Domestic Violence -- An
Update
by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.
President, Equal Justice Foundation
Introduction
A comment by an attorney at lunch recently provoked
the following update on the issue of domestic violence. In effect he
stated that the Equal Justice Foundation
had "won" the battle against false and unsubstantiated
claims of domestic violence. According to him there is not a local
defense attorney who isn't aware that if a defendant simply demands a
jury trial that there is a 90-95% probability the charges
will eventually be dismissed.
While that may be a
"win" for defense attorneys, who can now readily win
cases without the trouble and bother of going to trial, most domestic
violence cases are not dismissed until the day before or morning of
trial, usually four to six months after the arrest. In the interim
typically the marriage or relationship is destroyed, the children are
traumatized or placed in foster homes, jobs and homes are lost, and
the defendant (man or woman) is left destitute and often homeless.
Suicides and
murder-suicides are an all to common adjunct as well. However, the
attorneys are enriched. I hardly call that a "win"
for citizens and the public weal.
So how did we get to this sad state of
affairs?
Brief history
Modern efforts to control domestic violence
date back to 1971 when Erin Pizzey opened one of the first refuges
(shelters) for abused and battered women in Chiswick, London, England.
Publication of her book Scream Quietly Or The Neighbors Will Hear in 1978 brought
the issue of abused women to the world's attention.
While she consistently pointed out that
the women who sought refuge at her Chiswick shelter were as violent or
more violent than the men they left, that did not fit the neo-Marxist radical
feminist (redfem for
short) agenda and threatened their funding. In 1998, when
Pizzey dared to publish her finding that women are as violent as men
in intimate relationships in her book The Emotional Terrorist And The
Violence Prone, radical feminists in England drove her into exile.
Obviously her efforts to create shelters for abused
men met with no success as well.
In the interim feminists generated a
deeply- and fundamentally-emotional response to the problem of abused
women that resulted in the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the United States. Of course
VAWA provides no protection or defense for abused men despite the fact
that the findings of Straus and others in their 1980 book Behind Closed Doors: Violence In The American Family
confirmed women are as violent as men in intimate relationships. And
by 1994 the US Army had found that male victims of abuse
outnumbered female victims by two-to-one. And all research
since has confirmed these findings. But redfem dogma still
maintains that 80-95% of all intimate partner violence are husbands
battering their wives in order to maintain the patriarchy.
Given the neo-Marxist ideology on
which the feminists based their need for VAWA it was deemed essential
to do away with such pillars of jurisprudence as due process,
warrants, mens rea and actus reus, presumption of innocence, property
rights, the right of a man to raise and protect his children, the
right to face one's accuser, and any other rights a man may have
thought he had. Hearsay became admissible in court and because a man
might object to being forcefully evicted from his home with no notice,
secret orders to accomplish that could now be issued ex parte.
We were told we must now
"Believe the victim," and presume that women would never lie
or injure themselves, and never suffered from mental health problems.
Nor should women be required to provide evidence to substantiate their
claims. Even the "potential" for violence or emotional abuse
became sufficient justification to impose these penalties.
Expanding the definition of domestic
violence
Not content to simply have
destroyed civil liberties, radical feminists continued their campaign
for power and control.
In Colorado "domestic
violence" was always an add-on charge, or sentence enhancer,
to any other crime. Cussing and swearing, never polite, now became
criminal harassment in the presence of a woman. Writing a description
of her, no matter how accurate and justified, also became a criminal
act. So much for freedom of speech.
On the federal level, in 1996 the Lautenberg Amendment to
the Brady Gun Control bill made it a federal felony for anyone
convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence or who was restrained under
a domestic abuse order to purchase or possess any gun or
ammunition.
In year 2000 the dismissal of the case against
Avalanche goalie Patrick
Roy served as an excuse to broaden the definition of domestic
violence to include any damage or destruction of a man's private
property.
Any animal abuse while in the presence
or belonging to an intimate partner also became domestic violence. So
if you kick the cat you go to jail.
