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AIBU?

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Original poster

Essex Police helping women to stay with abusers

235 replies

Allthecoolkids · 13/12/2017 16:50

AIBU to think this is a really really shit poster??

I can’t link to it but they posted it to FB this afternoon.

Essex Police helping women to stay with abusers
OP posts:
curryforbreakfast · 13/12/2017 18:05

Womens Aid could have a million times the funding and some women would still stay in DV relationships.

You have to deal with what IS, not what you would like it to be.

FloweringDeranger · 13/12/2017 18:06

Charolais did you mean to sound just like the post-war 'women get back in your homes where you belong' propaganda?

Let's face it, police forces up and down the country are not as good as they should be at supporting women and children against violent men. Unfortunately they and the rest of Britain's legal establishment are still largely male themselves. Poppi Worthington is the latest famous example of course.

Battleax · 13/12/2017 18:06

I'm sure all that's true Char, I think it was true of my father's and his siblings' childhood (all born in the 40s). But what was also true was that their father was a violent bully and my Gran was stuck in that situation throughout the 40s and 50s until he decided to go of with his OW in the 1960s.

TheMamaYo · 13/12/2017 18:07

An abused woman won't leave until she is ready. This is not the best option.. but sometimes second best will have to do. It at least brings the woman to the attention of people who are able to support, and increase her chance of reaching out when shit happens.

RestingGrinchFace · 13/12/2017 18:09

I would like to say that they are trying to be helpful but I just don't see how you can ever be truly safe unless you have left.

x2boys · 13/12/2017 18:09

You can blame the Tory government for a lot of things but abusive men or women are abusive regardless of whose in power its the abusers at fault and some people won't leave abusive relationships no matter how many refuges were available.

FloweringDeranger · 13/12/2017 18:10

I recognise the problem of leaving, but this as an official poster does send out a message reminiscent of 'stand by your man'. I don't think it's the best way of dealing with the problem anyway, and coming at a time when state support for women is dropping it is all very unsettling. How about putting out messages saying that women do not have to put up with violent men, and ensuring they have state support to leave instead.

curryforbreakfast · 13/12/2017 18:13

this as an official poster does send out a message reminiscent of 'stand by your man

I think it says "if you are determined to stand by your man we will still help you". Do you have a problem with that message?

And do you really think anyone is thinking well I was going to leave him but then I saw that poster and I decided to stay instead?

Lambside · 13/12/2017 18:16

Support for women who stay, yes, excellent but this shit, no way!
Mrs Smiley Face and her perfectly happy husband are SO inappropriate.
Btw curry get off your high horse. I don't think anyone has said it's a black and white, either or situation. What they have said is that this campaign is not the way to go about it.

Reallytired17 · 13/12/2017 18:22

I do, to be honest curry

I am not someone who believes in haranguing or hassling women to leave. But staying with an abuser, placating him, smiling about it, is presented here as an option. In my opinion it should not be.

For example, bullied children sometimes take a while to speak up but I wouldn’t picture them smiling with their bully because they have managed to placate the bully in some way.

FloweringDeranger · 13/12/2017 18:23

Curry, I get your point but yes I do think it could possibly put some women off leaving. It's not an easy thing for women in that position to consider at the best of times: they're usually worn down, and if there're kids involved too they may well be incentivised to just give it that one more try.

And in the context of our times, when once again you are hearing of women with no good economic choices, it is worrying.

waterrat · 13/12/2017 18:28

I honestly dont think this poster is saying its safe to stay or womrn SHOULD stay. Its saying please stay in touch with the police even if you do stay we are on your side and will try to protect you

Maybe it is based on research showing that if women do stay in a good relationship with the police they are more likely to eventually leabe?

Given how many women are killed by partners I think that anything thr police do to ensure women keep them informed of ongoing absue is a good thing?

scurryfunge · 13/12/2017 18:33

Water rat, you speak sense.

RidingWindhorses · 13/12/2017 18:41

I think rhe message is intended to persuade those women who do stay to keep a relationship with the police...

