News
Criminal
Aug. 8, 2002
Myths of Domestic Violence Put Men at a Disadvantage
Forum Column - By Glenn Sacks - Baltimore Orioles pitcher Scott Erickson recently was arrested after an altercation with his girlfriend, the latest example of a police officer arresting a man who was attacked by a female partner.
Forum column
By Glenn Sacks
Baltimore Orioles pitcher Scott Erickson recently was arrested after an altercation with his girlfriend, the latest example of a police officer arresting a man who was attacked by a female partner. According to the Associated Press, the Baltimore police concluded that Erickson's girlfriend Lisa Ortiz initiated the fight by hurling objects, came back twice after Erickson carried her out of the apartment, repeatedly kicked the apartment door and caused Erickson two minor injuries, while she suffered no injuries.
Nevertheless, the police, who were operating under Maryland's mandatory arrest law, charged Erickson with second-degree assault. Ortiz was not arrested.
Domestic violence activist Greg Schmidt, a police lieutenant who created the Seattle Police Department's domestic violence investigation unit, says that cases like Erickson's demonstrate that men are often presumed guilty in domestic disputes. He notes that mandatory arrest laws such as California's frustrate police officers because they are "expected to make arrests in petty incidents, often where the woman is the aggressor, the abuse is mutual, or it is unclear who the aggressor was."
"[M]ost street cops know that women are just as likely to start domestic disputes as men are. But arresting women puts you under lot of scrutiny. It's bad for your career," Schmidt noted.
Schmidt also criticizes the dominant aggressor doctrine, which discourages even appropriate dual arrests and instructs police to downplay questions such as who struck the first blow. Instead, police are asked to focus on who seems to be in control of the situation and who is more fearful, code words for "arrest the man."
Part of the problem is the training that police officers receive from the domestic violence industry, which insists that 95 percent of domestic violence is committed by men. Southern California domestic violence consultant Anne O'Dell, who has conducted more than 500 training sessions about domestic violence for police officers, judges, district attorneys and victim advocates, tells her trainees that "if a police officer is arresting more than 8 percent women, you've got a real problem. When an officer arrests 12 percent or 15 percent women, I'm outraged." O'Dell says that dual arrests should occur in no more than 3 percent of incidents.
There is no current data that supports the 95 percent myth. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's 1998 report on the National Violence Against Women Survey, men are nearly 40 percent of all domestic violence victims. Moreover, California State University, Long Beach, professor Martin Fiebert has compiled an online bibliography citing 130 scholarly studies and reviews that demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive as, or more aggressive than, their husbands or partners.
Domestic violence researchers Susan Steinmetz, Richard Gelles and Murray Straus, early advocates for battered women and authors of the influential and groundbreaking book "Behind Closed Doors: Violence in American Families," conducted two major studies for the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, both of which found similar rates of abuse between husbands and wives.
As Gelles explained in "The Missing Persons of Domestic Violence: Male Victims," a 1999 article in the Women's Quarterly, "Contrary to the claim that women only hit in self-defense, we found that women were as likely to initiate the violence as were men."
In addition, studies by researchers R.L. McNeeley and Coramae Richey Mann show that women compensate for their lesser physical strength by using weapons and the element of surprise.
Once a man is arrested for domestic violence, it can be difficult and expensive for him to extricate himself. Family law attorney Lisa Scott, founder of the Seattle-based domestic violence activist group Taking Action Against Bias in the System, says that district attorneys rarely drop domestic violence cases filed against men, even when the evidence is scant and the woman involved asks that charges be dropped.
Many women's advocates correctly note that these drop requests can be motivated by economic dependency or by women unfairly being made to feel guilty for "provoking" violent men. However, Scott explains that it is more common that women request drops because they know that they initiated the violence or participated equally in it, and they do not want their male partners to be prosecuted unfairly.
Men in Erickson's position often face an agonizing choice. If they do nothing, they allow the abuse to continue. If they defend themselves, they take the chance that they will be arrested. If they call the police, they are in danger of being arrested and prosecuted for their female partners' violence.
According to Gay Kennedy, formerly the domestic violence adviser on the Los Angeles Police Department's Harbor Division advisory board, "the system has become very unfair to men."
"Studies show that there are many male victims of domestic violence but that they don't report it," she said. "It's not hard to see why. Anyone who is attacked by their partner should call the police, but male victims don't want to risk being sucked into a system which is hopelessly stacked against them. And the domestic violence industry, which is rife with anti-male prejudice, is part of the problem."
