domestic violence

• Domestic Violence is any incident or patter of controlling, coercive or threatening behavior, violence or abuse between partners and family members
• Many theories do not take the dark side of the family into account and ignore child abuse and domestic violence
• Domestic Violence is a social cause as they are far too widespread to be a psychological problem.
• Domestic Violence does not occur randomly but follows particular patterns and causes.

  
  

  The biggest pattern is mainly violence is committed by men against women
• Coleman et al (2007) = women are more likely to experience intimate violence across all 4 types of abuse

  
  

  Coleman and Osborne (2010) = 1/3 of all female homicide victims are killed by their former or current partner
• Statistics of domestic violence:

  • Women domestic violence accounts for 25% of all reported violent crimes
  • 2 million people reported being victims of domestic violence in 2012
  • 2 women are killed a week by domestic violence
• Official statistics show that:

  • Domestic violence affects 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men
  • Has more repeat victims than any other crime
  • 93% of all incidents against women are committed by men
• The issue with official statistics are that they are socially constructed and underestimate the true extent of the problem
• • Victims may be unwilling to report it to the police

  Yearnshire (1997) found woman suffer 35 assaults' before making a report

  • Police and prosecutors may be reluctant to record or investigate if they are reported
• Domestic abuse is an invisible crime as it occurs behind closed doors and often difficult to measure it accurately as many don't report it to the police
• The dark figure of crime is to describe the amount of unreported crimes which impact the validity of official statistics
• Social agents of control often do not prosecute or investigate

  eg. The police
• Police may be reluctant to investigate as they make three assumptions about the family:

  1. Family life is a private sphere
  2. Tend to neglect the darker side of family life
  3. Free agents so assume the woman is free to leave
• Women are often financially dependent on their husbands as their husband has the economic power so they are unable to leave