Domestic violence is an issue with different laws to safeguard the victim and a likely apprehension of the abuser. Compared to the periods in the early 60s and 90s, this form of violence was stimulated by warring abnormalities and regarded as a private family matter. The latter means that when a husband beats his wife, then it happens as a family matter. Today, domestic violence is punishable by incarceration.
Early Theories of Domestic Violence
Family Violence Theory
Early theorists argued that domestic violence was due to social forces and individual pathology. Parent-child and husband-wife violence were elements of two conditions: socialization experience and structural stress (Houston, 2014). Structural stress is displayed when the husband fails in finding ways to sustain the family or has no occupational status. Structural stress results in violence. Therefore, the more stressed an individual translates to a likely domestic violence. Houston (2014) adds that the victim’s role also manifests in escalating family arguments, criticisms over sexual performance, using vile names, and punishing nagging children. Different signs are also available that could result in violence mixed with aspects like gambling, drinking, and low-income families.
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Battered Women Theory
Houston (2014) argues that women with resources have a severe problem when they get back to previous violent relationships. The battered women undergo a violent cycle and learned psychological helplessness. After being battered, the women gain consciousness and assume they had no power to counterattack. The violence cycle comprises three levels: loving contrition, acute battering, and tension-building (Houston, 2014). The three levels make up relationship friction; what follows next is violence resulting from a heated argument and concludes with apologies and being remorseful. The propositions concerning the battered women are that the rationalizing myths concerning battering were false, and battering is considered terrible and pervasive.
Feminist Theories’ Response
The theories' responses included the female victims experience deflection of responsibility from the male dominance and the batterers. The theories were not accepted due to the privatization of domestic violence which permitted the violent actions to continue not minding the victims’ welfare. The feminist theories asserted to target dysfunctional relationships that gradually led to domestic violence. By privatizing domestic violence, both the judicial system and law enforcement are kept out of the family matters that resulted in the violence.
Theory 1
Female masochism or victim-blaming is regarded as pleasure in pain, translating to women's enjoyment of humiliation and pain. Also, when conducting the domestic violence interpretation as a dysfunctional relationship tends to limit the participation of the law enforcement. Perpetuation of victim-blaming was a point that the feminists argued, one of the most aggressive and sustained family violence critiques (Houston, 2014). Women’s assaults on their men happen at a similar rate as men’s assaults towards women- moreover, violence is initiated more often by women than men. In the long run, women were highly likely to be psychologically and physically injured during domestic violence. Hence, the mutual violence theory was one of the approaches used to blame any person for being beaten and discrediting protection by the courts and law enforcement.
Theory 2
The psychological theory is a result of familial relationship dysfunction. The approach is against criminal justice intervention. Feminists asserted that such motives resulted in having a private family affair free from public interference. Therefore, the feminists meant that domestic violence was not part of any courts’ issues as it was a family issue. In such a situation, the domestic violence victims could avoid arrest but prefer adjustments. The case means that the victim wants the batterer to dodge arrests.
Feminist Theories Impact on Criminal Intervention
Bruno v. Codd
The case was a significant event for feminists conducting domestic violence fights. Before 1979 and 1978, the wife had no protection against domestic violence. There were no such laws concerning the vice. Usually, when the women reported their grievances to the police, their sentiments were taken lightly by being told it was just a family issue. Thus, domestic violence is considered criminal behavior like any other. Bruno v. Codd focused on the failure of the police department to help solve the problems regarding domestic violence (Dragiewicz, 2016). The liability risk regarding arrest failures in domestic violence cases exposes governments and various individuals to informal responses they make during critical moments.
Laurie Woods asserted that the attitudes that led to arrest avoidance in wife battering cases are deeply and independently ingrained in the police force. However, the different policy changes were imperative in changing the police practice and attitudes, and the lawsuit permitted compliance measures such as assessment by battered women’s advocates. Laurie Woods observed a pervasive pattern involving the domestic violence case (Houston, 2014). Family court clerks send women to make the police reports while the police send these battered women to the family court. Woods added that the different agency employees blame other agencies for failure to protect the battered women. As a result, Laurie Woods concluded the need to merge all agencies to prevent evading responsibilities in protecting any domestic violence victim. The different members of the agency were the defendants in the case. They included the police commissioners, family court clerks, and state and city directors of probation.
Scott v. Hart
The case was a significant turning point since it focused on the need for the police to attend to service calls. The need to have a strengthened criminal justice system was crucial. The Scott lawyers ensured the plaintiffs covered different marital conditions, including married but in divorce, unmarried, and married, unlike Bruno v. Codd lawsuit that lacked such jurisdictional issues. Bruno v. Codd addressed married battered women only and did not cover ethnicity or race. In Scott v. Hart lawsuit, Pauline Gee responded to the different racial claims from women's complaints (Devaney & Lazenbatt, 2016) . Pauline Gee led to broadening other classes such as the blacks and whites too. Attorney Pauline Gee added that having various plaintiffs was beneficial for the women's representation in the family courts. She urged attorneys to have identical lawsuits to select different plaintiffs with diverse socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds to disregard the myth that battering happens in the minority and low-income population. As a result, awareness was created concerning domestic justice, and plaintiffs needed justice. Both Bruno v. Codd and Scott v. Hart lawsuits had settlements on police barred from arrest-avoidance policies and making excuses concerning domestic violence.
Conclusion
Early theories of domestic violence include family violence theory and battered women theory. Structural stress is displayed when the husband fails ways to sustain the family or has no occupational status. Structural stress results in violence. The battered women undergo a violent cycle and learned psychological helplessness. Feminists did not accept the theories due to the privatization of domestic violence, which permitted the violent actions to continue, not minding the victims’ welfare. Laurie Woods concluded the need to merge all agencies to prevent evading responsibilities in protecting any domestic violence victim. Pauline Gee urged attorneys with identical lawsuits to select different plaintiffs with various socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds to disregard the myth that battering happens in the minority and low-income population. Both Woods and Gee perceived domestic violence as a behavior that needed criminal justice response.
Credibility of the Sources Used Other than the Text Material
Devaney & Lazenbatt (2016) and Dragiewicz (2016) are credible sources as references for the assignment. Both sources have incorporated the contributions of other external scholars that help broaden the field of study. The information therein presents latest relevant research. The sources have a positive implication on both policies and practice in the contemporary world.
References
Devaney, J., & Lazenbatt, A. (2016). Domestic violence perpetrators: Evidence-informed responses . Routledge.
Dragiewicz, M. (2016). Interventions, policies, and future research directions in partner violence. The Wiley handbook on the psychology of violence , 439-453.
Houston, C. (2014). How feminist theory became (criminal) law: Tracing the path to mandatory criminal intervention in domestic violence cases. Mich. J. Gender & L. , 21 , 217.
