Writing in Reason, Cathy Young questions the “one-size-fits-all approach to domestic violence” currently in favor here in the US: “For 15 years or so, a fairly straightforward paradigm has dominated mainstream thinking about domestic violence policies. According to this conventional wisdom, domestic violence should not be treated as a “family problem,” the way it often was in the past, but as a crime — one perpetrated primarily by men against women. (To this, the feminist analysis adds that men use violence as a deliberate strategy to subjugate women.) The proper response to the problem, we are told, is to lock up and perhaps re-educate violent men while helping women get out of violent relationships.”
Following this thinking, numerous jurisdictions and states passed laws that mandated arrests for domestic assault (treating such violence as not just equal to but more serious than non-domestic assaults, since no arrest is mandated in such cases) and encouraged prosecutions even when the alleged victim was unwilling to press charges.
The Violence Against Women Act, passed by Congress in 1994, institutionalized the traditional feminist view of family violence on a federal level, with grants for law enforcement, counseling, and judicial training programs based on the assumption that domestic violence involves male power and control over women and is best stopped by subjecting the perpetrator to the power and control of the state. Like the campaign against pornography, this policy shift represented a strange marriage of radical feminism to law-and-order conservatism.
There were always dissenting voices. Researchers such as Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire and Richard Gelles of the University of Rhode Island have argued that domestic abuse has complicated dynamics, often involving female as well as male violence. Criminologists such as Lawrence Sherman of the University of Maryland have cautioned that in many situations, mandatory arrest for domestic assault does not lead to a reduction in violence and could even cause it to escalate. Journalists, including myself, have covered cases of men and women who were caught up in the criminal justice system and either labeled as abusers on spurious pretexts or treated as victims when they felt more victimized by the system than by their partners.
Now Princeton University Press has published a fascinating new book by Linda G. Mills, Insult to Injury: Rethinking Our Responses to Intimate Abuse, which provides a strong boost for the dissenters
28 Replies to “Have you stopped beating your wife, sir?”
This is interesting. Most of my experience with this comes from COPS episodes where I generally approve of the mandatory arrest and also realize I couldn’t be a cop because I’d likely be too tempted to make a stop out in the woods to give the guy a couple whacks in the torso before going to the station.
So, maybe I’ll check the library for the Mills book and see what she has to say.
While I’m wasting space in your comment box, I thought I’d present a thought I have. Is it possible that as extra-legal reponses such as familial vigilantism (father, older brothers, etc) have diminished because with cars and planes, many women don’t live near the long time friends and relatives who would send a blunter, more effective message than the cops?
You know what Mr. Celluloid Wisdom man?
When you say Patricia Ireland I will think of Kathy Ireland (in her heyday) and say “Mmm.” And then you will say modern feminism and I will think of feminism (in her heyday: 1848-1849) and say “Mmm.”
Canadian Liberal Senator Anne C. Cools (our first black female senator, appointed 1984) has been saying similar things for a long time.
Sorry, Jeff. I didn’t mean for it to come out like I was dismissing you. I meant you really didn’t opine either way so I was diving into the reference article instead of your post.
The snark comment was directed at your choice of counterpoint. Patricia Ireland? Talk about poisoning the well.
Also, I didn’t criticize Cathy for not solving the problem. I criticized her for lobbying change without something to change to. Her argument boiled down to “we shouldn’t jail all of the people who abuse their spouses because”. The problem is she didn’t have anything after the ‘because’. She also didn’t suggest anything that should be done besides the current system of imprisoning the criminal and rehabilitating the victim.
As I read it, Jim, Young’s argument wasn’t so much “we shouldn’t jail all of the people who abuse their spouses because” as it was “we shouldn’t jail all of the people who abuse their spouses because it is often ineffective and counterproductive to do so, and each case should be looked at on its own merits.” Consequently, we should perhaps begin thinking outside the paradigm of a “one-size-fits-all approach to domestic violence,” because that particular approach has become a piece of ossified, politicized, bureaucratically intransigent knee-jerk legislative stasis that is perhaps blocking alternative methods of combatting the problem.
But then, I was sniffing glue when I read it, so there’s a good chance I’m way off here.
Sometimes one size does fit all. In this particular case the “one size” is pursuing criminal charges against a criminal. It seems like Cathy is arguing for letting criminals off of the hook for the sake of variety. Hey, it might be better if we don’t lock up all the violent criminals, right?
Charging a batterer with battery does not preclude the use of other corrective techniques. In any case, only a portion of jurisdictions use involuntary prosecution so there are places right now where these alternate methods of handling wife beaters can be used. Are they being used? How are they working? We sure don’t know from Cathy or Linda.
So we’ve got a woman advocating the cesation of automatic prosecution of a particularly heinous type of criminal. She does not show any benefit for doing so. The system she advocates is currently in use but she has either not investigated it or chooses not to reveal its effects. She herself discredits the one expert she references.
So I guess I’m just flat out calling “bullshit” on Cathy Young.
