Domestic violence: causes, effects, and intervention strategies

Domestic Violence

How does the inability to determine the primary physical aggressor in domestic violence cases impact victim safety and offender accountability?

Domestic violence is often caused by messy, chaotic emotional and social relationships, and leaves 'messy' or confusing crime scenes from the perspective of the reporting officer, and all law enforcement officials dealing with the domestic violence case. Because both men and women can technically perpetuate domestic violence, it cannot be assumed by the reporting officer that the male is always the aggressor and the female is never the instigator. Furthermore, domestic violence can occur between same-sex partners.

When women are arrested on charges of domestic violence many feminist and victims rights advocacy groups are outraged. These groups point out that if a woman is the long-standing victim of domestic violence and strikes back against her abusive partner, this does not mean that the woman's case should be viewed in the same light as an aggressor who has been a long-standing batterer. Regardless of the circumstances, even if it is just based in an honest misreading of the situation of the officer, a women who is unjustly arrested for domestic violence is likely to become even more convinced that the system is against women. She is likely to feel that she can obtain no justice through conventional legal channels. She may never call the police when she is victimized again, or attempt to flee with her children from her attacker. She may go into hiding, leaving her attacker at large and in search of her and her children. She may try to strike back fatally against the attacker next time, to defend herself because the justice system will not defend her. This can cause both the aggressor's death and the victim's own traumatizing prosecution for murder. or, she put herself at even greater risk by undertaking futile, violent resistance against a stronger person.

Even if it does not result in murder, psychologically, the arrest of the wrong individual can further traumatize the victim, regardless of the victim's gender. The victim feels abused by the domestic attacker and by the legal system. And if the wrongfully arrested victim has children, the courts may deny this person custody of the children, and place the children in the care of the abuser, the abuser's sympathetic family, or into a foster care situation. Losing his or her children can cause even more grief to the victim than the victim is experiencing at home.

A wrongful arrest means that the financial and psychological energies of the victim are diverted to dealing with the need to defend him or herself against legal charges, rather than to find the best way to escape the situation. Many domestic violence victims often require the services of an overburdened public defender, particularly women who do not have financial resources independent of their partners. Victim's rights advocacy groups may feel wary of appearing to help the accused through the court system, even the wrongfully accused. This is especially true of the gay or lesbian persons who do not fit the conventional demographic profile of a domestic violence victim.

A defense attorney, who has many cases and is not well-educated in domestic violence law, may urge the victim to plead guilty in the hopes of gaining a lenient sentence, even though any sentence for the victim of domestic violence is unjust. Then, once the victim has a record, gaining a needed restraining order later on can be more difficult. So can prosecuting the real perpetrator, if the situation continues to escalate. This can cause physical and emotional harm to both the victim and any children who are involved in the matter.