“What the police believe is that it’s not just a domestic situation where one partner’s taken the children, we believe it’s more serious than that,” Detective Sergeant Richardson said.
Undoubtedly, our law enforcement officials witness all types of pathological relationships, including marriages damaged by extreme abuse and partnerships wounded by the need some people have for a bit of drama. However, the indented comment above, which featured in an article on The Age’s website about a kidnapping case, is a tad strange, especially since it was only a short time ago that the police had to investigate another case of children being murdered by a parent.
I found this a bit odd too.
Normally you just get “family and friends are worried, and we appeal for the mother to come forward blah blah blah”.
Maybe he knows even more than he let on.
Yeah…wow…”just a domestic situation”…those are never too serious or violent are they?
I seem to remember from criminal law that statistically speaking the most murders occured when women tried to leave their husbands…
That quote just stuck out like a sore thumb. It’s often never so serious as when one parent takes the child/children.
Evidentally, the accused woman is someone the father had been in a brief (and violent) relationship with.
I suppose we’ll have to wait for the court case for details, now that the woman has been arrested. Would expect a commercial TV feast, tabloids, etc.Unless whatever is behind it is incredibly pedestrian.
Well yes, and at the time of the statement quoted above, she’d last been seen stabbing the father in the face.
Possibly cause for some concern?
“I seem to remember from criminal law that statistically speaking the most murders occured when women tried to leave their husbands…”
That sounds right, fuckpoliteness.
This quote from Adele Horin rings true:
“For every psychopath, such as Sydney’s notorious “granny killer” John Glover, who murdered six victims, there are thousands of fathers, mothers, uncles, step-parents and spouses who cause murder or mayhem in the family.”
In the same article (http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/lives-of-fear-and-violence-behind-the-picket-fence/2007/11/16/1194766964916.html) she says the following:
“Consider wife battering. Almost one-quarter of women are estimated to have experienced violence at the hands of a husband at some time in their lives. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women of reproductive age, in some areas sending more women to hospital than any other form of illness or assault.
From childhood women are taught to fear strangers but only 20 per cent who reported a sexual assault were attacked by strangers, according to the Bureau of Statistics - the rest suffered at the hands of family, friends, current partners or former ones. Families do not have to be overtly brutalising to cause damage, pain and hurt. The walking wounded of middle-class family life are multitude. They include parents abandoned by grown-up children; children broken by the weight of parental expectations, disapproval or selfishness; and spouses who hurt each other in myriad ways.”
“Unless whatever is behind it is incredibly pedestrian”.
Time will tell, Paul, although one suspects that after a short burst of publicity it’ll die away.
Absolutely cause for concern, FDB, but many domestic situations are just as much a cause for concern.
Good on you Darlene, I nearly responded earlier with stats similar to yours but being [marginally] involved daily in cases where women are damned if they deliver their childen to ex-partners who are physically and/or sexually abusing their children, and damned if they don’t deliver them I’m in a bit of a pessimistic state at the moment.
One thing that gets up my nose, and there are a few such things, is how the child sexual abuse and wife battering public perception paradigm has been captured recently by the myth that its mainly, if not only, committed by indigenous people. When the Mulligan report came out some noticed that the shock horror [and it is horrifying] rate of CSA in indigenous communities was about the same as that in white, including rich, communities but stating such got drowned in a sea of disbelief.
With Australia-wide estimates of 1 in 3-5 women suffering violence at the hands of males at some time in their lives and about 1 in 5 [roughly[ children suffering sexual abuse, usually at the hands of a familiar male adult, we have millions of people living in terror yet choose largely to ignore this in favour of comparatively isolated atypical stories like the one referenced.
FDB,
In my experience, women don’t usually go round slashing guys in the face unless they’ve been in a long term psychologically, physically, sexually abusive relationship. Unless they’re barking mad. And in all my 63 years I’ve only met one woman that barking mad.And I’ve met a lot of women.
My sister ‘kidnapped’ her child and went on the run for a few months recently. Eventually/predictably got caught and now has completely lost access. The observations I have from that are: the cops didn’t really care too much because they didn’t think she was any sort of a physical threat to the kid (which was correct). They didn’t even arrest her! Merely took the kid back into the father’s custody. The number of people that do this is surprisingly small, judging by the Family Court website which lists these things.
What the cop in the above article was referring to was the mother’s known mental illness. If it was ‘just’ domestic, then no, it’s not such a big thing.
