Violence - Domestic and Otherwise

This article is written from an Australian context in general and a South Australian context in particular.  As such, there may need to be some language adjustment for other countries, other communities.

I am not enthusiastic about the term "domestic violence" because it places undue emphasis on physical assault. Please don't think that I am minimising the importance of this; assault is a criminal act, and needs to be treated as such. But there are other aspects of so-called domestic violence that are not.

I have talked to many people on the receiving end who have said that a punch, a slap or a shove are easier to deal with than other, non-criminal activities. Clearly, serious assault resulting in substantial physical damage is in a class of its own and needs to be dealt with as such. It is generally recognised that most domestic violence is by men against women.  As such, that violence is men’s responsibility, not women’s.  This is not to deny the reality of women being violent towards men.  It happens, but it is generally of a lesser quantity/quality, and not infrequently a response to previous abuse by a man. 

Continual verbal/psychological abuse including put downs ("you're fat", "you're useless", "you're a slut", "you're stupid" and so on, ad nauseam) repeated over months and years can cause substantial long-term damage. Similarly, multiple phone calls each day to check on activity, keeping someone chronically short of money and demanding an accounting for every cent spent, ridiculing deeply held spiritual beliefs, preventing contact with friends and family and so on are equally harmful, but fall outside the boundaries of the criminal justice system. So too, generally, does verbal abuse, although loud abusive shouting and screaming may attract the attention of the authorities. May.

Domestic violence, in all its aspects, is about power. No, that's not quite right. It is about the need to control another person, and the power to do so. Domestic abuse, and other interpersonal violence are about requiring someone else to behave in particular ways (control) and the ability to enforce that behaviour (power). Frequently, where males are the perpetrators, that power is exercised through greater physical strength. But control/power can also be exercised through financial control or superior language skills—or plain bloody-minded persistence.  Responsibility for abuse of that power is always with the abuser—in most relationships, the man.  In every case, it is the responsibility of the perpetrator to cease that behaviour; it is not the responsibility of the victim to stop, or attempt to stop, it happening.  Similarly, the excuse, “she hit me first” is just nonsense.  Violence is about power, not about who hit who first.

At another level, any violence is about choice.  We choose to behave violently—no-one forces us to do so.  Further, any choice involves consequences, and we’d better be smart enough to think through those consequences before we act.  This does not deny the legitimacy of self-defence, but we’d better be aware of the degree of force used in self-defence—a 12 gauge shotgun is not an appropriate response to a punch on the nose.  Unsubstantiated claims about weapons of mass destruction don’t justify a full-scale invasion of another country.

Where manifestations of domestic violence fall outside the criminal justice system, then behaviour change groups ought to have an important role to play. But there are issues around such groups that need to be looked at in a lot more detail. For instance, mandating people to attend would seem to have limited value unless the attendee is motivated to change. If not, then all the groups in the world will not create change. Unfortunately, there have been insufficient longitudinal studies of sufficient size to generate any worthwhile data about success rates.

There is a further issue in that domestic violence is really only a sub-set of a more general problem with violence per se. Here, too, it is reasonable to suggest that ALL violence is about a perceived need to control someone or something else. Statistics show that most violence is perpetrated by men—against men. We live in an institutionally violent society; the Iraq war is a perfect example of this, and you only have to watch any of the major football codes to see evidence of that. I don’t entirely agree with George Orwell when he said, “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play.  It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence; in other words, it is war minus the shooting.” Nevertheless, there is a certain element of truth in his claim.  Similarly, parliamentary question time can frequently be described as verbally violent. Behaviour change groups are aimed at individuals. There is little or no attention paid to the more pervasive but equally important issue of addressing violence at a societal/community level. 

The other issue that needs to be recognised is the problem of perceived entitlement—the idea of male dominance, and the false beliefs that flow from that. It is not true to say, of male violence, that if a child is brought up in a violent home, they will be violent themselves, but too often, this turns out to be the case. Parental violence is not an excuse for violence by the child. But it is often the reason, and a reason that needs to be addressed.  It is also, perhaps, worth just touching on the issue of patriarchy.  Patriarchy is a socio/political set of beliefs that state that males are inherently dominating, superior to everyone deemed to be weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance in any way deemed appropriate.  As a belief system, it is bad enough.  When it comes to application in real life, it marginalises and degrades those weaker than those who commit this form of indecency. Paradoxically, it also has a similar, but often unrecognised, effect on the perpetrator(s)

On the subject of addressing violence, it seems to me that incarceration within the prison system is a wholly inadequate response. By its very nature, the correctional system is another excellent example of institutionalised violence. It teaches perpetrators how to be more effective in their violent behaviour. An increasing interest in restorative justice would seem to have a valuable application here, and responses by the criminal justice system other than incarceration would seem to be needed.

There is no question but that the safety of the abused person and any children need to be the first, over-riding priority in a domestic violence situation. On that subject, the criminal justice system could well look at changes to the law that where there is abuse, particularly where children are involved, it should be mandatory for the abuser to leave the family home. Police should have the capacity to require the perpetrator to leave the premises under their scrutiny, and issue an interim Restraining Order (in South Australia; local equivalents elsewhere) preventing the abuser from returning to the family home pending a confirmation hearing before a magistrate. There should, however be some form of action available to find the perpetrator a bed rather than have them roaming the streets or sleeping in a car.

Domestic violence is a plague, but it needs to be seen in context. In a context of family violence generally, and violence as such, overall. When this is extended into areas such as child abuse generally and child sexual abuse particularly, rape, sexual assault, elder abuse and other forms of individual violence, the plague becomes darker and more putrid. (Incidentally, could I make a plea for people to understand that rape and sexual assault have nothing to do with sexual gratification.  They are about violence, pure and simple, and another manifestation of the control/power syndrome).

This is a battle that needs to be fought on many fronts; that metaphor is unfortunate, and illustrates just how pervasive institutional violence is. This is a journey that leads down many roads. The criminal justice system is a road that we need to travel, but it is not the only one. There are many other directions that need to be taken to contain, reduce and eliminate all forms of domestic violence. And, in a seemingly Utopian future, all forms of violence, full stop.