as frowns and smiles. They found that children who had been spanked had a higher activity response in the areas of their brain that regulate these emotional responses and detect threats - even to facial expressions that most would consider non-threatening.

Perhaps surprisingly, says Cuartas, spanking elicits a similar response in children's brains to more threatening experiences like sexual abuse. "You see the same reactions in the brain," Cuartas explains. "Those consequences potentially affect the brain in areas often engaged in emotional regulation and threat detection, so that children can respond quickly to threats in the environment."

"Preschool and school age children - and even adults - [who have been] spanked are more likely to develop anxiety and depression disorders or have more difficulties engaging positively in schools and skills of regulation, which we know are necessary to be successful in educational settings."

While we tend to think of spanking as an "outdated" practice, it's still an incredibly common form of discipline used among parents and even in schools - despite the research linking the practice to negative results. There are only 62 countries - not including the United States - with a ban on corporal punishment, Cuartas points out. Additionally, nearly one-third of parents in the United States report spanking their children every week, often to detrimental effects and implications.

"Preschool and school age children - and even adults - [who have been] spanked are more likely to develop anxiety and depression disorders or have more difficulties engaging positively in schools and skills of regulation, which we know are necessary to be successful in educational settings," he says.

Cuartas offers three steps educators and caregivers can take toward eradicating spanking in schools and homes:

1. Recognize that spanking is not an effective tool of discipline in the classroom or at home. When parents or teachers use spanking, it doesn't lead to the desired outcomes in discipline or teach children how to regulate their emotions. "We know there are better techniques, like positive discipline, that are more effective," Cuartas says. "The most important tool out there is explaining to children certain behaviors that are wrong and what type of behavior to seek through an example."

2. Work to eradicate forms of violence in the home and school environment by pushing for policies that can make corporal punishment illegal in the world. As Cuartas notes, the issue of corporal punishment is still widely accepted in the world and even in the United States.

3. Provide better support to families. Research shows that parents aren't always to blame for using corporal punishment. Cuartas points to many different reasons why parents rely on spanking, including aspects like what they learned growing up, emotional factors like stress, and different familial circumstances. He notes that it's important to take care of the caregivers and offer tools that will help families and caregivers find other ways of discipline.

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Spanking found to impact children's brain response, leading to lasting consequences.