In 2010 in People v Disher the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that a sexual
relationship was not an essential element of an intimate relationship.
So any woman a man had dated, kissed, held hands with, invited into
his home, or lived communally with could take out a restraining order
against or charge him with domestic violence. The situation has
deteriorated to the point that attorney RK Hendrick strongly
recommends that a man not allow a woman into his home before he has
run a background check on her.
And few judges would dare deny a woman a
restraining order for fear she would end up murdered and he blamed. Of
course, the hundreds of women who were granted restraining orders and
then ended up dead was excused as simply proving the necessity for
such orders and justification for ever more tyrannical laws.
Decades later
Nearly two decades after the passage of VAWA
it seems worthwhile to review what has been accomplished in the way of
reducing domestic violence, and whether or not the draconian laws are
working or not. By 2010 over one-quarter of all crimes in
Colorado involved domestic violence and the courts became
overloaded with specious cases.
By the time retired Army Sergeant Tom
Ball took his life in 2011 after a decade of injustice under such
"laws" as VAWA, about 36 million people had been arrested
for "domestic violence" and an estimated 72 million men,
women, and children had been rendered homeless at some point in their
lives by such arrests.
Number of domestic violence
cases
One measure of success of these
draconian laws would be to find they had deterred offenders from
assaulting their intimate partners and the number of criminal cases
had measurably decreased. In Table 61 I present the
population-normalized numbers of restraining orders, including
criminal domestic violence cases, from 1998 through 2010 for 21
judicial districts in Colorado (excludes Denver). In no district do
the number of cases consistently decrease over time and the statewide
average increases from 62 per 10,000 residents in 1998 to 77 per
10,000 in 2010.
Rather than deterring, current
laws seem to be increasing the incidence of domestic violence and
abuse.
An increase in such abuse and violence is
hardly the outcome desired, particularly given the loss of civil
liberties involved.
Initially, domestic violence was presumed to
occur primarily in married or cohabiting couples where the husband
beat his wife in order to maintain power and control to maintain his
patriarchal dominance.
Again, the data do not support that
supposition. Table 78
shows the number of victims of domestic violence who were married at
the the time of the incident from 1995 through 2010. In 1995 42% of
the victims were married but that steadily declines until by 2010 only
29% are married. The inference is that the laws either deter married
couples from calling the police or there are many fewer married
couples.
Table 74 examines the
deterrence effect of the domestic violence laws in Colorado Springs
from 1990, before these laws were passed in 1994, through 2010. During
this 21-year period the population increased 61% and the percentage of
citizens who called 911 during a given year steadily increased from
39% in 1990 to 46% in 2010. Conversely, and remarkably, the number of
911 calls for a domestic disturbance remains essentially constant at
12,000 +/-2,000 over the entire time span and the percentage of
"domestic" 911 calls decreases from 7.5-8.7% in the
1990-1994 period to 4.1-5.1% of the total in the 2007-2010 interval.
Clearly, the major impact of the domestic violence laws has
been to deter citizens from calling the police when fighting with
their intimate partners, hardly a desirable
outcome.
The direct effect of these laws on
marriage is more difficult to quantify but marriage and birth rates
are now at an all time low. And for a decade the EJF has pointed out
that under current laws a man has to be functionally insane to marry
and a drooling idiot to sire a child. Denying reality as usual,
the decline in marriage is blamed on men's "fear of
commitment" and other nonsense. Feminists studiously avoid
acknowledging that marriage today has no better than a random chance
of success and that in the divorce the man will almost certainly lose
everything he has worked for.
In summary, in two decades
ever-more-encompassing and draconian domestic violence laws have only
served to increase the number of false or unsubstantiated court cases,
deter intimate partners from reporting such incidents as they are now
more afraid of police than their partners, and discourage men from
marrying. Given that a primary objective of the neo-Marxist radical
feminists who promoted these excessively punitive laws is to destroy
the patriarchy and restore a matriarchy, they are apparently
succeeding in achieving that goal.