Lets get some more stats into the discussion, from a google search in Australia, ‘child sexual abuse statistics’
Try these:
http://www.thewomens.org.au/SexualAssaultStatistics
the women’s royal hospital victoria
Which states this in amongst a whole stack of alarming stuff:
-”sexual assault is one of the most under-reported crimes where ‘there are numerous “hidden” victims who do not report their victimisation to the police or to health officials, making them invisible in official statistics’ (Schwartz, 1997:xi). Putt and Higgins (1997) undertook a review of available ‘indicators’ of violence against women and found: ‘Without a doubt police data and (crime victimisation) survey data continue to underestimate the extent of violence against women’ (Putt & Higgins, 1997:xiii).”
-”When the definition narrows to stringent criteria of penetration or intercourse, including digital, oral, vaginal and anal the prevalence rate goes from 1.3 per cent to 28.7 per cent for women and 1.1 per cent to 14.1 per cent for men. These are disturbing numbers and the estimates lie between these two extremes. However, based on a range of behaviours where children are used for someone’s sexual gratification, the prevalence rate is 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men.
-”What the available statistics do tell us is that sexual assault is a gendered crime. Amongst adults it is primarily women who are the victim/survivors and primarily men who are the perpetrators.”
And from Medicine Australia
http://www.medicineau.net.au/clinical/psychiatry/psychiatr2503.html
-”Statistics suggest that one in four girls and one in eleven boys are sexually assaulted by the age of 18. Childhood sexual abuse may have a detrimental effect on the child’s emotional development. Abuse by a family member is a betrayal of trust and a violation of boundaries, which compromises the child’s safe environment.”
There is lots more. Try googling if you want more.
There is also a whole stack of research which shows a correalative and causal relationship between CSA and wife-battering within marriages and partnerships, that post-separtation is an extremely dangerous time for women and childen and that the legal and government responses are woefully inadequate.
All bloody depressing and largely ignored.
And while I’m at it, I’m depressed by the ignorance that I see in the debate on homelessness in Australia.
I presume a third link would be one too many for this comment so I’ll suggest you check out the “Homelessness Australia” website where you will find this as one of their dot points:
“Strategies to address domestic violence - the single largest cause of homelessness and the most common reason women and children become homeless.”
“What the cop in the above article was referring to was the mother’s known mental illness. If it was ‘just’ domestic, then no, it’s not such a big thing.”
She’s not the mother, she’s the girlfriend.
I guess it depends on how you determine what is a ‘domestic’. Yep, I am sure that the police see all sorts of ‘domestics’ (the use of that word is really quite problematic), but the information Hannah’s Dad has provided shows how serious domestics can be. What a tragedy that escaping violence often means ending up homeless. Being a homeless woman surely has its own issues. Thanks for that information, Hannah’s Dad. Pretty depressing information, but necessary to know all the same.
The “it’s okay in the family thing” is to me the flip side of a community perception of stranger danger.
A friend of mine said to me this week that she worried a lot about the notion that a pedophile might be living in her street (they’re not, to the best of her knowledge).
Interestingly enough though, no amount of rolling out statistics about the likelihood of abuse being perpetrated by a family member or friend will dissuade her from her fear of strangers perpetrating evil on her children.
Better the devil you know?
Paul, with all due respect, as someone who has suffered serious unprovoked and unpredictable physical and psychological abuse in a relationship, I’d not be quite so cavalier in assuming that any violent woman was made so by a man.
The cops weren’t worried about the woman harming her boyfriend. they were worried about her harming the kid. Isn’t that patently obvious?
Wilful - yes it is.
Why do you ask?
FDB,
Didn’t mean to appear cavalier, or if I’ve caused offence, as I didn’t mean to. My assumprions, and I freely admit they are only assumptions, are based on stories told me by some women friends, eg. one friend who was in an abusive relationship which it took her years to escape told me how she would stand for hours over her sleeping partner with a carving knife in her hand wishing she could bring herself to kill him;another used to fight back, knowing she’d get an even worse beating - though she still stayed with him for ages -
I’ve heard cases of women beating up on theit partners as well, but fortunately have never been in such a relationship.
Again, sorry if I’ve caused any pain. It was not meant.
