Transcript Scottish Executive Definition of Domestic Abuse

A Practitioner’s Guide to Understanding Domestic
Abuse
Tayside Violence Against Women Training Consortium
Winter/Spring 2011
Questions about domestic abuse:
What about different
groups of women?
Why don’t women
just leave?
What
agencies
can help
me?
What about when
both partners are
abusive? Is this
domestic abuse?
How would I
identify
domestic
abuse?
What IS
domestic
abuse?
Learning objectives for the day
• Defining domestic abuse.
• Learning about the indicators of domestic
abuse.
• Understanding dynamics of domestic abuse.
• Thinking about barriers to disclosing
• Understanding inequalities to accessing
services
• Exploring pathways to services
Housekeeping
Fire drills
Loos
Mobile phones
Group agreed contract
Self care & time out
Definition & Prevalence of
Domestic Abuse
Definition & Prevalence of
Domestic Abuse
Domestic Abuse is associated with wider
gender inequality and should be understood
in its historical context, whereby societies
have given greater status, wealth, influence,
control and power to men.
It is part of a range of behaviours constituting
male abuse of power, and is linked to other
forms of male violence.
National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse,
Scottish Executive, 2003
Domestic abuse (as gender based abuse)
can be perpetrated by partners or expartners, and can include:
-
Physical abuse
Sexual abuse
Mental and emotional abuse
Controlling behaviours
At least 1 in 5 women
in Scotland will
experience domestic
violence in their
lifetime.
www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics
In the 15-44 age group, more women are
killed globally in domestic abuse attacks
than by in war, accidents and cancer. This
is estimated to be 22 million women per
year.
Domestic abuse is a global health problem
and a human rights issue.
www.wgn.org.uk
A woman is
murdered in the
UK every three
days by her
partner or expartner.
Home Office, 2001
In 53% of murder
cases in Scotland
over the last ten
years, where a
woman aged 16-69
was the victim, the
main accused was
the woman's partner.
www.scotland.gov.uk
There were 51,926 incidents of domestic abuse in
Scotland recorded in 2009/10
(a decrease of nearly 4% on the previous year).
Statistical Bulletin Crime and Justice Series: Domestic Abuse recorded by the police in Scotland (Nov,
2010)
A
domestic abuse incident
is recorded
every 11 minutes
in Scotland
38 incidents will have been recorded in
Scotland during the time that you are on
this course.
And this just reflects the incidences that
were reported and recorded.
Tayside currently records the highest
percentage per head of domestic violence
incidents in Scotland. (1,048 per 100,000)
Statistical Bulletin Crime and Justice Series Nov 2010: Domestic abuse
recorded by the police in Scotland.
Domestic abuse is
often witnessed by
children who may
themselves
experience mental,
physical and sexual
abuse.
32% of pupils in one secondary school in
Scotland disclosed anonymously that they
were currently experiencing domestic
abuse.
"Raising the Issue of Domestic Abuse in School" Study (2005)
[Domestic abuse] knows no
boundaries of geography, culture or
wealth.
As long as it continues we cannot
claim to be making real progress
towards equality, development and
peace.
Kofi Annan, Ex-secretary General of the United Nations
Gender-based violence is violence
… in which the female is usually the victim;
and which is derived from unequal power
relationships between a man and a woman.
Violence is directed specifically against a
woman because she is a woman, or affects
women disproportionately.
UN Gender Theme Group, 1998
Domestic abuse is associated with
wider gender inequality and should be
understood in its historical context, whereby
societies have given greater status, wealth,
influence, control and power to men.
It is part of a range of behaviours
constituting male abuse of power, and is
linked to other forms of male violence.
National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse, 2003
What is disproportionate?
- Different prevalence
- Different contexts
- Different consequences
- Different causes
The numbers …
- In Scotland 41,927 females compared to
7,938 males.
- In Tayside 3,369 compared to 676 males.
- Rates of reporting by gender vary: Tayside
16.7%, Lothian 12%, Central 12%
Understanding intimate partner
violence:
intimate terrorism
violent resistance
situational couple violence
97% intimate terrorism; 56% situational
1970s Pittsburgh sample
Johnson,2001
Sole perpetration (32 male, 32
female cases)
- 83% of men recorded repeat incidents
(range 2 – 52, mean 35)
- 38% of women recorded as repeat
perpetrators (range 1 – 8, mean 2)
:. When M perpetrate, they do so with more
frequency than do F.
Context & consequence
- Abuse with M perpetrators and F victims is more
typically characterised by dynamics of fear and
control.
(one exception F.)
- ‘ongoing pattern of fear and coercive control’
(Povey et al., 2008)
-
Violence with F perp. was significantly less than M
violence
(1:46 hospitalisations; Straton, 1994)
Male reporting
 Men are more likely to call the
police, press charges and less likely
to drop charges than are women.
(Schwartz, 1987; Kincaid, 1982; Ferrante, 1996)
Women are more likely to over-estimate their
own violence towards men, and more likely to
under-estimate men's violence towards women.
 Men are more likely to over-estimate women's
violence to them, and more likely to underestimate their own violence towards women.
(Kimmel, 2006)
Gendered differences:
Males are:
- More likely to repeatedly perpetrate (in line
with the long-term dynamic of intimate
terrorism)
- More likely to use tactics of fear and control
than women (consistent with domestic
abuse)
- More likely to inflict serious injury
- More likely to call the police, and not drop
charges
- More likely to categorise behaviour towards
themselves as ‘abuse’.
Linking cause to consequence
- Strong relationship between traditional
gender attitudes and male-perpetrated
intimate partner violence in agency samples
(d = .80) compared to general population (d
= -.14)
Sugarman and Frankel, 1996
- Perpetrators of situational couple violence
show the same attitudes towards women as
do non-violent men.
Holtzworth-Munroe et al., 2000
The impact of domestic abuse has
been found to have psychological
parallels with the impact of torture and
the imprisonment of hostages.
Survivors of terror: Battered Women, Hostages and the
Stockholm Syndrome, Graham, P. et al (1988)
BIDERMAN’S ANALYSIS OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE
• Isolation
• Enforced Trivial Demands
• Threats
• Occasional Indulgences
• Degradation
• Display of Total Power
• Exhaustion
• Distorted Perspectives
Quoted in Rape in Marriage, Diana Russell
Experiential exercise
- How does it feel to be affected least by
barriers of inequality?
- How does it feel to be most affected by
inequalities?