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Domestic Violence
Cathy Young D V Statistics Woman Set Free
Striking
a balance on violence orders - Editorial about Domestic violence orders Page I
of 2
Striking
balance on violence orders
The
Australian
Wednesday
29 December 1999.
[Eds
note: There's plenty of opportunities to respond to this editorial about the
incorrect assumption that only women and children are victims of domestic
violence. The Australian is trying
to create further discussion - so please write in to Post GPO Box 4162 Sydney
NSW 200 1 or Fax to 02 9288 2824 or 02 9288 3077 or Email
ausletr@newscorp.com.au]
Few
legal issues create as much contention as the issuing of apprehended violence
orders. Across Australia striking
the balance between the very real need to intervene to halt or prevent specific
instances of domestic violence and awareness that in some cases such order are
sought for malicious reasons is proving extraordinarily difficult.
There is a growing awareness that the system is being abused.
In NSW most of the concern seems to be about so-called
"personal" violence orders, involving neighbours or work colleagues,
rather than the more familiar "domestic" violence orders. The debate, of course, is coloured by emotions raised by
domestic violence, particularly on women and children, and the argument that the
legal system is weighted against women.
It
is well accepted that the introduction of apprehended violence orders was a very
necessary law reform. The classic
situation is where a woman with every reason to fear violence from her partner
need swift and effective means to keep him away from her and her children.
Basically, orders allow a complainant to be legally protected from
personal violence, harassment or molestation, intimidation or stalking.
There are heavy penalties (up to a $5000 fine and/or two years
imprisonment in NSW) for breaches. It
is however, argued by concerned legal practitioners that the level of proof that
support a complaint is insufficiently high considering the penalties a defaulter
faces. This is particularly so when
orders are sought for fear of personal violence which may stem from neighbour
disputes over such issues as excessive noise or the keeping of dogs.
Some
legal practitioners are concerned also that orders are being sought not because
of a real fear of violence or intimidation but merely to gain an advantage over
a defendant. The orders, it is
claimed, have significant potential to maliciously disrupt the life of a
defendant either through actions that aid and abet the defendant in breaching an
order or using the order to make false complaints.
It
is a problem of existing legislation that magistrates lack the ability to knock
out what seem likely to be frivolous, false or misleading claims at an early
stage of the process. The NSW
Government is now considering reform that would give magistrates the power, at
least on relation to personal violence orders.
Another
issue raised in the NSW Law Society Journal by a Queensland practitioner,
Michael McMillan, is worth considering. It
arises from the difficulty of bringing in order to an end.
He suggests the other states look to Western Australia which provides a
defence for someone who has breached an order with the approval of the person
supposedly in need of protection. Such
reforms of the system should not be seen as an attempt to undermine apprehended
violence orders. Indeed, unless the
system is protected from abuse, its enforcement will suffer, as will the
interests of the vulnerable people it
is supposed to serve.
Numbers
show jump in female
Slowly
but surely, the real "dirty little secret" of domestic violence -
female aggression - is coming out. Last
week, the New York Times and the Associated Press news service ran stories about
the rise in the numbers of women arrested for domestic assault.
The
statistics are impressive. Ten
years ago, about I in 10 domestic violence arrests involved women as defendants.
Now, it's I in 5 in Michigan and Connecticut, I in 4 in Vermont and
Colorado, and more than I in 10 in New Hampshire. Public officials are mystified because, according to the
Times, the trend "so diverges from the widely accepted estimate that 95
percent of batterers are men." It is interesting logic: First, a dogma
contradicted by virtually all social science research becomes "widely
accepted." Then, when it's disproved by the facts, the response is w]
to
ask .what's wrong with the facts.
What's
going on is simple. As a result of
feminist advocacy, laws and rules requiring police officers to make arrests in
domestic quarrels have proliferated. Taking
discretion away from the police has flooded court dockets with silly pushing and
grabbing cases, but it has also lessened the chances that a violent woman will
be let off the hook.
