Greetings from sunny Charleston, South Carolina, the Holy City, you are listening to the social criminologist I am your host Rick Decker. Today we’re going to talk about domestic violence there is enough of it on television today where victims are coming forward letting people know that they have had incidents like that in their lives. However, the undertone that is being sent out through the media is that this is a women’s versus man’s issue only and I think it is prudent that we discuss it in its entirety so that people can understand the reality of domestic violence.
Domestic balance is a willful intimidation, physical assault a battery, sexual assault or any other abusive behavior as part of the systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, emotional psychological abuse, the frequency and severity of domestic violence varies dramatically this is the definition domestic violence as stated by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence here are some statistics that I want you to be privy to and think about over the weekend as you’re watching these news stories in the United States and average of 20 people or physical abuse by an intimate partner every minute that equates to more than 10 million abuses annually in that statistic one in three women have been sexually abused by her partner one in five women have been severely physically abused by an intimate partner one and one in seven women have been stalked by someone close to her or even harmed or killed.
Here’s the other side of the statistic that is important that I want to bring out on the show today is going to be our focus. Of the same categories we just spoke of one in four men have been physically abused by an intimate partner, one in seven have been severely physically abused by an intimate partner and one in eighteen have been stalked, feared, harmed or killed the statistics that I am quoting are from reliable sources this next one is from the Guardian newspaper that I have to tell you the Guardian is well respected in their studies and scholar arenas because they and the Washington Post are the only two newspapers that actually keep statistics on officer involved shootings along with the CDC.
According to Guardian, two in five victims of domestic violence are men; men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by the police. The police let their attacker go free. Analysis statistics on domestic violence show that the number of men attacked by wives and girlfriends is significantly higher than previously thought in the past a British prime survey show that men
Make up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year. This was between 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009 and last year. In 06-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who have suffered partner abuse. Men were subjected to severe force and incidents with their partner according to documents with figures that stood up to 48.6% these figures are equivalent to an estimated 4.5 million victims of female victims 2.6 million male victims.
Men are often treated as second-class citizens by the police in these incidents and they are not taken seriously.
Male victims tend to be invisible to the authorities culturally men are viewed as being weak if they report that they’re being beaten by their wives or girlfriends it is humiliating for a man to say hey she’s beating me because of our social expectations and roles of gender. Now in these cases women are being prosecuted and like I said before this is a real problem but is not just a woman’s problem the CDC and a report there was oh somewhere in 2011 2012 conducted a study there’s 12 months longitudinal study where more men than women were victims event of partner violence in over 40% of severe physical violence were directed at men 40% directed at men ladies and gentlemen more men than women are victims of intimate partner physical violence within the past year than any other time.
This is getting out of hand all the way across the board, services are available for women everything for whatever they need okay however when a man calls to seek help they’re ridiculed made fun of and called liars and told they are the aggressor.
In the research Cook, Douglas & Hines found that during solicitation proposals to the Department of Justice for intimate partner violence on stalking the DOJ refused any proposal on research on intimate partner violence against or the stalking of any man of any age. They also refused studies of any female under the age of 12 they refused why is it why do they refused to study domestic violence with man being the victim? It’s because our society cannot conceptualize a man being a victim 16% of men who contact hotline said the staff make fun of them 15% who went to local domestic violence agencies the police arrested them as often as the violent offender. Men are subjected to being to arrest an accused of being the aggressor the majority of the time in the statistics they found 106 men suffered severe physical injury but only 54 those man went to a doctor why because they were afraid of having to admit their female counterpart beat them and injured them that’s why.
Women are half as likely to perpetuate serious physical violence on a man the rate for women injuring a partner with 80% higher than the male rate. This is not a problem for just women this is a problem for men when you look at these stories and you realize that this is a problem for both genders it tends to put things into perspective.
I really hate seeing people get on television playing the victim when they’re only addressing half the issue our society is geared to help women there are hardly any programs at all to help men and I’m going to leave a personal note in here with you and disclose something with my son was born my first one I went through a divorce and I had went for help to get diapers for him and I was told we can’t help you because you’re not female your man you get a job and good work. They wouldn’t help me so I know for fact of the programs out here society or structure to help women and I’m glad that there are programs structured to help women because they have more needs and because they’re mothers and most men run off I get that okay.
But in cases for domestic violence there has to be some balance. Often we wonder why women wait so long to make these allegations and especially when they come out in the news and there is probably good cause for that because historically the criminal justice system has made female victims of sexual assault victims again they’re accused of lying they subject them to questioning that is embarrassing and frankly is not the courts damn business so this is probably why they don’t speak up but there’s also some statistics that prove they came from London that most of the women just except this is a part of life the ones that are victims and nobody should except ever no matter what your gender is being hit or beaten as part of life.
I get a lot of people to talk to me and say that well you know those false claims statistically in the United States between two and 6% of all the claims that are made her false in the UK that statistic was about four to 5% so that theory pretty much goes out the window and I do have one story of a sex assault case out of the hundreds that I did that turned out to be a lie the victim admitted open court she lied and fabricated the entire story but nevertheless there is good there is bad if you’re going to look at an issue it is imperative that you look at all sides of the issues what I trained my investigators I would tell them follow the evidence, the evidence will set you free as I teach people and lecture I tell them do You want to know the truth get out and do your research and look at all aspects of it not just one side that’s the only way we can formulate an honest opinion about a topic.
Well listen my time is about up for today I want to thank you for listening I encourage you to email me at RDeckerPhD at Gmail.com with any comments or questions you can also follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn underneath my name Richard Decker MSCJ which stands for masters science criminal justice I am on Instagram and YouTube under the Socio-criminologist and Facebook as well thank you for listening I appreciate your time I look forward to speaking with you again I don’t care what you do just whatever you do the extraordinary at it lets take care one another carpe diem.
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