Mandatory arrest and
homicides
One of the basic precepts of VAWA is that the
only way to stop the violence was for police to make an arrest when
called to a domestic disturbance. So a warrantless arrest became
mandatory, or was strongly recommended.
Mandatory arrest has been found to have
several drawbacks.
One, it resulted in many more women
being arrested by frontline officers who were less concerned with
feminist ideology and more concerned with justice and the facts before
them at the scene. That was, of course, unacceptable and radical
feminists then pushed a "primary
aggressor" law through the legislature. In essence such laws
dictate the cop is to arrest the big, ugly hairy ape regardless of
what the facts are. So men who have been stabbed, burned, bitten,
scratched, bones broken, etc., are now arrested for domestic violence
even when the female hasn't a mark on her.
Two, in a study of police
responses to domestic violence eventually in seven cities, including
Colorado Springs, Sherman (1992) found that an arrest was often criminogenic
and increased the violence in the couple. That was found to be
particularly true when the perpetrator, always male in these studies,
was unemployed at the time of the arrest. As a result Sherman
repeatedly recommended against making arrests mandatory in these
cases. But science has never deterred or undermined radical feminist
dogma and a warrantless arrest is mandatory in Colorado and many other
states regardless of whether the man is present or not when the police
arrive.
Three, Iyengar (2007) carried
the investigation even further and found that warrantless mandatory
arrests actually increases homicides among
intimate partners by 60%. She hypothesizes that the reason for this
increase in homicides is that mandatory arrest dissuades victims from
reporting problems to the police, as documented above, which in some
cases ultimately results in murder. Her study is limited to
homicides committed against a husband, wife, common-law husband,
common-law wife, ex-husband, or ex-wife. But no doubt many girlfriends
end up dead as well.
Restraining/protection orders
A major weapon in the current battle against
domestic violence is a restraining/protection order. Extrapolating
from the number of these
orders issued annually in Colorado suggests there are 2.3 million
such orders issued each year in the United States.
Since a man might strenuously object to being
thrown forcefully from his home and taken bodily from his children if
he had warning, it was deemed necessary to require that these orders
be issued ex
parte, in essence a Star Chamber
proceeding.
Now you may have naively believed that under the Fifth
Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution that: "No person
shall Š be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law." A bedrock principal of due
process is fair notice to all the
parties who may be affected by any legal proceedings. Therefore, an ex
parte judicial proceeding, conducted without notice to, and outside
the presence of, the affected parties, would appear to violate the
Constitution.
However, adequate notice
of judicial proceedings to concerned parties may at times work
irreparable harm to one or more of those parties. In such a case, the
threatened party or parties may receive an ex parte court hearing to
request temporary judicial relief without notice to, and outside the
presence of, other persons affected by the hearing. And, of
course, it is always claimed that in cases of domestic abuse that
"irreparable harm" will
result if a man is given a chance to defend himself under due
process.
Therefore, a woman
who claims, without proof or evidence, to be suffering abuse at the
hands of an intimate partner (see definition above) is granted an ex
parte restraining/protection order simply by filling out a standard
form. And if she can't do that simple task, then VAWA-funded victim
advocates, shelter groups, or attorneys are available to tell her what
to say, i.e, she must state she is "in fear" of the
man (no reason required), and even fill out the form for her and
appear in court with her, or on her behalf. At least in Colorado a
wide variety of people can seek an ex parte order against a man for
domestic abuse on behalf of a woman with or without her knowledge and
consent.
Upon service of
such order by the police or other party the man is typically barred
from his home (even if she doesn't live there), any contact with the
woman, his children, or any indirect contact through a third-party.
The judge may, and often does impose other draconian penalties on the
man when handing down such orders, often at the rate of
one-a-minute.
Since due process is
ignored, and hearsay is admissible, the potential for abuse of process
with such orders is
unlimited and unchecked. A
restraining order is regarded as a "silver bullet" in
a divorce or custody battles and attorneys often advise their female
clients to seek one even if she has no basis (subornation of perjury
is not a crime in Colorado).
