| MND COMMENTARY |
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California: Domestic Violence Intervention Accountability August 20, 2005 by Richard L. Davis & Jan E. Brown Casey Gwinn, is the chair of the California Attorney General Task Force on Local Criminal Justice Response to Domestic Violence. The task force report is “Keeping the Promise: Victim Safety and Batterer Accountability.” The task force report presents four recommendations to the California Attorney General. Although there are a great many people involved in this report, only for matters of simplicity, Gwinn as the chair of the task force should be held accountable for the reports failings. This paper addresses the task force reports’ recommendation about batterer intervention programs.. As noted in Part I, what “Keeping the Promise” and California law ignores is that the issuance of restraining orders, mandatory arrest and no-drop-prosecutions, batterer intervention programs, and mandatory health practitioner reports can be positive and productive concerning some “battering” behavior and they can be negative and counter productive concerning “family conflict.” The Nexus Of The Problem It appears that the majority of the members of this task force, perhaps because of ideology or lack of knowledge concerning recent studies, have had difficulty in connecting the dots. On page 5, of the Executive Summary Gwinn reports:
In the same paragraph Gwinn notes that a DOJ sponsored study reports:
The DOJ sponsored report that Gwinn refers to above is, Batterer Intervention Programs: Where Do We Go From Here. On page 26 it notes: The stakes for women’s safety are simply too high to rely on batterer intervention programs without stronger empirical evidence that they work. More troubling still on page 63, of the task force report the Program Executive Director of a batterer intervention program in Oakland notes that after their [batterer intervention programs] used for almost 25 years in California that: “. . . one of my interests is to make sure that we actually study programs, batterers’ programs, because the reality is that we do not know if programs work. Perhaps because these two concepts (1) batterer programs are at the core of California’s criminal justice response to domestic violence and (2) no one really knows they work, are so diametrical opposed, that dichotomy has escaped Gwinn and the majority of the members of this task force. What is even more troubling is that after all the years of having a treatment program that no one knows works the task force seems intent on placing more and more people in that program? Is this California’s metaphor for the Major-Major sequence in Catch 22? Despite the fact that scholars and researchers have failed for decades to document that batterer programs actually work, they remain central to the California response to domestic violence. Millions upon millions of dollars have been spent with little to no documentation of positive outcomes. How can Gwinn expect “accountability from batterers” if the programs themselves have none? It Gets Worse The DOJ sponsored report, Batter Programs: What Criminal Justice Agencies Need To Know, warns against any “cookie cutter” approach to intervention because research documents the need for diverse approaches. California has in place programmatic and administrative standards for its batterer intervention programs that severely lack diversity. The California standards demand that all batterer programs adhere to the feminist perspective. The above DOJ report documents that: Central to the [feminist] perspective is a gender analysis of power, which holds that domestic violence mirrors the patriarchal organization of society. In this view, violence is one means of maintaining male power in the family. Further the California standards insist that Group Treatment is the intervention of choice for domestic violence perpetrators. Treatment programs may be open to accept new members as the program continues or closed in structure. The groups may range from a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 12. What goes unstated, however, is that the advocates have been trained to expect that these groups are groups of men who are so intent on oppressing women because of the patriarchy that they beat them. Diversity in this style of training is severely lacking. The National Research Council report, Understanding Violence Against Women, documents quite clearly what the majority of scholars and researchers believe. Diversity is most important in batterer intervention programs. They all agree that batterer intervention should be tailored, within reason, to the individual and diverse behaviors of those placed in the program. The criminal justice system is responding to battering behavior as if it is one and the same as family conflict incidents. The majority of researchers and professionals agree that multifaceted causes require different and distinct interventions. Research into the cause and consequences of domestic violence should not and cannot be limited by any “single ideological theory” or any “one-solution-fits all” intervention. Concluding outcomes before research is complete can limit focus and establish a bias against evidence to the contrary. Age specific and/or single gender research ignores or minimizes the vast array of many exploratory and explanatory variables concerning domestic violence. Most researchers and professionals agree there are three principal models, each containing many sub groupings, that attempt to explain the reason why many who profess to love and care for each other often choose to neglect, abuse and batter their spouse, partner, or child. The Feminist or Cognitive-Behavioral model This approach explains that domestic violence mirrors the patriarchal organization of society and because of misogyny (the hatred of women by men) it is men who primarily use violence in order to maintain their traditional dominate role in the family. It is proffered that the behavior of the male batterer is a result of sexism and culturally learned masculine mores and norms. This training prepares law enforcement officers and others in the criminal justice system for battering behavior at the expense of ignoring or not understanding all other forms of family violence. The message of the majority of contemporary criminal justice domestic violence training and education is that “domestic violence is battering behavior.” The Family Conflict model The abuse is the result of family stresses or the acceptance of conflict to resolve disputes both in the family and the neighborhood. Abusers strive for an important or predominant role in the family. In this view any family member may contribute to the escalation of violence. The Psychotherapeutic model This model proffers that personality disorders, early traumatic life experiences, or other individual dysfunctions predispose some people to use violence in family relationships. Even those with little to no expertise concerning batterer treatment understand that group treatment programs do not provide for individual, diverse and specific needs. And the structure of these programs clearly document they are designed around the premise that men, because of the patriarchy, are the offenders and women their victims. In fact there are no state guidelines for any form of structured interventions for violent women in California. This despite the fact that the National Violence Against Women survey clearly documents that domestic violence victimization is a problem for both men and women. And Worse Still There is little to no empirical data that can document why batterer intervention programs, should be the center of California’s criminal justice response. Perhaps in an effort to provide some empirical justification for making battering programs central to California’s criminal justice response, on page 63 of the report Gwinn notes: More to the point, batterers who do not complete their programs are more likely to re-abuse their victims. Studies document that this appears to be true. However, rather than justifying the task force’s premise, this citation presents yet again another reason why batterer intervention programs should not be central to California’s criminal justice response domestic violence. Current research documents that the most chronic and violent abusers are people with long histories of criminally violent behavior towards friends and family and they are not representative of the general population. These offenders are the most dangerous people who will wreak the most havoc and they, as data documents, are not deterred by threats of incarceration, let alone batterer programs. What Gwinn does not reveal may be more important that what he does. Studies do document that batterers who successfully complete or attend the majority of the programs classes are less likely to recidivate than batterers who do not. Studies also document that most batterers who are not assigned to treatment programs also do not re-abuse the same victim. Studies also indicate that placing offenders in batterer programs may cause some victims to remain with these dangerous offenders who can not be deterred and hence place them in more rather than less danger for further victimization (Klein, 2004). If there is no empirical evidence that batterer programs actually work, how is it possible that they remain the pillar, the very foundation of California’s criminal justice response! Richard L. Davis & Jan E. Brown Richard L. Davis (Lt.ret) is the author of Domestic Violence: Fact and Fallacies, an adjunct instructor of criminal justice courses for Quincy College at Plymouth and the VP of www.Familynonviolence.org. He may be reached at rldavis@post.harvard.edu Jan E. Brown is the Founder and Executive Director of the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women, a national crisis line that offers support and services to victims of domestic violence. www.noexcuse4abuse.org She may be reached at: help@noexcuse4abuse.org |
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