ISSUES
: Domestic Violence
Chapter 2: Tackling domestic abuse
32
working for decades now to dispel
the myth that domestic violence
equals physical and sexual
violence. Women often report,
as they did in our pilot study,
that it wasn’t always the physical
violence that was the worst. It was
the more subtle forms of control. It
was not having their own money,
seeing their children or their pets
being treated badly and having to
restrict their lives in an attempt to
live by their partner’s rules to keep
them happy.
This is why we included six
different measures of success
in our research. The other five
measures of success – respectful
relationships; expanded space
for action; decreased isolation;
enhanced
parenting
and
understanding the impact of
domestic violence – did all see
improvements as well, though not
to the extent that was seen for the
physical and sexual violence, and
in many cases not to the extent
that women might have hoped for.
Fewer children were scared of the
perpetrator, fewer children were
worried about the safety of their
mother, men were less likely to try
to make excuses for their behaviour
and less likely to try to prevent
0
5
10 15 20 25 30 35
All offences
Percentage
Criminal damage and arson
Public order offences
Miscellaneous crimes
Sexual offences
Violence against the person
All offences
Proportion of offences recorded by the police in England and Wales
which were flagged as domestic abuse related, selected offence groups,
April to December 2015
Percentage (%)
Source: Crime in England and Wales: Year ending December 2015, Office for National Statistics, 21 April 2016
11%
33%
12%
9%
8%
7%
women from contacting their
friend. But this kind of behaviour
did still continue for a significant
proportion of men.
Perpetrator programmes can allow
men who are ready to choose to
stop using violence and abuse in
relationships to take steps towards
change. Sometimes these will be
tiny steps, sometimes they will be
great leaps. For most of the women
and children in our research, lives
were improved to some degree.
Can a leopard change its spots?
No, because a leopard is born
with spots, it does not make the
choice to continue to have them.
Men are not born violent, they
derive benefits from not being
held accountable for their use of
violence and abuse, and just as
they make decisions about other
areas of their lives, they can choose
to stop being violent and abusive.
Perpetrator programmes can help
them make those changes.
13 January 2015
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The above information is
reprinted with kind permission
from
The Conversation
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