Looking at Domestic Violence – I

There was a time…way back in the 20^th Century – doesn’t that make it sound ancient – when I used to teach a one-day workshop about domestic violence. My interest was piqued in this subject because it appeared to be all around us. Husbands were beating, shooting, or stabbing their wives to death. Wives were killing their husbands because they couldn’t take the abuse anymore. Boyfriends, partners and personal relationships in general seemed to be going to hell in a hand basket. I saw a woman come to work almost every day with a new bruise or a black eye, and the folks in human resources, the department head for whom she worked, no one seemed to give a damn. If I asked, I was told it was not my concern or that she’d been in accident. One morning I watched as her ‘husband’ dropped her off. I’m going to offend somebody when I say this, but he looked like an abuser; he looked angry, not in a temporary sense, but as though his whole being was angry. How the hell she hooked up with this guy I’ll never know…not do I have any right to know, but it was ugly.

Anyway, I began doing some research. I spoke with some of the police officers who were attending a command training class on campus. I did some Internet searching. I spoke to a friend who is a social worker, and I asked some friends if they knew anyone who was a victim of domestic abuse – that was a real eye-opener, and then I asked myself how I might be able to help. Since I enjoy teaching, it became somewhat obvious that a workshop designed as a public information session might be the answer. At first, it would be something for a couple of hours, sponsored by a chamber of commerce or some civic agency. Then it grew; it eventually became a one-day program, but it also resulted in a series of editorial opinion pieces for a local paper and even a few thank you notes.

It appears the time has come to break out the old notes, update the old presentation, and climb on the bandwagon to protest how domestic violence [DV] is being handled in our court system. I’ve spoken again to probation and police officers and I’ve found that there was a period when domestic violence offenders were getting jail time, but with all of the other caseloads being carried in the judicial system, DV is once more being shuffled through the system with mere slaps on the wrist.

Fortunately, a couple of high-profile cases have recently hit the papers. The first is the case of Jared Remy, son of former Red Sox second baseman, Jerry Remy. Remy the elder, who is now the color analyst for Red Sox television, is a celebrity of sorts in the New England area. His now-35-year old son is an asshole on steroids who has been in court more than 20 times for his violent temper and the abuse of woman since he was 17. With high-priced lawyers paid for by mom and dad, the younger Remy always got off, at least until he took his violence one step too far and murdered Jennifer Martel, the mother of his child. Jared had been allowed to walk time and time and time again until he went that one last step. Had he been imprisoned earlier, perhaps some of his violence would have been eliminated by other inmates. Perhaps he would have been killed while in prison. Perhaps; perhaps, perhaps…it’s all too late now; a mother’s life has been taken; a child is left parentless, and another DV case has graduated to first-degree murder. The real kicker is that the Remy’s are fighting for custody of the child. I don’t understand why…after all, each of his three children has been arrested for assault. Do they wish to raise a fourth delinquent?

The second high profile case concerns a Massachusetts State Representative. Carlos Henriquez was hauled off in handcuffs after slapping and punching his girlfriend. The sentence was two and a half years in the local house of correction with all but six months of the sentence suspended. His attorney indicated that she was “shocked” by the harsh treatment of her client. I wonder how that attorney would feel if she had the crap kicked out of her and her attacker received only six months. When the beating begins, how does the victim know just how far her attacker will go? Will he stop before he kills the victim, or will he go all the way? Don’t get me wrong; I know that there are many male victims of domestic violence out there. I feel the same way about their attackers as I do about the male on female crime which is more common.

Most recently, we have the case of Congressman Alan Grayson (Dem. FL) who was accused by his estranged wife of coming to her house and pushing her hard enough to knock her down. After further investigation, the case was dismissed for “lack of evidence.” Perhaps it was a case of no visible injuries on the former Mrs. Grayson which got the case thrown out. Grayson is not alone; 29 members of Congress have been accused of spousal abuse…and these are the people who make the laws that the rest of us are supposed to obey.

One of the most frightening aspects of violence against women is just how slowly America has acted to limit its chilling effects. It wasn’t until 1993 that then-Senator Joe Biden concluded a three-year investigation into the causes and effects of violence against women. According to the Office of Violence Against Women, Senator Biden, “In his introduction to Violence Against Women – The Response to Rape: Detours on the Road to Equal Justice report, “Through this process, I have become convinced that violence against women reflects as much a failure of our nation’s collective moral imagination as it does the failure of our nation’s laws and regulations. We are helpless to change the course of this violence unless, and until, we achieve a national consensus that it deserves our profound public outrage.

This is something of an introduction to a discussion of domestic violence. It’s been allowed to go unpunished for far too long. Reva B. Siegel, in an article from the Yale School of Law, notes “The Anglo-American common law originally provided that a husband, asmaster of his household, could subject his wife to corporal punishment or “chastisement” so long as he did not inflict permanent injury upon her.” Can you possibly believe that it wasn’t until 1976 that Pennsylvania established the first state coalition against domestic violence, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and became the first state to pass legislation providing for orders of protection for battered women. “Orders of protection;” now there’s a misnomer if I ever heard one. Today, we call them restraining orders against the abuser. I have yet to see a single restraining order that could stop a bullet, knife, baseball bat, or frying pan. Restraining orders are, without question, the most useless pieces of paper in our entire judicial system.

In part two of Looking at Domestic Violence, we’ll take a look at a description from the Women’s Aid Federation of England and examine more about this “hidden crime.”