Just wanted to comment on the CSA numbers. The website slightly misrepresents that paper on CSA rates (I know the authors of the paper quite well). The range is up to the mid-twenties but the best guess for the nasty stuff, some form of coercive sexual intrusion not necessarily including rape, is around the 2-5% mark. High, but not the near-universal experience of children (as suggested by rates over 50%). In terms of perpetrators the term “male well known to the victim” is true but needs a little explanation. The statement excludes the caveat of “but uncommonly closely related”. Fathers make up well under 10% although mother’s boyfriend, family friend and “uncle” are pretty common. The flip side of that is that the closer to the victim is the abuser, the worse and more prolonged the abuse is likely to be or have been.
I would urge great care with the CSA numbers. Like all epidemiology, technical providence is all important and teh interwebs are not known for careful detailing of sources and methods. This is particularly true in CSA.
The other issue with CSA and later offending is the retrospective nature of the estimates. The prospective numbers tend to show a less dire chance of victims later victimising. There is also the association with every other form of misery and disadvantage that children suffer. The oft repeated statement that child abuse occurs in all walks of life is true, it just doesn’t occur at the same rate. The more generally chaotic and disadvantaged a child’s life, the higher the risk that this horror is one among many.
If you have academic library access try the book -
Childhood Sexual Abuse: An Evidence-Based Perspective (Developmental Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry) by Paul E. Mullen and David M. Fergusson (1999)
Not sure that relates to the original post. Sorry.
Where homelessness means nowhere, even temporarily, to stay which is clean, safe and warm, the lack of will in governments to address the problem is quite atrocious. Governments should be providing as much money is necessary for emergency accomodation. I can understand why long term places are difficult to find, but there was a report in the Canberra times today about young pregnant women (with partners sometimes) having to sleep in tents. Totally unacceptable given how cold it gets here in winter.
Darlene - perhaps what the police were trying to avoid people thinking that it was a women escaping a domestic violence situation with their child and so think it would be good to help her while on the run.
Um…so there are a few different issues being raised here.
The issue of whether or not women who are violent were made that way by experience is a minefield…which I’m sidestepping for the moment to go back to the initial objection regarding the comment.
Does anyone remember the sentencing of Bilal Skaf? In handing down the sentence, Justice Michael Finnane was at pains to distinguish the actions in this rape case from other rape cases. In doing so he said:
As I have earlier remarked these crimes were carefully planned and coordinated. The degree of planning and coordination distinguishes these crimes from other cases of gang rape which have been reported from time to time, which are often, if not usually, perpetrated by intoxicated men who have seized an opportunity which has been presented to them.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s675775.htm
Now…my point in raising this is not to say it is *not* a specific issue when a gang rape is so tightly coordinated, nor that there is not a specific issue of concern to the police when a woman who has taken off with children has stabbed a man in the face. It’s not that the police or the judges *notice* or *mark* differences between cases…it’s how they do it and what their remarks say about the “other cases” they distinguish the “exceptional” cases against that rankles.
In the judge’s quote he asserts (with no evidence whatsoever)that gangrape is often *if not usually* the result of intoxicated men seizing an *opportunity* - this casts rape as something drunk men might do if given the opportunity, and women as an opportunity to rape…this is a judge right, a man who had time to gather his thoughts, to choose his words carefully.
When the police officer said what he said, no doubt the fact that the woman had stabbed a guy in the face was something specific to why they were concerned - however…when he uses the phrase “not just a domestic situation…more serious than that”…it *does* stick out where the law has treated violence in the home as a simply ‘personal’ matter, a complicated thing, something for the family to sort out…it does grate when ‘just domestic’ situations are frequently extremely serious…
The point is not that the woman was not of concern after having stabbed someone, it’s the language we use to talk about these cases and the way it often highlights that the ‘usual cases’ are dismissed as less serious, cause for less concern, when statistically speaking we ought to be every bit as concerned over the ‘usual’ cases, the domestic situations etc…
“The “it’s okay in the family thing” is to me the flip side of a community perception of stranger danger.”
Good point. I guess it’s easier to fear the unknown (fearing someone like that man Ferguson in Queensland is understandable, although doesn’t deal with what society is meant to do with people like that when they get out) than to acknowledge the damage that we or people close to us can do. Obviously kids have much more risk of being abused by someone they know than someone they don’t.
Actually, I wonder if the use of the word “domestic” is useful at all. It’s existence has created a definite belief that some crimes are more awful than others.
Thanks, Dr S, for your valuable input.
“The oft repeated statement that child abuse occurs in all walks of life is true, it just doesn’t occur at the same rate. The more generally chaotic and disadvantaged a child’s life, the higher the risk that this horror is one among many.”
