Transcript A Few Notes on Battering & Stalking

A Few Notes on Battering & Stalking
Defining terms:
Battery:
“Woman battering” versus “Domestic violence”.
95% male perpetrated
Stalking:
Persistent pursuit of someone that instills fear
in the target
Nature & Extent of Battering & Stalking
4 types of battering:
–Physical
–Sexual
–Psychological
–Destruction of property
Commonalities:
–harm to the victim
–results from domination & control
–occur in a context of intimacy
Nature & Extent of Battering & Stalking
Estimates of the extent of Battery & Stalking
are even more difficult to come by than data on
rape & sexual assault.
Largely due to the same factors:
• Limited validity of official data (police reports,
court records, etc.)
• Data quality is a function of
–Sample characteristics
–Questions employed
–Limiting problems associated with surveys
Nature & Extent of Battering & Stalking
A flavor of the data:
• 85% of intimate partner violence involves women as victims
(1998 NCVS)
• 25-50% of all women will be victims of domestic battery at
some point in their lives (from various sources)
•Domestic violence is gendered
–Women are much more likely to be victims
–Women’s likelihood of victimization increases as violence increases
–Women vs Men
•Meaning or motive of DV
–♀: retaliation
♂: control
•Responses to DV
–♀: fear & hurt
♂: humor & anger
•Stalking is gendered
–Much less common than battery (less than 10% of pop)
–♀ roughly 3-4 times as likely to experience stalking victimization
–♂ much more likely to be perpetrators of stalking (87% overall, & 60%
even for ♂ victims)
The Process of Battering & Stalking
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Walker’s Cycle of Violence
An explanation of Escalation
3 Stages:
1. Tension-building
2. Acute battering incident
3. Making Up (kindness, contrition, loving
behaviors)
Building a multi-causal understanding
Structural Supports: Institutional Arrangements
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Economy
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Government & the Law
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Both encourage dependency of women on men
Lack of national and sufficient child care, welfare policy
Cultural Supports
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The Role of Male Entitlement
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Violence as a means of control
The ability of men to get away with violence
Women’s increased responsibility for successful relationships
Cultural scripts
Interpersonal Characteristics
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Control & Jealousy by Batterers
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•
Assault as a tool to control
Psychological Trauma & dependency by victims
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Various theories attempt to explain why people accommodate (rather
than resist) a dangerous/exploitive environment (prisoners of war)
Response: Domestic Disputes
• Police response:
– Historically, has been an area of tremendous discretion.
– Options:
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Arrest – not so common
Mediation
Separation (physical) – police power is limited
Referral – police power is limited
No action
• Factors influencing decision to arrest in domestic calls?
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Severity of crime
Victim’s preference
Relationship
Suspect demeanor (hostility)
Response: Domestic Disputes
Factors influencing decision NOT to arrest?
– Belief it is a private dispute
– Officer judgment victim will not follow through
– Legacy of past dept. perspective to avoid arrest
– Arrest is work for officers
• Presents risks of injury
• Creates higher visibility of officer actions
Response: Feminism impacts culture
1970s Revolution in DV cases: Mandatory Arrest
• 1st attempts to control officer discretion through
policy
• Resulted from efforts to limit police discretion in the
courts on the grounds that ♀ were not receiving
equal protection of the law (14th Amendment)
• Police response should be guided by citizen behavior, not by the
relationship of the parties involved
• Mandatory arrest policies based upon premise that
arrest provides specific deterrence (criminalization
of woman battering)
Discretion: Domestic Disputes
• Does mandatory arrest deter future DV
– Minneapolis DV Experiment (Sherman and Berk 1982)
• Examined deterrent effect of alternative actions on Domestic Violence
– Arrest, mediation, separation
• Cases randomly assigned to each treatment
• Findings: Arrests produced lower rates of repeat violence (in 6 mos.)
• Resulted in widespread changes in policy toward mandatory arrest for
dom. Violence
• Closer inspection revealed a number of flaws with the execution of the
experiment
• Results have not been replicable in other cities
– In some cases arrest seems to have an escalation effect (“fighting fire w/gas”)
• Why? Sample of recidivists
– Abuse is normative in relationship; Arrest is ineffective as a deterrent;
disconnect between arrest and criminal sanctions; interaction effect with social
capital (most effective on 1st timers and middle class)
– Preferred (pro) arrest has been adopted by most departments
• Other provisions have been developed: training in handling domestic
situations
CJS Response
CJS is composed of 3 parts: Cops, Courts & Corrections
Which is most important to addressing domestic battery?
What role do police play in the process of abusive domestic
relationships?
Historically? Non-intervention (private dispute)
Contemporary? Debatable
3 Options: 1.Non-intervention, 2.Mediation, 3.Arrest
Minneapolis DV experiment: Resulted in mandatory or pro-arrest
policies in DV cases (Controversial)
Temporary Restraining Orders
Police more likely to be batterers than population
evidence that up to 90% of domestic homicides are in HHs
that police have already responded to a call for service.
Ch 21: Fear & the Perception of Alternatives-Browne
• If asking the question why battered women don’t leave is the
wrong question to ask, what is/are the right question(s)?
• What is the relationship between the seriousness of battering
events and the decision to leave an abusive relationship?
• How does familiarity between domestic combatants constrain
women’s options?
• How has the law/CJS impacted battering situations? Is it a
resource for batterer victims or batterers?
• What can we learn about the nature of lethal assaults by
women from comparing the homicide and control groups?
• What is the process by which women turned from victim to
offender?