While the
protection order is a civil case, violation of such orders
constitutes a criminal act of domestic violence in Colorado and many other states. As noted
initially, it has become more and more difficult to obtain a criminal
conviction on charges of domestic violence. In response, to
maintain their vendetta against men, redfems soon adopted a policy of
getting a civil restraining order then claiming it had been violated.
As no proof is required, and a warrantless arrest is an immediate, or
as soon as the cops can catch him, result they found this a very
desirable alternative. The man is then left attempting to prove a
negative and, unlike most criminal charges, she can make multiple
claims of restraining/protection order violations. It is said that
cell phones were invented for women to report restraining/protection
order violations.
Table 65
clearly shows this pattern for Colorado's 4th Judicial District. From
2002 to 2010 the number of protection orders issued nearly doubles
and, from 2005 to 2010 the number of protection order violations
reported rises from 76 to 543, a seven-fold increase. Table 62
shows the same pattern for the entire state.
However, there is a fundamental flaw in this
agenda. Protection orders provide no protection!
If there is real abuse and violence in the
relationship a protection order is much more likely to act as a
catalyst for violence than a deterrent. Virtually every domestic
violence homicide or murder-suicide I've been able to track occurs
after a restraining order has been issued. I documented fifteen such
cases and could have included many, many more but to what purpose
as the evidence is clear. And the EJF has never found a case where a protection order provided any
documented level of protection, or even anecdotes about how a
protection order made a woman safe.
Unfortunately,
since protection orders don't protect endangered women (or men),
radical feminists then claim that even more oppressive laws are
required. As one result we have the present nightmarish system that
protects no one and violates virtually every civil liberty a citizen
has.
Making the
penalties for violating a protection order even more draconian is very
unlikely to change the rate at which such orders are violated but does
increase the catalytic effect such orders have on violence. Dugan and
others (2001) found that:
"...Increases in the willingness of prosecutors' offices to take cases of protection order violation were associated with increases in the homicide of white married intimates, black unmarried intimates, and white unmarried females..."
One manifestation
of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a
different outcome. Are we not doing exactly that with protection
orders?
PTSD and domestic violence
Perhaps the saddest result of VAWA and
its attendant misandry is the effect it has on wounded veterans.
Since the beginning of seemingly endless
and futile wars in 2003, more and more veterans have returned from
combat with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). And traumatic brain
injuries (TBI) are the signature wound of these wars as body and
vehicle armor now allow troops to survive in conditions that would
have been fatal in previous conflicts. And PTSD is an almost
inevitable companion to TBI.
€ Dissociation from actual events and no memory of them;
€ Nightmares often accompanied by kicking and fighting in one's sleep;
€ Irrational anger or irritability accompanied by emotional or violent outbursts;
€ Anxiety and a need for unconditional control of almost every situation in order to feel safe;
€ Panic attacks and hyperventilating;
€ Social withdrawal and fear of crowded places;
€ Hypervigilance;
€ Flashbacks to the event(s); and
€ An exaggerated and often violent startle response.
Inasmuch as the underlying ideology claims the
violence and emotional abuse are the result of a man exerting power
and control over a woman in order to maintain the patriarchy, all of
these manifestations of PTSD fit the legal definition of criminal
domestic violence. If you have any doubts as to what the companion of
a veteran with PTSD must endure may I strongly suggest you read this letter from the wife of a Navy
corpsman.
Members of the Armed Forces are, by
definition, patriarchs and trained killers under redfem dogma. Mandatory arrest, no drop prosecution, and primary
aggressor policies thus lead to the wholesale destruction of military
and civilian careers, and their families and children based on the
injuries and stress of combat. For doing their duty and honoring the
call of their country, radical feminism rewards these men and women
with arrest and destruction of their lives if they survive the
multiple tours of combat commonly endured today.
Typically these
men, and a few women, lose their veteran's benefits as well when
caught up in the nightmare of DV courts, and commonly become homeless
mental wrecks, or end up in prison for long terms. All too often they
eventually commit suicide.