Glenn Sacks, an adjunct professor of English at the College of the Canyons in Newhall, was named twice to Who's Who Among America's Teachers and writes about gender issues from a male perspective.
By Glenn Sacks
Baltimore Orioles pitcher Scott Erickson recently was arrested after an altercation with his girlfriend, the latest example of a police officer arresting a man who was attacked by a female partner. According to the Associated Press, the Baltimore police concluded that Erickson's girlfriend Lisa Ortiz initiated the fight by hurling objects, came back twice after Erickson carried her out of the apartment, repeatedly kicked the apartment door and caused Erickson two minor injuries, while she suffered no injuries.
Nevertheless, the police, who were operating under Maryland's mandatory arrest law, charged Erickson with second-degree assault. Ortiz was not arrested.
Domestic violence activist Greg Schmidt, a police lieutenant who created the Seattle Police Department's domestic violence investigation unit, says that cases like Erickson's demonstrate that men are often presumed guilty in domestic disputes. He notes that mandatory arrest laws such as California's frustrate police officers because they are "expected to make arrests in petty incidents, often where the woman is the aggressor, the abuse is mutual, or it is unclear who the aggressor was."
"[M]ost street cops know that women are just as likely to start domestic disputes as men are. But arresting women puts you under lot of scrutiny. It's bad for your career," Schmidt noted.
Schmidt also criticizes the dominant aggressor doctrine, which discourages even appropriate dual arrests and instructs police to downplay questions such as who struck the first blow. Instead, police are asked to focus on who seems to be in control of the situation and who is more fearful, code words for "arrest the man."
Part of the problem is the training that police officers receive from the domestic violence industry, which insists that 95 percent of domestic violence is committed by men. Southern California domestic violence consultant Anne O'Dell, who has conducted more than 500 training sessions about domestic violence for police officers, judges, district attorneys and victim advocates, tells her trainees that "if a police officer is arresting more than 8 percent women, you've got a real problem. When an officer arrests 12 percent or 15 percent women, I'm outraged." O'Dell says that dual arrests should occur in no more than 3 percent of incidents.
There is no current data that supports the 95 percent myth. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's 1998 report on the National Violence Against Women Survey, men are nearly 40 percent of all domestic violence victims. Moreover, California State University, Long Beach, professor Martin Fiebert has compiled an online bibliography citing 130 scholarly studies and reviews that demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive as, or more aggressive than, their husbands or partners.
Domestic violence researchers Susan Steinmetz, Richard Gelles and Murray Straus, early advocates for battered women and authors of the influential and groundbreaking book "Behind Closed Doors: Violence in American Families," conducted two major studies for the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, both of which found similar rates of abuse between husbands and wives.
As Gelles explained in "The Missing Persons of Domestic Violence: Male Victims," a 1999 article in the Women's Quarterly, "Contrary to the claim that women only hit in self-defense, we found that women were as likely to initiate the violence as were men."
In addition, studies by researchers R.L. McNeeley and Coramae Richey Mann show that women compensate for their lesser physical strength by using weapons and the element of surprise.
Once a man is arrested for domestic violence, it can be difficult and expensive for him to extricate himself. Family law attorney Lisa Scott, founder of the Seattle-based domestic violence activist group Taking Action Against Bias in the System, says that district attorneys rarely drop domestic violence cases filed against men, even when the evidence is scant and the woman involved asks that charges be dropped.
Many women's advocates correctly note that these drop requests can be motivated by economic dependency or by women unfairly being made to feel guilty for "provoking" violent men. However, Scott explains that it is more common that women request drops because they know that they initiated the violence or participated equally in it, and they do not want their male partners to be prosecuted unfairly.
Men in Erickson's position often face an agonizing choice. If they do nothing, they allow the abuse to continue. If they defend themselves, they take the chance that they will be arrested. If they call the police, they are in danger of being arrested and prosecuted for their female partners' violence.
According to Gay Kennedy, formerly the domestic violence adviser on the Los Angeles Police Department's Harbor Division advisory board, "the system has become very unfair to men."
"Studies show that there are many male victims of domestic violence but that they don't report it," she said. "It's not hard to see why. Anyone who is attacked by their partner should call the police, but male victims don't want to risk being sucked into a system which is hopelessly stacked against them. And the domestic violence industry, which is rife with anti-male prejudice, is part of the problem."
Glenn Sacks, an adjunct professor of English at the College of the Canyons in Newhall, was named twice to Who's Who Among America's Teachers and writes about gender issues from a male perspective.
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