…And I think you have a woman arguing that not all instances of physical / domestic violence are equal and deserving of the same automatic treatments—that there are people with agency behind the crimes.
So we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Every case is treated individually according to the merits of that specific crime. That’s why they switch the juries for each one.
I’m sorry to be difficult but I don’t simply agree to disagree. That would be akin to offering some merit to the decriminalization of battery without any evidence that such would provide a benefit to the victims. I couldn’t do that in good conscience.
But of course you’re begging the question, because the idea here is that some of these cases should never be criminalized to begin with, and that the “benefit to the victim” would derive precisely from not having criminalized the incident in the first place. I mean, if it’s evidence you want, you need to allow for a less homogeneous set of circumstances to obtain so that evidence of the effictiveness of alternate methods for dealing with domestic violence can be gathered. That’s the entire point of the article.
Have it your way though. It’s a fine system, no need to change a thing. Hell, no reason to even consider other options. It’s not like, say, saddling someone who is not a threat to repeat the behavior with an arrest is likely to affect his/her prospects (economic or otherwise) somewhere down the line or anything. In fact, come to think of it, I can think of no instances whereupon mandatory criminal charges shouldn’t be filed. After all, my outrage over the fact of domestic abuse in general should always dictate my behavior toward it in each specific instance. Arrest ‘em all, let the juries sort it out. The partner is not interested in pressing charges? Screw her. The state knows what’s best for her. The state always knows best. You can’t fight city hall…
Sorry, I don’t buy it. The onus should by on you to prove that mandatory arrest is the best system.
Why would the onus be on me, Jeff? I did not advance the argument. There are two systems, A and B (aka “Not A”). Both are in effect right now and being used in different jurisdictions. You (and Cathy and Linda) want to do away with A based on expected anecdotal evidence while actual statistical data from the existing system Bs is out there waiting.
Jurisdictions that prosecute batterers are not criminalizing the act of battery. Beating the hell out of your wife is a crime whether she wants you in jail for it or not. Just like killing somebody is a crime even if none of the victim’s family or even the victim herself particularly cares about it.
Cathy’s argument, which you seem to be supporting pretty strongly, is that that there should be no prosecution against the wishes of the victim because there may be some cases where that isn’t the best thing for some victims. Would you similarly support the law turning a blind eye in cases of murder or child abuse? Just as there is with wife beating there are theoretic anecdotal instances where the victims (or victims’ survivors) are better off with the criminal.
The onus would be on you because as the article suggests, A is not working well, and B might provide a better overall solution to the problem. And it’s not like adopting B does away with the law enforcement option (though you seem to suggest that it would).
Battery is not murder. And all assaults are not equal—though the current methodology for dealing with instances of domestic violence treats them as such. Would I mind if the state decided on occasion not to prosecute people for bar fights or the like? No. As for child abuse: I am absolutely against the state stepping in and taking away children based on a uniform set of very loosely defined “abuse” guidelines without taking into consideration the particular circumstances of a given case.
From the article:
If no arrest is mandated in cases of non-domestic assault, I’d like to see some legal consistency.
”No prosecution”? That’s not what Young (or I) am arguing at all. From the article again:
You’re right, Jeff, I forgot to read the comments here. But I’m still not seeing much reason to support Mills or Young beyond saying, fine, change the laws and make joint counseling a possibility.
I don’t believe we should go back to the days of the woman being allowed to refuse to prosecute the man who broke her jaw. Mills’ statement that Young anxiously quotes does support that argument entirely:
…And yet she can extrapolate out from her own experience that not everyone is exactly like her or is likely to feel exactly the same way she does decades (or even months, or days, or hours) later.
May all of you in favor of this nonsense (mandatory arrest) be victims, too, of a nasty neighbor who calls in a false report. Cops come, are told there’s nothing happening. They have to arrest someone. Prosecutor says that he has to charge; it’s been his policy that he never doesn’t charge in domestic cases. Lawyer says to take a plea, or they’ll raise the charges to 2nd degree felony, the appeal will cost $50,000 and have a 1% chance of success.
If you want decisions, go to court, if you want justice, go to church.
How to turn a libertarian into an anarchist with a phone call.
Interesting discussion here, and I see that both sides are well-represented. I used to deal with this issue as a part-time lobbyist, and I’ve had the good fortune of discussing it with some of the leading researchers and advocates in the field, on both sides the of the issue, including Cathy Young, who’s been writing about it for several years.
The main problem with DV laws as they stand today is just what Cathy says it is: the “one size fits all” approach. Research tells us that DV sorts out into three categories: somewhat less than 25% of the time, the man is the sole aggressor; a little more than 25% of the time, the female is the sole aggressor; and about half the time the violence is mutual.
So it stands to reason that a comprehensive approach to reducing violence would identify the dynamics and treat them appropriately, right? Which would mean that about as many women as men would be arrested and treated in the DV re-education programs, and that half the time an arrest is made, both parties would be arrested, right? After all, they’ve both broken the law, and the law’s the law.
But this isn’t what happens. In many states, there is a statutory prohibition against mutual arrest, and the cops are directed to arrest the “greater aggressor”, which in most cases is judged by the cops, on the basis of their training, to be the male.
