A Practitioners Guide to Understanding Domestic Abuse Tayside

A Practitioner’s Guide to Understanding Domestic Abuse Tayside Violence Against Women Training Consortium Winter/Spring 2011 1

Questions about domestic abuse: What about different groups of women? Why don’t women just leave? What agencies can help me? What about when both partners are abusive? Is this domestic abuse? How would I identify domestic abuse? What IS domestic abuse? 2

Learning objectives for the day • Defining domestic abuse. • Learning about the indicators of domestic abuse. • Understanding dynamics of domestic abuse. • Thinking about barriers to disclosing • Understanding inequalities to accessing services • Exploring pathways to services 3

Housekeeping Fire drills Loos Mobile phones Group agreed contract Self care & time out 4

Definition & Prevalence of Domestic Abuse 5

Definition & Prevalence of Domestic Abuse 6

Domestic Abuse is associated with wider gender inequality and should be understood in its historical context, whereby societies have given greater status, wealth, influence, control and power to men. It is part of a range of behaviours constituting male abuse of power, and is linked to other forms of male violence. National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse, Scottish Executive, 2003 7

Domestic abuse (as gender based abuse) can be perpetrated by partners or expartners, and can include: - Physical abuse Sexual abuse Mental and emotional abuse Controlling behaviours 8

At least 1 in 5 women in Scotland will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. www. scotland. gov. uk/Topics 9

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In the 15 -44 age group, more women are killed globally in domestic abuse attacks than by in war, accidents and cancer. This is estimated to be 22 million women per year. Domestic abuse is a global health problem and a human rights issue. www. wgn. org. uk 11

A woman is murdered in the UK every three days by her partner or expartner. Home Office, 2001 12

In 53% of murder cases in Scotland over the last ten years, where a woman aged 16 -69 was the victim, the main accused was the woman's partner. www. scotland. gov. uk 13

There were 51, 926 incidents of domestic abuse in Scotland recorded in 2009/10 (a decrease of nearly 4% on the previous year). Statistical Bulletin Crime and Justice Series: Domestic Abuse recorded by the police in Scotland (Nov, 2010) 14

A domestic abuse incident is recorded every 11 minutes in Scotland 15

38 incidents will have been recorded in Scotland during the time that you are on this course. And this just reflects the incidences that were reported and recorded. 16

Tayside currently records the highest percentage per head of domestic violence incidents in Scotland. (1, 048 per 100, 000) Statistical Bulletin Crime and Justice Series Nov 2010: Domestic abuse 17 recorded by the police in Scotland.

Domestic abuse is often witnessed by children who may themselves experience mental, physical and sexual abuse. 18

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32% of pupils in one secondary school in Scotland disclosed anonymously that they were currently experiencing domestic abuse. "Raising the Issue of Domestic Abuse in School" Study (2005) 20

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[Domestic abuse] knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace. Kofi Annan, Ex-secretary General of the United Nations 23

Gender-based violence is violence … in which the female is usually the victim; and which is derived from unequal power relationships between a man and a woman. Violence is directed specifically against a woman because she is a woman, or affects women disproportionately. UN Gender Theme Group, 1998 24

Domestic abuse is associated with wider gender inequality and should be understood in its historical context, whereby societies have given greater status, wealth, influence, control and power to men. It is part of a range of behaviours constituting male abuse of power, and is linked to other forms of male violence. National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse, 2003 25

What is disproportionate? - Different prevalence Different contexts Different consequences - Different causes 26

The numbers … - In Scotland 41, 927 females compared to 7, 938 males. - In Tayside 3, 369 compared to 676 males. - Rates of reporting by gender vary: Tayside 16. 7%, Lothian 12%, Central 12% 27

Understanding intimate partner violence: intimate terrorism violent resistance situational couple violence 97% intimate terrorism; 56% situational 1970 s Pittsburgh sample Johnson, 2001 28

Sole perpetration (32 male, 32 female cases) - 83% of men recorded repeat incidents (range 2 – 52, mean 35) - 38% of women recorded as repeat perpetrators (range 1 – 8, mean 2) : . When M perpetrate, they do so with more frequency than do F. 29

Context & consequence - Abuse with M perpetrators and F victims is more typically characterised by dynamics of fear and control. (one exception F. ) - ‘ongoing pattern of fear and coercive control’ (Povey et al. , 2008) - Violence with F perp. was significantly less than M violence (1: 46 hospitalisations; Straton, 1994) 30

Male reporting § Men are more likely to call the police, press charges and less likely to drop charges than are women. (Schwartz, 1987; Kincaid, 1982; Ferrante, 1996) Women are more likely to over-estimate their own violence towards men, and more likely to under-estimate men's violence towards women. § Men are more likely to over-estimate women's violence to them, and more likely to underestimate their own violence towards women. (Kimmel, 2006) 31

Gendered differences: Males are: - More likely to repeatedly perpetrate (in line with the long-term dynamic of intimate terrorism) - More likely to use tactics of fear and control than women (consistent with domestic abuse) - More likely to inflict serious injury - More likely to call the police, and not drop charges - More likely to categorise behaviour towards themselves as ‘abuse’. 32

Linking cause to consequence - Strong relationship between traditional gender attitudes and male-perpetrated intimate partner violence in agency samples (d =. 80) compared to general population (d = -. 14) Sugarman and Frankel, 1996 - Perpetrators of situational couple violence show the same attitudes towards women as do non-violent men. Holtzworth-Munroe et al. , 2000 33

The impact of domestic abuse has been found to have psychological parallels with the impact of torture and the imprisonment of hostages. Survivors of terror: Battered Women, Hostages and the Stockholm Syndrome, Graham, P. et al (1988) 34

BIDERMAN’S ANALYSIS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE • Isolation • Enforced Trivial Demands • Threats • Occasional Indulgences • Degradation • Display of Total Power • Exhaustion • Distorted Perspectives Quoted in Rape in Marriage, Diana Russell 35

Experiential exercise - How does it feel to be affected least by barriers of inequality? - How does it feel to be most affected by inequalities? 36