This paper examines gender-based discrimination in public safety through the lens of intimate partner violence victim services. Using 2011 crime and grant-reporting statistics from Brazos County, Texas, the study tests whether female victims of intimate partner violence are more likely than male victims to access Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)-funded resources, specifically protective orders issued through the county attorney's Family Violence Unit. A two-tailed t-test comparing utilization percentages by gender yielded results sufficient to reject the null hypothesis, suggesting a statistically meaningful relationship between victim gender and VAWA resource utilization. The paper situates these findings within broader debates about gender parity in intimate partner violence, mandatory arrest policies, and the social conditions that perpetuate cycles of domestic abuse.
Women can face gender discrimination in public safety on a number of different fronts. They can face job discrimination in workplaces related to public safety, such as police departments, fire departments, and emergency medical work units. They can also face discrimination as crime victims and, finally, as perpetrators — being treated unfairly due to their gender. This research focuses on how women face discrimination as crime victims, specifically as victims of gender-based crimes. Domestic violence and sexual assault are primary public safety risks for women, and women are therefore more likely to receive assistance for gender-based violence than men are.
Cooper (2012) focuses on legal responses — both criminal and civil — to domestic violence in the United States and examines whether those responses are in the best interests of domestic violence victims. In addition, Cooper contrasts the treatment of domestic violence in the United States with international approaches to the issue.
Franklin (2010–2011) examines the intersection between civil liberties and domestic violence, arguing that the failure to prosecute gender-based violence represents a civil rights violation for female victims.
Goldfarb (2010) examines the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) through different feminist legal perspectives, analyzing what various strands of feminist legal theory reveal about the statute's strengths and limitations.
Hines and Douglas (2011) examine the availability of domestic violence services to at-risk populations, finding that males and adolescents had the least access to domestic violence services among those studied.
Stark (2010) confronts the idea that acts of intimate partner violence automatically constitute abuse, challenging the notion that women are more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence than men. However, Stark argues that gender parity in violent acts does not equate to gender parity in abuse, because of the surrounding context in which that violence occurs.
Are heterosexual women who report being victims of intimate partner violence within the last 12 months more likely than heterosexual men who report being victims of intimate partner violence in the last 12 months to subsequently receive assistance under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)?
Hypothesis: Female victims of intimate partner violence are more likely than male victims of intimate partner violence to receive assistance under VAWA.
Null hypothesis: There is no relationship between gender and the availability of assistance to domestic violence victims under VAWA.
The hypothesis was developed after observing that domestic violence differentially impacts women, despite some evidence that males and females are victims of intimate partner violence at similar rates. This suggests that there is an additional component to domestic violence beyond the act of intimate partner violence itself. Federal and state responses to domestic violence have been aimed at stopping not only intimate partner violence but also the social conditions that perpetuate a cycle of violence. Therefore, one would expect that female victims of intimate partner violence would be more likely to access VAWA resources because they are more likely to be victims of cyclical and systemic domestic violence when victimized by an intimate partner, while men are more likely to be victims of isolated intimate partner assaults.
This project is a qualitative study that examined statistics compiled for grant reporting and crime statistic reporting purposes in Brazos County, Texas for the year 2011. The participants consisted of all adult victims of intimate partner violence for whom an opposite-sex partner was arrested for the underlying assault during 2011. Those numbers were then compared with the rates of accepted applications for protective orders through the Family Violence Unit of the Brazos County Attorney's Office, an office funded by VAWA.
The percentages of male and female victims of domestic violence offenses were compared with the percentages of male and female victims who utilized the Family Violence Unit to obtain protective orders. The percentage of utilization of the Family Violence Unit's protective order division provides a snapshot of the relative differences in resource use between male and female victims. Percentages of utilization are compared — rather than comparing raw male and female counts directly — because of the assumption that women are more likely to be victimized by domestic violence and more likely to have their assailants arrested. Establishing a p-value of .05, a t-test was used to compare the utilization percentages and determine whether any differences were statistically significant.
"T-test results rejecting the null hypothesis"
"Confidentiality, mandatory arrest policies, unintended consequences"
"Interpretation of utilization gaps and future research needs"
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