Domestic Violence from a batterer`s perspective

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FROM A BATTERER 'S PERSPECTIVE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

STATISTICS

BATTERING IN DIFFERENT CULTURES

CAUSES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

FORMS OF VIOLENCE

BATTERERS GENDER DIFFERENCE

TREATMENT AND SOLUTION

INTERVENTIONS FOR WOMEN

INTERVENTIONS FOR MEN

CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION

Battering occurs when a family member or when one partner attempts to dominate or harm his /her partner physically or psychologically . Such violence has also been given other names , such as beating or battering or relationship violence . Battering takes place in all cultures , races and religions

p STATISTICS

According to an estimate in US only one third of domestic violence cases are reported , while in other countries the ratio is much lower . In US battering is a serious problem affecting about 32 million Americans (Tjaden and Thoennes , 2000 . Female experience 10 times more incidents of violence compared to male . It is reported that strangers commit about 31 percent of violence and 28 percent women were battered by their husbands and boy friends , while 5 percent are victimized by relatives (Bachman , 1994

Normally the battered women seek attention for injuries after separation , as 75 percent of women are battered during this period . A study by Hart (1992 ) revealed that half of the homicides are committed after separation by batterers . According to a FBI , 30 percent of the women are normally killed by their husbands /boyfriends . In 1990 , their husbands killed more than 800 women , and 400 women were killed by intimate partners or boy friends

According to National Collation Against Domestic Violence from 1992 to 2000 , only 54 percent of violence was reported . The rate of violence was higher for women between 16 to 24 years . The cost of domestic violence is enormous and exceeds 5 .8 billion , with 4 .1 billion direct health care expenses , while the cost of in police response and criminal justice system amounts to 67 billion , while the employer has to bear the cost up to 3 to 13 billion per year in US

The data for domestic violence vary from country to country . For example Zambia has one of the highest rate of battering in the world , as48 percent of women in Zambia suffer battering , 44 percent in Colombia and 42 percent in Peru , 18 percent in Cambodia , 19 percent in India and 10 percent in US . In other countries such incidents are more frequent , such as Egypt and Nicaragua , where one in three married women have reported to suffer domestic violence including some during pregnancy (Kishor and Johnson , 2004 . According to British Crime Survey in UK 14 .9 percent of men reported being victims of domestic violence , compared to 22 .7 per cent of the women in 1999 . The statistics also mention that in England and Wales 8 percent of males were killed by their female partners compared to 47 percent of women killed by male partners /ex-partners .BATTERING IN DIFFERENT CULTURES

Domestic violence takes place in all cultures and countries and in all age groups . It affects people from all religious and ethnic backgrounds Women are normally perceived most affected party , however men also suffer . Battering normally takes place in male dominated dysfunctional families , where women are dependent on men and have little power in family decision-making

One main reason for the existence domestic violence is , how gender role are defined in a given culture or how much women participate in household decision-making . Kishor and Johnson (2004 ) have mentioned that domestic violence tends to be lower among the couples . who share responsibility in household decision making compared to families where only husband is the decision maker . In majority of the countries women have mentioned that they suffer battering if they don 't agree , which shows the role of controlling behavior in many developing countries . For example in Columbia the women who try to report against violence are labeled as being unfaithful . Japan is often described as the most masculine society in the world and it lags about 20 years in term of support to its victims . Molestation is common in Japan crowded train and normally 60 to 70 percent of women experience assaults in various forms in trains . Similarly there has been also a tendency of forcible sexual intercourse among couples (Konishi , 2000

Among , American Indian there is greater amount of victimization compared to other races . The Alaskan Indian women are more prone to rape compared to ordinary American women . Even American Indian men have reported to be more assaulted than other races . In most of the case , victims reported being hit , grabbed , pushed or shoved with an object such as knife or even gun . And the reason for such extreme violence is Indian culture where revenge is part of restoring honour .The table below shows the ratio of violence (against women ) around the world

Source : innocent Digest , 2000 CAUSES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

There is not one single reason for domestic violence . It can be due to painful family brought up to institutionalized social violence in some culture especially in conservative societies , where woman has lowers status compared to men . However the main contributing factors include unequal social relations , fear of women sexuality , cultural and traditional sanctions , where women lack resources in traditional societies . In developed countries a few factors include the need for power and control , a form of bullying by insecure individuals . Other causes include substance abuse , mental illness , poverty and psychological problems