Rings true to me. And if a child is from a chaotic and disadvantaged home the effects would be compounded surely (e.g. can lead to poor educational opportunities and lack of proper nutrition). The issue of how many victims become victimisers and how that can be stopped is a topic very much worthy of consideration.
Chris, there’s been some noise recently about homelessness from the Rudd Government. Obviously a range of responses will be needed to address it (e.g. better mental health services, more domestic violence shelters). Interesting point, Chris, about what the police officer’s motivation might’ve been for using such language.
“The point is not that the woman was not of concern after having stabbed someone, it’s the language we use to talk about these cases and the way it often highlights that the ‘usual cases’ are dismissed as less serious, cause for less concern, when statistically speaking we ought to be every bit as concerned over the ‘usual’ cases, the domestic situations etc…”
Thanks, fp. Absolutely agree. And, of course, language is a powerful thing.
The new law on “family violence” introduced in Victoria a couple of weeks ago, certainly do NOT perpetuate that old nonsense of “it’s only ‘a domestic’ “. As well as physical violence, it widens the scope of abuse that it outlaws, and includes “financial abuse”, where a domineering spouse uses (lack of) $ to control their spouse.
The Victoria Police have had an extensive re-training process, to help officers deal with family violence more effectively.
The Victorian Law Reform Commission put out a Report about 18 months ago, on which the new law is based. The study involved consultations with womens refuges, magistrates, police, etc etc. Progress is being made.
fuckpoliteness - I am now going to descend from my rhetorical heights of epidemiological exactitude to anecdote and impression.
My impression from those in the police who deal with this is of their frustration. Police tend to have a very simple attitude to those they feel have offended, they wish to arrest and punish them. It is what they do. The problem in domestic violence is that the victim willing to push a complaint is rare. The police would much rather haul the bloke off, separate the couple for ever and get back to the station for a cup of coffee with the sense of a situation solved.
But.
Life is rarely that simple. The situation cools, the victim returns to the abuser, the charge is withdrawn and it all begins again. Most police tend to rapidly give the whole thing up as useless.
Please, do not take this as tacit approval of family violence, it is merely an attempt to explain the general sense of hopelessness that radiates from policewomen and men when the word domestic is used. They are not a group who, on the whole, are good at interventions aimed to improve a woman’s self-esteem to leave. They are not patient. They just want a complaint so they can arrest the prick and go do something else.
Also, I think the Judge is aiming at the issue of pre-meditation and the likelihood of re-offending. It is not acceptable to get drunk and rape someone but it is even more so to sit down and plan a spree of violence with your mates.
Darlene - for emergency accomodation all they really need is to be willing to spend the $$$s. They really are emergency situations and I don’t see why they don’t just pay the money for motel/hotel accomodation until something better can be found, especially in winter.
I understand there are much wider issues around mental illness and homelessness, but where you have people are are mentally ok, but simply don’t have *anywhere* to sleep that night then there are very easy (but not cheap) solutions.
Dr S,
But that’s where court-based intervention orders, permanent separation of the antipathetic parties, etc can come in. Magistrates courts are involved if a victim wants to take it that far; so are refuges if a woman flees.
It’s not SOLELY a police matter, is all I’m saying. It must be very hard for a policeperson who’s seen a battered victim, watch that victim return to the perpetrator…. Fundamentally I think police are looking to HELP people, whether the people are burgled or bashed. If you wanted a quiet life with coffee breaks, you wouldn’t join the police force.
Chris there are huge problems associated with putting homeless people, particularly women and children escaping violence plus, into motels and the like.
They are isolated physically and alone and without absolutely necessary human support systems in a place that may be OK for others for a night or two but definitely not for long term, think of periods of time up to years, for a woman with little kids afraid of the knock on the door. Is it him?, and in some cases yes it is.
There is no chance to get the kids to school, doctors, government services etc, they are cooped up, without empathatic [which is usually absolutely vital] informed expert human support and sit staring at the TV or the wall in quiet or not so quiet terror wondering what to do tomorrow.
They often go back to the abuser as the perceived lesser of two evils.
What is needed is a vast influx of money for services and specially trained personnel, more womens’ refuges with permanent rostered staff who know what they are going through, more of everything.
And the necessary will not be forthcoming until governments and NGOs [some of then anyway] admit there is a huge problem, and the media starts to responsibly report the problem rather than the occasional ‘man bites dog’ version.
