Blaming the Victim

When prosecuting criminal domestic violence cases too many officers constructed their entire case only on statements made by the victim. However, “victims of domestic violence are more likely than victims of other violent crime to recant or refuse to cooperate in prosecutorial efforts” (Breitenbach, 2008, p. 1256). Officers must consider that victims of domestic violence may refuse to testify because of fear of retaliation, intimidation, financial dependence, emotional attachment, and/or because they reunited with the batterer. If the victim refused to testify during court, their statement against the abuser becomes hearsay evidence. Several recent cases have had a huge influence on how those statements and hearsay evidence may be

As stated previously, the victim might believe that the abuser will change for the better or they stick it out for the honeymoon/calm phase. However, there are many other motivators for a victim to stay in an abusive relationship. Victims in abusive relationships could have had a very tumultuous and abusive childhood therefore abuse is what they are familiar with and as humans we seek out what is familiar to us. Even if a victim is able and willing to escape an abusive relationship, things do not always begin to get immediately better. As stated before, the abuser wants to control and have power over the victim. So if the victim leaves, the abuser experiences a loss of power. This causes a majority of the abusers to begin stalking, harassing, and threatening the victim as a ploy to regain their previously held power over them. Once the victim has broken out of their abusive relationship their lives can actually be more at risk than when they were in the relationship due to the drastic measures that abusers may take to regain their loss of power over the victim. As stated by Injuryprevention.bmj.com, an international peer-reviewed journal for health professionals and others in injury prevention, one fifth of homicide victims with restraining orders are murdered within two days of obtaining the order and one third are murdered within the first month. Embarrassment is another key motivator for victims, especially males, to stay in an abusive relationship. The victim does not want to admit that they are being abused by their significant other for fear of seeming weak to their family and friends. It is very hard for men to admit that they are being abused by women as women are supposed to be stereotypically weaker than them. For those in same-sex abusive relationships, the victim’s family and friends might not be aware that they

Every minute twenty four people are victims of abuse in the United States, that’s more than 12 million women a year. People seem to wear a mask until they are behind closed doors. Abuse has affected the victim and suspect both and there are many reasons for everything.

In the United States, domestic violence is the leading cause of injury in women between the ages of 15 and 44 (Nies & McEwen, 2015, p. 329). I have always struggled with understanding why women stay in abusive relationships. Growing up witnessing my own mother be a victim of domestic violence has made me less than empathetic for women who are in those situations and don’t do something to help themselves or their children. For as long as I can remember, I have said that if a person is in an abusive relationship and doesn’t take steps to get out of it, I have no sympathy for them. My goals for this experience were to identify at least two reasons why women stay in an abusive relationship and to identify at least two resources

act likes this or its all the victim fault and also the abuser will make the

The reasons why women remain in abusive relationships for long periods are rather socio-cultural. Economic dependence and lack knowledge of social services to encourage and to prevent further abuse. Sometimes the inadequate reaction of competent institutions such as the police and other government departments are factors that cause women to stay in abusive environments for long periods of time. Women who received shelter, until they manage to gain their independence are less likely to return to the abuser. It is therefore important for police and referral institutions to note that the recovery from violence is a long process. Women need a period for healing, and time to gain economic, and social independence. A DV victim needs time so it is

No one deserves to be battered, beaten, threatened, or in any way victimized by violence or by someone they trust or have a relationship with. While victims and prosecutors advocate often struggle with uncooperative victims, the demand not to prosecute is a challenging factor. Based on manipulation and coercion, there are also conflicting views of this epidemic. Many victims constantly make rational choices concerning their safety and way of living when deciding to prosecute. However, they may be in a better state of mind to decide whether prosecuting will help or hinder. When deciding to prosecute, domestic violence victims may allow themselves, in many cases, to become victimized by succumbing to the belief of personal vulnerability. When

The tendency to portray women as the victim in an abusive relationship is due to the false belief that all women are weak and submissive. Although women, on average, are weaker than men, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they always are just weak. And obviously not all people fit stereotypes.

