Domestic Violence Homicides and Suicides
I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we are not wise enough to see it. – Oprah Winfrey
October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. Male related domestic violence deaths seem to be something that most domestic violence organizations, public policy makers, researchers and the media are not aware of or concerned about.
A recent report by the CDC “Surveillance for Violent Deaths — National Violent Death Reporting System, 16 States, 2005 (SVD), documents that approximately 30% of suicides are precipitated by problems between intimate partners that lead to fatalities.
The SVD documents a domestic violence tragedy that remains largely unexplored. The SVD notes, that of the 16 reporting states, problems between intimate partners precipitated 2,301 of the male suicides and 439 of the female suicides.
Twice as many females as males attempt suicide but the rate of completed suicides in the SVD report was nearly 4 times greater for males than females. The SVD and many other fatality review studies suggest that most people who commit suicide are clinically depressed, have other mental health issues, face criminal or civil justice interventions, suffer from financial problems or are confronted with other life altering stressors that seem to be created by one or both partners.
In the 1990’s approximately 30,000 people each year took their own lives. The extrapolation of that SVD data seems to suggest that it is possible that each year there may be approximately 6,750 male and 2,250 female suicides that are precipitated by problems between intimate partners. These suicidal deaths are domestic violence related deaths and their numbers far exceed the number of domestic violence homicides.
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) report, “Reviewing Domestic Violence Deaths†(RDVD), appears in the November 2003 issue of the NIJ Journal. This NIJ report notes that fatality reviews might lead to changes that could deter some domestic violence related deaths.
The author of the RDVD notes that a significant number of women may commit suicide because of domestic violence. However, the RDVD did not once mention a single male domestic violence related death either by homicide or suicide. Also, the author suggests proactive interventions only for females and simply ignores the domestic violence related deaths of men.
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence operates as the “official voice†for domestic violence organizations. The NCADV mission statement publicly proclaims that it is only concerned with the abuse of women and children, not men. Interveners, public policy makers and researchers seem little concerned about male related domestic violence deaths, but the data indicates that they should be.
Approximately one of every three domestic violence suicides includes an intimate partner related homicide and the majority of those victims (3 of every 4) are female. Hence, positive education and resources for all potential offenders may save lives regardless of gender.
The fatality review data documents that more males than females are homicide offenders (9 out of 10). However, interveners and public policy makers need to recognize that if they provide resources and screening for the risk factors of suicide in intimate partner relationships for both males and females, some of these homicide/suicides might be deterred and more insight gained.
Researchers and social scientists must be willing to explore multiple hypotheses and theories rather than being confined to contemporary “one-solutions-fits-all†Duluth styled interventions.. Further, interveners should recognize that there is no empirical evidence-based data that documents a “bright line” that separates child, sibling, spousal, intimate partner, and elder abuse from violence against adult heterosexual women. Domestic violence interventions and programs must begin at the beginning, not the end.
Worldwide, nations have a history of setting the rights of one group of people against the rights of another group. Contemporarily, as their websites document, most domestic violence organizations continue to minimize, marginalize or ignore male domestic violence related deaths.
The vast majority of domestic violence interveners understand that far more males need to become involved in education and prevention programs. Perhaps when interveners, public policy makers and researchers acknowledge that more men than women suffer from domestic violence related deaths, more males will become involved.
Domestic violence interveners, public policy makers and researchers need to understand that “my group is more important than your group†interventional efforts are Mephistophelian in nature. They were wrong during the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries and remain so in this 21st century.
Richard L. Davis
President, www.Familynonviolence.org
Richard L. Davis is the Vice President of FamilyNonViolence.org. | More from Richard L. Davis
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October 10th, 2008 at 8:23 am
A couple of years ago, I wrote to Lord Campbell Savors, a labour peer, who subsequently tabled a question in the House of Lords, to find out whether UK domestic violence-related suicide statistics were correlated by gender. The Labour government’s answer: No.
If as this article suggests, more men die of DV-related activity than women when including suicide, then it is worth noting every time we argue with a victim-fem who tries to negate equal abuser claims by pointing to the homicide statistics.
Conservative former leader, Iain Duncan Smith, made a speech in the House of Commons calling for greater powers of prosecution for abusers, after a suicide of the victim, highlighting a female constituent of his who killed herself, her diary revealing she’d been a victim of DV. On the same day, The Times printed an article highlighting a study showing X% of female suicide victims were suffering from DV (ignoring the male victims), so the establishment approach is to highlight the female victims of DV suicide, and ignore the males, in order to progress our ‘awareness’ on this new topic.
I spoke to The Times’s Daniel Finkelstein, telling him that a Denver Post article indicated that in Utah for 2005, 42 of 44 DV related suicides were male. He showed some interest, but never got back to me, and The Times never printed the male perspective, as usual.
I will direct Daniel, Iain and Lord Savors to your article and website. Thanks.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Tom said: “I spoke to The Times’s Daniel Finkelstein, telling him that a Denver Post article indicated that in Utah for 2005, 42 of 44 DV related suicides”
I contend that many of these suicides by men may not actually be…suicide. Many could well be murder. I have often seen that when a man “commits suicide” the police seldom look any further but if a woman does, they look for reasons it may not have been a suicide.
One of the associate diretors of Shattered Men told me that a man she knew from her church finally told her that he was a victim of domestic abuse. They talked for several hours and he finally had hope. He had planed on getting several other men from that church who he knew were also victims of domestic abuse and meeting together with her within a week or two. The following day, he “committed sucide” I ask…why would he do that when he finally say hope that someone would care, someone would listen to these men. He started making plans for the future again so the bottom line is I very much doubt that his death was..suicide.
I have been saying we WILL see many more murder/suicides as time goes by with the VAWA as it encourage false accusations of abuse both to women and to children as it rewards women to be victims. YES we know there are far too many women that are abused…but remember, there are as many abused men who have NO protection.
http://www.shatterdmen.com/MS.htm
The Early Show on CBS had a segment on a new women’s shelter created after a police chief; David Brame murdered his wife and then took his own life.
David Brame claimed he had been victimized in the relationship. He accused his wife of having a “ferocious temper” and being emotionally unstable (for which nothing was done, no one looked into her history)
so the “neighbor” who saw it has been tampered with since that same neighbor did NOT come forward AT THAT TIME, but the ex sure did say that about the gun….
Since Mr Brame was a police officer, this would have meant he would have lost everything due to these false accusations. It has been enough motive for murder/suicide in the past and it will be again far too often in the future unless we offer men the SAME protection we offer women for abuse. It would also mean he knew far too well what the results would be for any man accused of domestic abuse with or without any evidence to back it up.
http://www.shatterdmen.com/MurderSuicides.htm
October 14th, 2008 at 1:18 am
[...] http://mensnewsdaily.com/2008/10/10/domestic-violence-homicides-and-suicides/ I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we are not wise enough to see it. – Oprah Winfrey October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. Male related domestic violence deaths seem to be …. [...]