The police can't keep them safe though, so it's a false sense of assurance.

RidingWindhorses · 13/12/2017 18:42

I honestly dont think this poster is saying its safe to stay or womrn SHOULD stay. Its saying please stay in touch with the police

I think that's what they were trying to say, but they fluffed the message.

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 13/12/2017 18:43

Oh dear

And it’s the truth sadly

scurryfunge · 13/12/2017 18:45

Riding, yes, I think the wording is clumsy at best but the message is there.

ivenoideawhatimdoing · 13/12/2017 18:48

My DH is a police officer and sadly they see this far, far too much.

Some women simply will not leave, no matter the support on offer.

He recently had a woman who had her neck fractured by her husband of 20 years, she and her children were moved to a women's shelter after she was out of hospital, they were given support by social services to start a new life. She was very on board as the alternative was losing her kids.

He also had to go and remove those children when she moved back in with him three months later. He has been called three times since.

Some women (and men) will not leave their partners.

Is it not better to try and offer support that will keep them safe, rather than abandon those who refuse to leave? The support is not at the expense of trying to get them to leave, but to try and protect them if they won't.

curryforbreakfast · 13/12/2017 18:58

But staying with an abuser, placating him, smiling about it, is presented here as an option. In my opinion it should not be

Whether you think it should be or not hardly matters when there are real people doing exactly that.

Do our principles on what should be mean more than the actual lives people are living?

RidingWindhorses · 13/12/2017 19:25

Is it not better to try and offer support that will keep them safe, rather than abandon those who refuse to leave?

As I as said they can't keep them safe.

There was a case of a woman whose ex turned up with a knife, she called the police and by the time they arrived he had stabbed her to death.

Robyrollover · 13/12/2017 19:27

This can't be real

DailyMailReadersAreThick · 13/12/2017 19:56

And do you really think anyone is thinking well I was going to leave him but then I saw that poster and I decided to stay instead?

Yes.

Do you know what standard line abusers give when their victims try to leave, if they don't fly into a rage and harm them? "I'm sorry. I can change. I won't do it again. We can be happy like we used to be."

It's a line that often works. Often works multiple times until a victim is able to ignore it, if she lives that long.

And here's a poster promoted by Essex Police saying "He can change. You can be happy like you used to be." Reinforcing the abuser's manipulation.

And they don't change.

Maybe it is based on research showing that if women do stay in a good relationship with the police they are more likely to eventually leabe?

Essex Police are claiming, in their defence of this poster, that victims have found "happiness and safety" with their abusers. It certainly sounds like they see staying as a permanent solution.

BertieBotts · 13/12/2017 20:05

I saw this. It is frightening. I don't believe Women's Aid have commented although I expect they are aware.

The issue is that councils and police no longer have the back up of refuges and specialist DV workers because they have all been cut, but it's no longer acceptable to simply walk away and say "It's just a domestic" either. There is pressure from all sides to come up with a solution and this is what someone has come up with.

Because it fills a hole it will have been leaped at - no questioning whether it works, if it seems to vaguely make sense on the surface to laypeople who have no idea about the dynamics of DV, whereas perhaps in previous years when refuges and DV services were allowed to actually provide a service, the hole wasn't as gaping and a scheme like this would never have gained traction.

It is horribly dangerous and I dread to hear of the first death which occurs as a result of one of these schemes - and I very much doubt it will be attributed to it.

Abuse victims are constantly looking for reasons that they don't need to leave really because leaving is scary, much more terrifying than the abuse in most cases.

What is needed is time and time and time and time and patience and time and support and patience and time. There is NO QUICK FIX.

BertieBotts · 13/12/2017 20:31

It's not just in Essex - this is what I saw:

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/08/scared-of-husband-domestic-violence-refuges-keep-family-together

TopBitchoftheWitches · 13/12/2017 20:49

How can Essex Police support women who will not end a relationship when they cannot support women who do end the relationship and want to press charges, when Essex Police won't pursue the case?