Ironically,
the increase in female arrests is happening despite "primary
aggressor" laws passed to ensure that women do not get arrested.
Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that it's still men who are
disproportionately blamed when both parties are violent.
Meanwhile,
organised feminist activists argue that if women are being arrested, it must be
a "backlash." The women must be merely "defending themselves and
their children" against abusive men, Ms. Foundation President Marie Wilson
,writes to the New York Times. She
claims that studies showing high rates of aggression by women label a woman as
violent if she pushes a man away as he takes a swing. at her.
Actually,
most of those studies ask who initiated the violence. The attitude toward female self-defence that Wilson
attributes to scholars studying women's violence is in fact shown by battered
women's advocates toward male self-defence.
I have in my files a letter from a battered women's service, written to
an attorney on behalf of a woman charged ,with assaulting her husband.
The letter described the incident that led to her arrest as physical
abuse by the husband - after recounting the episode as follows- "Mrs.
C. grabbed Mr. C. by his necktie. When
this occurred, he pushed her away. Mrs.
C. then punched his face, and her nail cut his neck."
Other
ironies abound. Some feminists are
now complaining, about over-routinized" enforcement of the law and about
women being arrested in trivial cases. Aren't
these the people who told us domestic violence was never trivial? Remember how
Montcalm County Judge Joel Gehrke was pilloried in 1996 for giving a convicted
wife abuser a slap on the wrist and suspending all other penalties? The
"abuse" in that case was a push that caused no injury.
The
hypocrisy and anti-male bigotry of feminist groups should, alas, surprise no
one. What is alarming is that they
often have the ear of the authorities. Some
states such as California are implementing programs with the blatantly sexist
goal of reducing women's arrests through “improved” police training.
The training will presumably consist of indoctrination in radical
feminist ideology: Batterlng is an instrument of male oppression, women are
powerless and cannot be abusers. Women
good, men bad.
Maybe,
instead of investigations to determine why more women are getting arrested, what
we need is a federal civil rights investigation to determine why states are
pursuing policies that discriminate against men and infantilize women by
refusing to hold them accountable.
Cathy
Young is co-founder and vice president of the Women’s freedom Network. Her
column is published on Wednesday. Detroit
Copyright
1999, The Detroit News
Domestic Violence the real statistics
Author
Country
Type of Violence
Violence by Women%
Violence by Men%
BBC survey, 1994
UK
Violence against a partner
18
13
Sommer, 1994
Canada
Slapped, punched or kicked partner
23.6
15.8
Sommer, 1994
Canada
Struck partner with weapon
3.1
0.9
Daly and Wilson, 1988
Canada
Parent-child murders
54
46
NJ(Study of all individuals born in Dunedan in 1972)
New Zealand
Minor forms of violence against partner, such as slapping and hitting
37
22
NJ(Study of all individuals born in Dunedan in 1972)
New Zealand
Severe forms of violence against partner
19
6
Monash University( Accident reasearch center)
Australia
Assault on partner causing hospitalisation, eg through attacks to the
head with a knife
More than men
Less than women
NSW Youth and Community services
Australia
Physical abuse of children
55
45
NSW Bureau of crime statistics and research
Australia
Homocides involving victims under 10 years of age
53
47
Steinmetz, 1977
USA
Violence against partner
More than men
Less than women
Straus, 1985
USA
Assault on partner
12.4
12.2
O'Leary, Barling et el, 1979
USA
Physical aggression against partner during the course of the year, at
18 months after marriage
35.9
24.6
O'Leary, Barling et el, 1979
USA
Kicking, biting or hitting partner during the course of the year, at
18 months after marriage
10.8
3.9
Social Work, 1989
USA
Violence in adolescent dating relationships
More than men
Less than women
Pillemer and Finklehor, 1986
USA
Abuse of elderly partner
52
48 Men are not solely responsible for Domestic Violence!