Now how well do you suppose the re-education camp works on the typical male who’s either not an aggressor or one of two mutual aggressors? Bear in mind that he has to stand up and declare that the whole mess is all his fault or he’s expelled from the class and made to start all over again, paying around $50 a week for 52 weeks or so to avoid more jail time.
And then there’s the interesting question of the “overlap” between spousal violence and child abuse. Mothers in violent relationships, whether we judge them aggressors or victims, are ten times more likely than normal mothers to abuse their children, and are even more of a threat to children than the men. When the man is arrested, the abusive mother has free rein to abuse the children without any fear of retribution on the man’s part, and this happens, a lot.
We don’t have mandatory arrest laws, or one person arrest laws, in child abuse cases, where mothers are by far the most typical perpetrators. So why do we need them in cases of spousal abuse?
I think you can work that out for yourselves, but here’s a clue: women’s groups lobby the hell out of the legislature on these laws (and the related issues of child support, custody, community property, and alimony) while men have, at best, a token volunteer lobbyist when he can take the day off work.
anon – Arrests are mandatory when a battery has been committed. If no battery has been committed then there is no arrest for battery.
Domestic violence is a terrible thing, but too often it is used as a weapon by vengeful spouses. With a one-size-fits-all type of law, the possibility for perfectly innocent people being put through the judicial wringer to satisfy the spite of another is just too real to ignore.
Jim—arrests and convictions for assault don’t require battery. They don’t even require a victim to testify, only an officer’s opinion that there was an assault. Denial of the assault is taken to be proof of being an abuser in denial.
If the laws are different where you live, good for you. That is how they are here.
It’s sad to me that, in 2004, we still have people speaking of this as if it’s a “woman’s issue” and still talking as if this is about women being beaten and killed as the primary problem.
Of course, some do this out of genuine misinunderstanding. But some do it becuase, frankly, they are faux-feminists with a vested interest in perpetuating those stereotypes because it gives them political and, in many cases, financial power to do so.
We know now that women are guilty of an equal rate of spousal assaults as men. We also know that women commit the majority of severe child abuse and the majority of child homicides, and about a quarter of child sexual molestations, as well as a large proportion of elder abuse. We also know that women are far more likely to get away verbal assaults, or even be encouraged in such behavior.
The failure of women to take responsibility for their own violent and dysfunctinal behavior by blaming men or “patriarchal society” and suchlike only contributes to the fact that domestic violence continues to be a serious problem. We are still, unfortunately, blaming the victim–which is as often the man as the woman, but which most people are still too afraid to acknowledge.
Oh, er, by the way, before anyone asks who I mean by “some” people, I mean political groups and academics, mostly, as well as certain politicians.
I don’t think your average run-of-the-mill feminist is aware that theyr’e being hoodwinked and that they’ve swalloed a lot of misogynistic poppycock and misandrist codswollop. But they have, and it’s really rather destructive.
Dean, the debate at my place has already been transformed into some mysoginistic claptrap. Can we keep this one pure? This is all about the article that Jeff sourced and that I ripped on. That article was about the abuse of women, it did not deal with the overall problem of domestic violence. Can we just deal with one thing at a time?
anon – I’ve never heard of a mandatory prosecution for assault, only for battery. Can you show me anything to support that this actually happens?
Since I’ve managed (at an additional cost of about $3,000 over and above the $5,000 we spent on my defense) to get the case I was involved in sealed (well, as sealed as a case can be in this crazy state, which is to say not very) (not expunged, this state no longer does expungements, even though that was part of the plea agreement—not surprizing any longer, the state did nothing that they agreed to), well, no.
And I’m not interested in re-opening it. I was assured by my business lawyer, my family lawyer, and my criminal defense lawyer that my case was entirely typical, and several other lawyers who know of the circumstances think that I was exceptionally lucky in not becoming a felon.
All—when the cop asks you to explain, say “I need to talk to my lawyer”. Don’t explain, you don’t speak cop, and they don’t listen English. Do not expect them to accurately repeat, to either their notes or in their testimony, what you say.
“I need to speak to my lawyer.”
Now as to whether that person you don’t know, who claims to be your court appointed lawyer, but you suspect might be a law enforcement officer using a court approved deception to entice a confession, is, in fact a lawyer representing you—you’ll have to make your own guess.
In Kansas, the one-size-fits-all law means you can be arrested and convicted for domestic violence for throwing cheese at your wife. All domestic violence is not equal and should not be treated as such.
Yours,
Wince
It seems to me that soft cheeses should definitely be given milder treatment than hard ones, unless they’re French. But cutting the cheese is no job for a blunt instrument like the law.
Can we all just get along…
Dean – Explain to me again how being a feminist makes you a misogynist? Your definition of “woman hater” is pretty far from what I’m getting out of the dictionary.
People who consistently advocate policies harmful and demeaning to women are functionally misogynist, Jim, no matter how they rationalize them. Hence, feminists are (functionally) misogynist.