“Can violent men change” Panorama on BBC1 now

[another20]

Anyone watching ? Thoughts .....

No.

No way. They never do.

Interesting that when asked to say why they were there, both men shown didn't say 'because I am violent to my partner', but victim-blamed instead.

I doubt it. I think they're smart enough to only be violent to certain people in their lives so they can control it but they always have that big ego and damaged self esteem in them with combined with rage makes them abusive to those they consider 'owe' them respect.

Some do but this usually involves getting old, sick, losing control of the money; ultimately, losing the power they have over their partner.
Here are some personal anecdotal examples:
My grandfather was an abusive bastard. He got hit by a bus and forever changed his ways.
My father is no longer violent towards my mother. He is old and partially disabled and she is his carer. If he was to be violent now, she'd leave him to rot.

I'm just catching the end.

Glad I didn't see all of it.

Fucking horrible.

I’m finding this a really uncomfortable watch- the couple delivering the therapy clearly “mean well”- but it’s misguided. It puts too much hope in the redemptive change of a single, very flawed, violent human being.

Yes quite a wierd programme - only 30 mins - but maybe that was all they needed to show that it was going nowhere. Didn’t understand the situation of the couple who had their children taken in to care - was that because the mother wouldn’t separate?

I didn't see the programme but I've been shocked to hear of the number of women (I'm a man) and indeed men for that matter who've been on the receiving end of male violence. I spent my 20s in a notoriously violent part of the UK and looking back the frightening thing is how violence from men is totally normalised. Perhaps a bit less now and today's 20 somethings I think drink less. But I am appalled by what some men get up to and I suspect I don't know the half of it. I am very sorry for anyone who has suffered in this way and for all our sakes I hope the answer to the question is yes.

I only saw the last few minutes as I switched to that channel to wait for the next program but it annoyed me to see the couple at the end sat together saying the male had completed his violence course and now they hoped social services would return their children eventually.

Wtf?

If he cared whatsoever about his children being with their mother he'd be long gone from that house, selfish bastard

I watched it.
The whole thing was a difficult watch.

The woman at the end shocked me....
Kids in care because she couldn't cope, yet says her and him have been supporting each other for a couple of years while the kids are still in care.
Social Services did an Assessment after he finished the Perpetrator Course and the kids are still in care.
I don't think she mentioned the kids once. It was all about her and him.
I don't understand how a woman can choose an unstable man over her children.
I hope those kids are with a loving foster family.

I support young women and there are men who serially do this to young woman after young woman. They don't change and no one is locking them up for long enough to keep the women safe. They choose young, vulnerable women with no support. It's very calculated. They can help themselves, they choose not to.

The only one I ever saw change was a man whose wife did something very shocking and threatening to him and told him he had to sleep at some point. Basically she turned the tables on him. She's very lucky he didn't kill her but he did stop.

The woman at the end is clearly too codependent. & she admitted she couldn't cope with the children alone.

There is only one way to truly cure violent behaviour and even then it might not work & that would be to intensively 're-parent' these damaged men & literally undo & reprogram their brains from what they learnt & saw in their own childhoods. Trouble is, to do this would cost millions & take a long time. I speak as someone who's experienced a lifetime of abuse. I've been in therapy now for three years and have learnt to change my submissive codependent people pleasing behaviour, so that I no longer choose these men to be with.

At work we refer people to perpetrator therapy. It’s court ordered and if they miss a session they get to serve their sentence in one of her majesties lovely prisons.

I can’t tell you if i think it works because I’m just not sure to be honest, I’m swaying towards yes (sometimes) as reoffending rates are lower in that department but they will still never be allowed near their ex partners, so that makes me sway more towards no.

And Clare’s law will still disclose this so they aren’t just getting away with it. It’s very gruelling and I do think it opens some people’s eyes to what they’ve put the other person through. Sometimes they come out with a mental health diagnosis that is then treated too, which I do believe is a factor. I’m bipolar and violence (although not domestic- so no control or coersion) is something I struggled with when it was unmedicated. (I’ve never actually acted violently towards anyone else but myself obviously or I wouldn’t be allowed to actually be in this job)

My brain is literally like an old fashioned scales when it comes to rehabilitation, up and down up and down

The only one I ever saw change was a man whose wife did something very shocking and threatening to him and told him he had to sleep at some point. Basically she turned the tables on him. She's very lucky he didn't kill her but he did stop.

Someone I used to know jammed a slow cooker full of hot (not scalding) stew over her very violent OH's head while he was asleep. He never hit her again.

They don't change and no one is locking them up for long enough to keep the women safe.

While locking them up is appropriate we know prison is hopeless at undoing a lifetime of socialisation. My abusive ex had an abusive father. Locking him up would have done nothing about the ideology behind his violence.

I've read that the best protection is robust intervention in their early years so it's a case of identifying children who are seeing abuse normalised and working all out to counter it. Expensive but cheaper than dealing with the cost of abuse.

Headinhands - that’s a good point - but do would you need the man to be extracted from the family first?

In my own personal experience they never changed.

I watched it and was also confused by the couple at the end. So she would rather have her children taken away and stay with a violent man than have her children live with her?

I agree heads generally. But in one case they kept locking him up for short periods, increasing his sense of outrage, socialising him with more violence but not actually keeping him away from the multiple scared women he was abusing.

I see the boys at school at 7 years old who are violent towards the girls and boys with disabilities. I see the lack of intervention, the groups that form with all the boys egging each other on. The girls being told not to tell. The expectation that some boys will fight, swear, bully, disrupt school. Early intervention would be great but it's not happening.

I think young men can become less volatile as they get older and mature (( think late teens )) but in general no. I don't think violent men can change. And the men featured in the programme certainly can't........the main reason for doing the course seemed to be so they'd continue to have contact with their children and a hold over their ex.

The man ranting about SS had no chance. He saw no fault in his behaviour at all, absolutely repulsive creature.

would you need the man to be extracted from the family first?

I think so, or you're further exposing the children to violence, which we know is massively detrimental to outcomes.

One of the worst bits for me was when the lorry driver guy said laughingly 'we're not allowed to do that now' or something similar about using good 'ol violence to get your own way. It was the way he was looking about at the others for approval. Yuck. And I can't understand the woman choosing him over the kids. She might think it's right but I can bet you, the kids won't when they're old enough to think it through.

I watched it. The lorry driver Andrew (who's wife stuck with him) seemed like a ticking time bomb imo. None of the men seemed to acknowledge that their behaviour was unacceptable.