Ambigulous - Yes, I know, I think I may not have communicated my point well enough. The Police do want to help but they take a fairly clear view on what that help should be. They, possibly quite reasonably, feel there is an easy fix that they are not permitted to apply; an arrest. The coffee break thing was more as an emphasis on how easy it could be rather than a snide comment about laziness.
Anyway, it is, as mentioned, anecdote and supposition.
Paul Burns - no offence taken mate, I’m fairly thick-skinned.
Just thinking what those kind of assumtions might make a man feel like if he wasn’t a violent bastard himself. This guy might be - I dunno - but to assume he is would be unfair.
Nobody ever accused me of being abusive and bringing it on myself, but if they had, I’d have been pretty hurt.
Dr S…
Just wondering if you could clarify the ways in which your points relate to my comment?
I’m just a little confused as you started with my name, but didn’t really address the points I raised, so I’m unsure of how to respond. It sounds as though perhaps you think I’ve not thought about these issues or given them sufficient weight or am being unfair then in looking at the effects of the words used…but I don’t want to assume that.
Sorry. Had to cut and paste twice as the comments page kept claiming not to exist. As you have mentioned the majority of the comment bears no conversational relation to yours. Except the last paragraph. Which was where your name was supposed to be. The rest may be of some interest but is definitely of no intersection.
Again, sorry.
This bit is the only thing with any relation to your post;
“I think the Judge is aiming at the issue of pre-meditation and the likelihood of re-offending. It is not acceptable to get drunk and rape someone but it is even more so to sit down and plan a spree of violence with your mates.”
I also would be at pains not to accuse you of insufficient analysis. Not fair and not warranted.
The two things that appear to be at issue in the judge’s comment are firstly a question of fact about his assertion that sexual violence by groups of males is a often a spontaneous behavior associated with intoxication and secondly that making this distinction from the planned crime perpetrated in this case legitamises the other forms as lesser crime. I may be at cross-purposes and if so ignore the rest as deeply irrelevant.
I really can’t comment on the matter of fact although it sounds depressingly likely to me. Drunk men in groups engage in a number of forms of cruelty and violence and this may well be one of them. I find groups of drunken men rather frightening and I am 6′3″.
I also think, as I mentioned above, that the pre-meditated nature of these crimes increases their severity and that the distinction is valid. I am not convinced that grading evil diminishes that deemed the lesser, which is what I have taken you to be implying.
Again, sorry for the non-sequitur.
Thanks, FDB. There are violent people. Many of them are men and some of them are women. Many of those men and women can’t blame the violence of their partners for their behaviour.
Hannah’s Dad, I think your comments about the problems of housing those fleeing from violence in motels are well made. Motels aren’t always the safest or most secure places to be. They certainly don’t feel like home.
“They certainly don’t feel like home.”
I wish! Choccies on your pillow, free bibles and towels, neatly folded outermost sheet on your toilet roll… it’s freaking paradise!
hannah’s dad - I agree its not a good long term solution, but currently we have the problem where people are turned away from shelters and end up living on the streets (or in a tent). A motel/hotel is suboptimal as are shelters for many, but its better than living outdoors in winter, and importantly the room capacity is there, just not the funding for it.
I guess what I’m arguing is that whilst fixing homelessness in general is a very hard thing to do properly, there is absolutely no excuse for not making some shelter available for those who are able to ask for it.
The reluctance of some women to proceed with ‘domestic’ violence matters in court was partly addressed by making civil domestic violence laws. The civil approach has the obvious advantage of sidestepping the impossibility of proving assault if the assaulted person will not testify against the person who assaulted them, and arguably some other advantages.
But there is also evidence it ‘trivialises’ domestic violence. I believe there is evidence that even where a victim is willing to testify police
1. still prefer to deal with it as a civil matter, and
2. will often opt for the charge of breaching a domestic violence order (a summary offence) over a more serious indictable charge for ‘repeat’ domestic violence.
“I wish! Choccies on your pillow, free bibles and towels, neatly folded outermost sheet on your toilet roll… it’s freaking paradise!”
I do those things for my mum when she visits. (Which reminds me, must buy choccies, she arrives sunday). It is the only time my bible gets used.
BTW the sort of hotels likely to used for this sort of emergency accommodation are not the sort that will provide a choccie on the pillow and they only have the bible because Gideons provide them.
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