Domestic violence often goes unreported because the victims are living in fear, and are to afraid to report the incidents. Women living in an abusive relationship are in constant fear of their abuser. Many women think reporting the abuse makes their abuser beat or even kill them if finding out. “Some women who have left an abusive partner have been followed and harassed for months or even years, and some have been killed” (Lloyd Ohlin and Michael Tonry, 207). In addition, the wives do not want the husband to be put in jail because she needs them to help to take care of their children, although she would like to have some protection. She is

Abusive Relationships is defined as the “systematic pattern of behaviors in a relationship that are used to gain and/or maintain power and control over another” (Huston, 2010). The forms of abuse range from emotional to financial and each has an everlasting effect on the victim. An abusive relationship also has a discrete effect on the mind of the victim; they experience many psychology difficulties pre and post the abuse. Yet despite all these catastrophic consequences to both the mind and body caused by the constant abuse, many of the victims tend to stay in the relationships. The victim’s deal with emotional challenges on a daily basis, they are wounded on both a mental and psychical level, and have to deal with the constant pressure

They way that current law reads in the use of the self-defense claim is a person must be in complete fear of death or bodily injury and the only way to avoid such death or injury is to resort to the use of deadly force for self-defense. Many women have been sexually abused with the average being around the 60% mark (Ewing, 1990). There are three stages to the Walker’s cycle of violence and they are the tension-building stage, acute battering incident stage and the loving contrition stage (Ewing, 1990). The first stage is one mostly of verbal abuse accompanied by some small physical abuse with the woman trying to keep the batter less angry. The next stage is one of tension that escalates and severe abuse takes place. The third stage is one of remorse by the batterer and assures the woman that the abuse will not happen again. Unfortunately in most abusive relationships the abuse does happen again and with each new event the abuse is more hostile and severe than the prior events (Ewing, 1990).

Male abuse is the hidden side of domestic violence. Representative sample surveys of the population show that abuse is a fifty-fifty proposition when it comes to intimate partner violence. The only exception to these figures is shown in the major national survey produced by the National Violence Against Women survey which found that thirty-six percent of the victims are male (Kimmell, 2001). The issue is not that men don’t tell, no one actually asks. Women on the other hand have the public knowledge that domestic violence occurs. They have shelters and crisis lines to seek help, and there is also someone who cares enough to ask. This equivalent does not exist for men because quite possibly of discrimination.

Everyone has witnessed an abusive relationship, even if it was only for a moment. As people notice the bruises on the abused girl and the fear in her eyes, questions well up. The main question that confuses many people is, “why doesn't she just leave?” The reasoning sounds simple, but the complex factors are mountains for the girl suffering. For instance, fear is powerful enough to drive them, their past almost defines them, and their roots decide their path.

During the week on victim blaming, we studied women in abusive relationships which is a topic close to my heart. I selected the topic of young women in abusive marriages or marriage like relationships to see how and why women in abusive relationships cope. In the peer-reviewed, scholarly article entitled, Young Woman’s Experience of Coping with Violence in Intimate Relationships by Marina Ursa and Corinne Koehn, young women’s coping mechanisms were analyzed and assessed against past research. Marina Ursa and Corinne Koehn analyzed interviews of five women ages 19-24, because this age group is the most common to experience abuse. Their goal was finding the differences and similarities in the decisions made in coping with abusive relationships before the women left their abusers.

Battered women oftentimes endure far more trauma than the abuse they receive from their abusers. It is not unusual for battered women to be blamed for the abuse they receive. This blame not only come from the criminal justice system, it also come from other professionals, such as law enforcement officials, social workers/caseworkers with the Department of Human Resources and even medical professionals (Barnett, Miller-Perrin, & Perrin, 2011). Society, family members, and friends of battered women also place the blame on them for staying with their abuser after they have been abused.