Control is one of the main reasons when an abuser resorts to violence Power in a relation- ship is often a perception which some times arises from feeling powerless and violence is an attempt to regain control Such behaviors are addictive and led to repetition or abuse cycle whenever one party wish to breakaway or want to resolve a problem to gain control . Females normally use more psychological means and men tend to have more physical control . Such questions of power and control have been developed into a power and control wheel created by Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project as shown below

This wheel of power consists of following things to gain control (Nicholls , 2005

Coercion and threats

Intimidation

Emotional abuse

Isolation

Minimizing , denying and blaming

Using children

Economic abuse

Male privilege

Normally the violence starts when one partners need to dominate the other , which may have various reasons , such as low self esteem jealousy , difficulty in regulating anger , feeling inferior to the partner or having traditional beliefs to control women because they have the right to control women

Other than that alcohol and substance abuse also leads to violent behaviour . A drink or drug addict individual have lesser control over his violent impulse and resort to violence quickly . Such kind of violence takes place in the form of emotional or physical abuse . Studies have suggested that this kind of violent behaviour is caused by situational and individual factors as well , which means that the abuser learn this behaviour from their family or community members or have seen it his culture . It has been observed that the children who are victims of abuse exhibit similar violent behaviour to resolve an issue . In some culture boys are taught women are not their equal and deserve lesser respect are likely to abuse women more frequently than others . In some cases girls , who have been victimized by their families are more likely to be victimized by their husbands (Tjaden Thoennes , 2000 FORMS OF VIOLENCE (American Psychiatric Association , 2005

Battering has many forms such as physical violence , sexual abuse emotional abuse , intimidation , economic deprivation or threats of violence . The major forms of domestic violence are described below

Physical violence

Physical direct violence includes unwanted psychical contact , rape or murder , unwanted physical contact , rape and murder . Indirect violence includes destruction of objects , property , harming pets etc

Mental Verbal Or Emotional Violence

Verbal threats include threats to victim or self or to children . It ranges from explicit to extreme violence including threats , insults gestures , facials expressions or body postures

Economic /social abuse

Economical violence includes controlling victim 's money and economic resources or preventing victim from friends and relatives , isolating victim from social contacts to gain control BATTERERS GENDER DIFFERENCE (Behavior Pattern

There has been discussion men are more abusive or women , but majority of the violent acts have been committed by males and in other cases , worse kind of violent crimes have been committed by women . The statistic mentions that majority of the batterers in US are African Americans Latino account for 31 and 18 percent , while 6 percent come from minority . Most of these men are under employed with little education and have previous arrest record , suffer from alcohol abuse , while 15 percent among them show mental dis symptoms . Most of these men have ready-made denial systems and justify such actions on false pretexts These men often beat their wives in front of their children because of a cold cup of coffee food . Some times they try to isolate them from friends or insult in front of friends and relatives , trying to make them unworthy (Donald , 1997

There are different theories for individuals who resort to violence . For example , some believe that men are better than women and are entitled to dominate women . While other believes the battering comes out due to deep psychological scars left in personality

However it is accepted by experts that batterers are controlling manipulative and often ( in the case of men ) see themselves as victims who have the right to be in charge of the relation and decide for every thing . Such men want to be in extreme control and even minor transgression often triggers brutal abuse . Their excuse is normally , if you don 't keep women down they would dominate you , thus the better way is to control them

Most of them consider it obligatory to be cared for every physical and emotional need by their women . The reason for such attitude is that most of the batterers grow up in an environment , where abuse was a norm , and they exhibit similar behavior without understanding , how their behaviour affects the people who live with them (Thomas , 2003 Batterers (men ) justify their violence in many ways , some blame it on alcohol other on their childhood , while other completely deny it or consider it a part of normal life . Psychologists believe that men often become jealous when they see their partner laughing with some one and at once label their women as slut and start beating . Some times the wife didn 't prepare food , when the husband comes back from office or house is not clean , he would beat up his wife for being lousy and in the end the excuse is , this beating is for your own good . The data suggest that batterers are found at all levels ranging from judges to lawyers and educated people , no one is immune form it

p The US National Family Violence Survey has indicated that women are twice likely to initiate violence and assault in self-defense , which is often used an excuse in many cases

Women are also capable of a pattern of psychological coercive and controlling behaviour

This higher rate of severe violence pattern by females is also true for Female-Severe /Male-Minor vs . Male-Severe /Female-Minor patterns as shown in the table below , while most of which is claimed as self-defense by women (Nicholls , 2005

Straus and Gelles (1992 ) have broken down the violence on the basis of how often men report . They found out that men are less likely to report even of they are victims and men reports are much lower compared to women reporting to police . Men reports are said to be under-representative as only handful of husband report such incidents One reason can be , that men find it against their ego to be known by others . Men can tolerate assaults more easily due to their bodily strength compared to female