If you are not outraged by such
indecent and disgusting treatment of our most honorable citizen
soldiers then there is little vestige of humanity in you!
Summary and
recommendations
It is clear from the above that current
domestic violence laws have little purpose but to destroy men,
marriage, families, and the patriarchy under the guise of stopping
domestic violence, which has provided a convenient cover and financial
rewards for neo-Marxist radical feminist ideology.
However, viewing the results of VAWA and
related state laws from the standpoint of neo-Marxist radical
feminists, they have scored an enormous victory and accomplished many
of their ideological goals, e.g., the virtual destruction of the
patriarchy.
These laws have also created a
significant expansion of the judicial system and enriched innumerable
lawyers but without an increase in public safety. In fact, available
evidence suggests public safety has been harmed rather than enhanced
by these tyrannical laws.
Dealing with domestic violence, or
what is now called intimate partner violence since married coupes are
now an endangered species, is a massive growth industry.
In summary, VAWA has endangered
citizens and our civilization!
There is no basis whatsoever for the
feminist claims that men are always the batterers and women are always
the victims in intimate relationships. As of June 2012 my colleague Prof. Martin
Fiebert has compiled an annotated bibliography that examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221
empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, that clearly
demonstrates women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive,
than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.
The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds
371,600. And a number of studies have substantiated the
Army's findings that among young couples women are two-to-three times
more violent than their male partners. And lesbian couples appear to
be the most violent relationships of all.
Clearly, domestic violence laws need to
be revised and based on science rather than radical feminist dogma and
emotions and feelings. The truth of these problems is not established
by women crying and lying in courts or legislative hearings.
€ Scenario One: Women or men who accidentally become involved with a violent partner and now wish to leave and to never return again.
€ Scenario Two: Women or men who, for deep psychological reasons of their own, seek out a violent relationship, or a series of violent relationships, with no intention of leaving.
Pizzey also emphasized
that:
"...it is essential to understand the differentiation between our use of the words battered and violence-prone. For us, a battered person is the innocent victim of another person's violence; a violence-prone person is the victim of their own addiction to violence."
and these distinctions must be made when dealing with
intimate partner violence.
One size does not fit all!
Some obvious steps could readily be
taken to end the most odious aspects of the current dogmatic
laws:
* Base domestic violence laws on the data, not emotions, feelings, or radical feminist ideology and dogma;
* End warrantless mandatory arrests to save lives and reduce violence;
* Eliminate "no drop" prosecution requirements so that district attorneys have more flexibility in dealing with domestic violence cases;
* Listen to the "victim" and design the response to fit the circumstances;
* Design programs to deal with couples who are mutually combative, about half the cases based on scientific surveys;
* Limit criminal domestic violence law to actual crimes of violence rather than an add-on charge to any and all crimes as is presently the case;
* End the presumption that all men are batterers and all women are victims and make the laws and police, court, treatment provider, and all other trainings gender neutral with the stipulation that women are as violent, or more violent, than men in intimate relationships;
* Treat the mental health problems such as narcissism, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or the other disorders that are commonly found to occur in association with violent or emotionally-abusive relationships as health problems, not crimes;
* Treat war and accident injuries such as PTSD and TBI as injuries, not crimes;
* Women, or men who are in actual danger from their intimate partner should and must be provided a safe shelter rather than a piece of paper claiming to be a protection order that doesn't stop a bullet;
* Audit existing shelters and ensure they are serving men, women, and children of all ages only for the purposes they are funded for as many currently do not;
* End ex parte restraining/protection orders as they are duplicative in divorce/dissolution cases and due process in other cases would save many lives.
While there is still hope for the
preservation of marriage, which lies at the base of our civilization,
we can, and must fix the problem, not the blame!
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______________________________________________
Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A., President
______________________________________________
Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A., President
Equal Justice Foundation
http://ejfi.org/
455 Bear Creek Road
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