Family Violence as a Criminal

Family violence as a criminal offense has developed into being a great issue when analyzing the behavior from the criminal offenders' perspectives. For many years, this issue has been thought of as going hand in hand with any criminal action, but rarely taking into account that family violence does not only threaten the family involved, but it threatens the communities that surround it as well. Domestic issues were once thought to be just that: domestic. An issue that should be handled within the constraints of one's home was not seen as being as important as those that are blatantly affecting communities and society. However, family violence is an issue that does not just affect the individuals involved, but it also has dire consequences on an entire society. The issue at hand that has to be addressed is that it is societal implications that produce violence in the families, and it is that same society that is later affected by its products. Criminal behavior is not a local concentrated issue, but instead has consequences beyond one's control at times, and it is this exact reason why family violence is one that needs to be addressed as being an issue of severe importance which are brought upon by the criminal offenders themselves.

Criminal offenders have long been analyzed for their deviation from normal societal behavior (Raftner 2008). What makes an individual commit a crime, while others can go through the same exact things and live under the same exact circumstances, but yet not have any wrongdoing whatsoever in their lives? This has been a question for psychologists and theorists alike as they explore the different possibilities of how a criminal offender could go about committing acts of violence against their own family members (Piquero et al. 2006). Not only does this phenomenon have to be explained by societal research, but it has to be implicated into the psychology of a criminal mind. To understand how and why criminal offenders commit crimes alone, would be to group everyone under one umbrella and not differentiate between the crimes themselves. The processes that criminals go through must be understood by the crimes that they commit (Frantzen et al.). It is this reason why the crime of family violence is one of particular interest as it goes against many of the theoretical research that is in existence.

Personality psychologists alike who analyze the mind of a criminal offender find that despite the difference in the severity of the crimes that are committed all criminals share one thing: a complete disregard for consequences (Rafter 2008). They perceive themselves as invincible in the sense that they believe nothing will hurt them. The law is just something that gets in the way of the form in which they want to act. These perceptions that rules and regulations apply to everyone but themselves make them attain a type of personality that inhibits them from properly developing a sense of responsibility. As will be analyzed later under the appropriate psychological and sociological theories, there is a reason why this sense of sociopathy evolves, where they either learn this behavior from what they experience or they do not learn the proper ways of handling certain developmental circumstances (Clinard & Meie 2008).

Although an individual who chooses to engage in criminal behavior or activity does not always choose family violence as an alternative outlet of his or her aggression, the fact that this is one of their crimes, says a lot about who they are as a person and how they choose to order the importance of their behavior deviance (Piquero et al. 2006). Having in mind that this act affects society as a whole because of the way that the criminal goes about this crime in specific, family violence is an act that needs to be understood and analyzed from the perspective of the perpetrator in order for theories to be applied.

Violence against ones own blood seems unnatural. Psychological theories focusing on biological and evolutionary factors would see this as an extreme deviation from what is supposed to be occurring. It goes against evolutionary theory which emphasizes the need to protect ones own as survival of the fittest is the main component of taking care of what is biologically related (Raftner 2008). Criminal offenders go against this theory as they attack what they are supposed to be protecting. Research in this area has brought up unique theories since most of the theories move away from explaining this concept from the evolutionary perspective and instead attempt to focus only on the psychological and sociological alternatives to this (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman 2007).

As outlined by cognitive psychological theorists, criminality is a result of the way that individuals view morality and its application to the law. If an individual does not develop a sense of the preconceived moralities that exist, then they do not really know right from wrong (Clinard & Meie 2008). As outlined by Kohlberg, the "preconventional" level is established while a child is growing up and this milestone is basically reached when a child learns the extreme basics of right from wrong by either avoiding punishment, or seeking it (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman 2007). Failure to encompass this simple portion of moral development could be the beginning of dire consequences in criminal behavior, as one does not realize when something wrong is occurring, as in family violence, or just does not care. The "conventional" level of moral development is completely developed after the childhood years are over and is based on the expectations that were given by authority figures (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman 2007). If an individual does not encompass the consequences that deviant behavior has, and does not care to respect the opinions of the people that they value most at an early age, then they do not learn that sense of respect for their family members and authority figures, so they do not develop that sense of respect for their children and/or their spouse when it comes to engaging in such criminal behavior as family violence. The successful transitioning to the "postconventional" level of moral development means that individuals learn how to adapt to social structures and they apply what they learned as children to the adult world successfully (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman 2007). The inability to do this leads to deviant behavior such as family abuse and violence and criminal activity. When this entire process is not developed properly, individuals do not care about wrong from right, and one misdemeanor, one criminal behavior becomes just as bad as any other, including violence toward their own family.

Family violence is a criminal offense that many become victims too and although most of the research and assistance is focused on the victims, it is the criminal offenders themselves that need to be analyzed in order to understand this phenomenon (Piquero et al. 2006). Criminal minds work in different ways as it is not normal behavior to conduct oneself against societal norms. It is not just societal expectations that are being violated, but this same society is then being affected by these violations as they come full circle to negatively contribute to the communities. Violent offenders become products of their surroundings, as well as their upbringing (Piquero et al. 2006).

Criminal behavior can be seen as being a result of the environment under which the criminal offender has grown up in. To begin with, children who grow up in violent homes tend to become violent themselves, just because that is what they are used to seeing (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman 2007). This violent behavior could manifest in not only violence against their own family members, or their future family, but criminal offenders learn how to be deviant in other social aspects. Family violence in the home aggravates this process as children grow up to think that being violent is an okay thing to be. If a son grows up in a home where his father constantly beats up on the mother and also takes it out on the children, and no one says anything about it, then more likely than not, this boy will grow up to be a violent man who takes out his frustration the same way that he witnessed his father doing: on his family (Frantzen et al. 2011). An individual learns how to become a proper person based on what they see around them, and if violence is the only thing that they see, this is the only thing that they will know how to demonstrate. How can someone learn how to properly love when the person was never loved properly to begin with. Although this sociological theory seems to be the most adaptable to family violence among criminal offenders, it is also the most argumentative.

Not all children who grow up in this environment turn out to be violent criminal offenders repeating the same vicious cycle of violent love against their family members. Some children actually turn out to be resilient adults and work hard to turn their lives around. Two individuals growing up under the same household, going through the same problems, and dealing with the same circumstances, could turn out to be complete polar opposites (Rafter 2008). One could turn out to be a lawyer defending individuals caught up being under these situations, while the other could end up in prison for committing the same violent crimes against their family that they saw while growing up. It is this resilience in one, but influence in the other, that makes this theory the most interesting one of all, while at the same time, making it the most debatable.