The domestic violence against men in psychologically form is common among females . For example female after separation often stop father from seeing children , which have been resulted in suicide . Even though men have greater body strength to resist violence , but they cannot resist socialization that is effectively used by women as a lethal weapon against men (Bland , 1986 TREATMENT AND SOLUTION

The normal response to battering and domestic violence is often combine efforts between law enforcement agencies , courts and social service agencies . The law enforcement agencies used to reluctant to intervene in domestic violence and instead asked the couples to go for counseling Similarly courts also treated domestic violence as a family affair which often allowed the violence to continue . The intensive activism by advocacy groups in recent years have changed criminal justice response to domestic violence

There has been a range of general principles to cope effectively with battered individual

as described below (Dutton , 1992

INTERVENTIONS FOR WOMEN (Dutton , 1992

Psychotherapy is broadly defined as the treatment of mental and emotional diss or problems . Psychotherapy involves a process , a relationship between a patient /client and a therapist , which helps women victims in many ways as described below

Non-judgmental acceptance

Battered individuals normally feel responsible for the abuse . They are often reluctant to tell the full detail especially , if it is related to sexual abuse . The therapist non-judgmental and this thinking comes from the assumption that individual did not cause the violence and is not responsible for being beaten , which relieves the abused from guilt

Providing immediate support

A battered person needs immediate support as it creates a buffer for the trauma and helps in developing a bond between the victim and therapist Further support can come from group of battered individuals so that the victim can have the feeling that she is not alone and there are other people in similar situations that can understand the situation in a better way . This encouragement reduces the risk of over-involvement of the therapist

Building Safety

The victim safety is of utmost importance . The therapist takes care of the safety even when the victim does not perceive the danger . Some of which are advised to victims as following

An individual should take all threats seriously and should not wait for some thing serious to happen

Must take some actions before it is too late

Contact the domestic hotline , which are helpful in crisis

If being abused in front of other people ask the people , to write a witness of the incident

Contact police , if violence escalates and becomes a full fledge assault

Education about violence

It is essential for victimized individuals to be learning about violence and be educated about battering . One common procedure is to normalize the violence and reduce the fear of battering . In some cases the battered victims feel that perhaps he /she is crazy or unlucky or deserved to be battered . These feelings can be removed by therapy and education by letting them know , that there is nothing wrong with them and they are normal people but stuck up in wrong situation

INTERVENTIONS FOR MEN (Canadian Task force , 2001

Anger Management

The anger management is an approach that assumes that violence is the result of loss of control during anger . In many incidents of domestic violence and battering is about loss of control resulting in battering It is appropriate for individuals who start battering impulsively not only their family members , but also co-workers , supervisors and friends There also many other reasons for such violent behaviour due to cultural perceptions towards women and violence that are effectively changed due to anger management training programs (Blum , 2001

Behaviour Change Programs

Men 's behaviour change programs tend to focus more on prevention of violence and battering . Many of these programs have a male and a female facilitator , who observes the follow up of the program examining men 's attitude . Such supervision helps in reducing violence allowing men to take responsibility for the use of violence . These programs are meant to change men 's behaviour through voluntary attendance . Most of the men attend such programs due to their partners insistence . Often their partners mention that they have do some thing about the behaviour to keep the relation going on . It also means that women are stakeholders in such behaviour change programs and are actively seeking help rather than becoming victim secretly . Such approach also allows taking a chance rather than completely breaking away

It has been studied that men who behave violently have chaotic way of doing work costing employer a lot in money and time . The behaviour change programs practitioners are aware , how violence follows disruption , depression and substance abuse . Such programs can also reduce drug and alcohol dependence that normally men continue in depression . It has been reported that 50 to 80 percent of men normally use substance or become addicted to drinking during domestic crisis Such interventions can deal with men behaviour effectively and safeguard the families and society members at large CONCLUSION

This report has revealed that domestic violence and battering is a phenomenon common across the cultures among men and women equally However women become victim due to the lack of strength and physique The effect of battering is extreme , some times such events change the mindset of the victims and they look down upon themselves with pity or consider themselves wrong or worthless . Modern therapies are meant to remove this approach and convert the victims through different coping methodologies . In the end it 's all in education and brought up of individuals , how they are brought up . The change in behaviour is also a good option for men to think and understand their behaviour and reflect upon their behaviour . It also provides the aggressor a chance to understand , how violent affects their life and people around them

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