The National Institute of Justice Ignores Male Victimization

True liberty can exist only when justice is equally administered to all.
– Lord Mansfield

The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) ignores male intimate partner victimization (IPV). In its mission statement the OVW makes it clear that it is only concerned with the victimization of women and not men.

If you search for a federal program or agency that is concerned with IPV against men, you will not find one. Apparently the federal government believes that male IPV is either inconsequential or irrelevant. In fact, what should be troubling to the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) and Congress, is that there are now members of federal agencies who actively engage in manipulating data.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) claims that the NIJ is, “the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.” The NIJ also claims that it provides objective, independent, evidence-based knowledge…” The assumption is that the independent, evidence-based knowledge that the NIJ will provide about IPV will be objective. However, that claim appears to be a misleading if not false assumption.

On the NIJ website on August 15, 2008 under Causes and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence (CCIPV) the NIJ notes that researchers supported by the NIJ have identified some of the causes of and risk factors for IPV. However, for an agency that has justice as part of its title and one that claims to be objective, the researchers for the NIJ seem unable or unwilling to document that a single male has ever suffered any negative consequences from IPV.

The CCIPV notes that, “Intimate partner violence has serious physical, psychological, economic, and social consequences.” Apparently the authors of the CCIPV article do not believe that IPV has any serious, physical, psychological, economic, or social consequences for male victims as the CCIPV simply ignores any mention of the victimization of a single man, despite what the empirical data documents . Someone at the NIJ apparently has decided that male IPV is inconsequential or irrelevant.

These are some of the “objective, independent, evidence-based” data the NIJ provides:

• One in five women killed or severely injured by an intimate partner had no warning: the fatal or life threatening incident was the first physical violence they had experienced from their partner. No mention of male IPV.
• Early parenthood is a risk factor. The researchers do mention men here. They note that men who had fathered children by age 21 were more than three times as likely to be abusers as men who were not fathers at that age. Woman as IPV abusers is ignored.
• Although alcohol is not the cause of violence against women, a significant relationship exists between male perpetrator problem drinking and violence against intimate female partners. Male drinkers are the problem and females are their victims. Apparently the NIJ has some objective evidence-based data that documents women do not drink or offend.
• Intimate partner violence is linked with unemployment; one study found that intimate partner violence impairs a woman’s capacity to find employment. The NIJ apparently thinks that IPV is no problem for men. Perhaps because men are only offenders and not victims.
• Women who have experienced serious abuse face overwhelming mental and emotional distress. Apparently the NIJ is not aware of the fact that men suffer from suicide levels four times greater than women. And a recent study reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) attribute many of those suicides are a result of intimate partner problems.

The correct title here should be, “We Do Not Care About the Causes and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence for Men.” The NIJ, as its own data very clearly documents , acknowledges that men often do suffer from IPV. Is the CCIPV really the result of objective research? Is this really the kind of justice that we should expect from the United States Department of Justice ?

Is there not one person in the United States Department of Justice or Congress that is aware that once women gained the power to control public policy – see above – about IPV they minimize, marginalize or ignore male IPV whenever and wherever they can?

This federal institutional ignorance about the health of American males is not limited to the USDOJ. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provides a National Women’s Health Information Center . Its vision is to ensure that “All women and girls are healthier and have a better sense of well being.”

If you think there is a National Men’s Health Information Center where the federal government expresses it concern about the health and well being of men and boys, I suggest you think again. Apparently the health and well being of men and boys are inconsequential or irrelevant to our public policy makers.

If you do not think that, institutionally, the federal government is not ignoring male IPV, you simply have not read the CCIPV and some of my past columns detailing the exclusion of male IPV by agencies that are sub-groups of the U.S. Department of Justice .