Increase in DV during Christmas period.

[Akiram]

Does anyone have know how much DV increases over the Christmas period? By that I mean how much more is DV reported to the police (I know that that doesn't give a true indication of the rise).
The shocking number (I think-forgive me if I have this wrong) of 2 women a week killed by their partner, how does that figure stand up against the Christmas period?
Also, can anyone give me (in laymans terms please) a reason that whilst over Christmas there is always a huge drink/driving campaign there is nothing similar with regards to DV - yet the rate of victims must surely be similar if not more in the case of DV.
Sorry if these are stupid questions and I have missed the answers somewhere.
Wasn't sure if here or Relationships or was the right place to ask the question.

[sunshineandbooks]

Tam I agree - it's often conveniently forgotten that the most dangerous point for a woman in an abusive relationship is at the point where she is about to leave or soon afterwards, not when she's still in it.

[TamIAm]

And that the hero never dies. Unfortunately the same can not be said of women who leave DV relationships - or of their children.

[SardineQueen]

rudolf what does this mean?

"Whether you think poverty can ruin lives over a certain extent is down to personal/religous belief."

[sunshineandbooks]

Of course poverty can ruin lives.

Even the coalition has accepted that the most influential factor on any one individual's life chances is the income of the parent(s). You don't have to starve or shiver for lack of money to affect your life negatively and beyond repair. IF it were 'recoverable from' then you would expect to see equal numbers of people from all backgrounds in all levels of employment.

I think poverty - perhaps more importantly fear of poverty ? has an important link to DV. I have seen many examples where women have been reluctant to end bad relationships for fear of poverty. I have also seen women become more willing to have a relationship because they see it as a route out of poverty. It's a real fear/assumption. Single parents are twice as likely to be in poverty than coupled parents.

For some women, fear of not being able to feed their children properly is enough to keep them with an abuser. For others, especially those whose partners are well off, preventing their children having to experience a massive drop in living standards, the upheaval of moving home and changing schools etc is something they will gladly avoid by putting up with abuse themselves. This is done to protect the DC in their eyes, however obvious it may be to you that nothing is worth tolerating abuse for.

One of the main problems is that we sell mixed messages in this country. On the one hand we are told that the nuclear family is the perfect model to aspire to. That children from broken homes do terribly and that people give up on marriage too easily and should try harder. Then there's a little footnote that says this doesn't apply if a relationship is abusive. The thing is though, if the 1 in 4 women who experience DV all ended their relationships, the 'family' in the UK would reach crisis point. People can read between the lines. THe real message is put up and shut up unless it's particularly bad, though if you do this and then something particularly bad happens, you will, of course, be castigated. It's a bit like the spy films where the hero is told he's on his own if he gets caught. The difference in the movies is that things always come good in the end.

[TamIAm]

Rudolf, your posts read an awful lot like victim blaming to me.

The 'she should just leave' rhetoric is old, tired, and completely unhelpful. Tell me, how is a woman to leave if she genuinely fears for her life and/or the lives of her children if she does? How is she to leave when her self esteem has been crippled to the point that she feels completely powerless? How does she leave knowing that she is unskilled, has little chance of furthering her skills and/or education and actually will not be able to provide for her children and herself on welfare? How is she to leave if she knows that may mean a violent abusive man will potentially have 50% custody of the children he's threatened to hurt or sexually abuse if she goes (this isn't hyperbole, it's the actual lived experience of some women).

To give the 'other other' side of this issue - one of the cases I worked on not so very long ago saw a domestically violent and sexually abusive (of the female child) father and husband imprisoned for his crimes. WHILST in prison, he went on to apply for - and was granted - contact with his daughter, his sexual abuse victim. Add insult to injury, the only person who was able to take the child in for the court-ordered visitations was the mother - his domestic violence victim - forcing her to see her perpetrator also.

Would she have been so very wrong to stay, knowing that she could control the violence and damage to her children to a much better extent than she could once she left? Not even having the man imprisoned saved her daughter from having regular, ongoing, forced contact with her perpetrator.

Well might you say that society and professionals who work DV cases are 'making excuses' - but honestly, the realities are that it's not just as simple as 'she should leave' and nor does her leaving guarantee a greater degree of safety for herself or her children - in fact often the reverse is true. And ANYBODY working DV cases knows that there are cops with their hearts in the right places who genuinely want to help - and then there are cops who couldn't give a shit, don't want to deal with the paperwork, don't believe that men hit women who don't 'deserve' it etc. On one extremely memorable case I heard a cop take an emergency call to a DV sitch, only to have him say to his partner "Oh, it's just the Smiths. Just drive round the block a few times until the screaming stops" (name has been changed, obviously).

'She should just leave' condenses a hugely multi-faceted and complicated issue down to it's bare bones and makes a whole lot of assumptions that are just not based in reality, or often, within the woman's capacity. And quite frankly, I'm appalled that you're handing up cases whereby a woman has acted protectively against men who threaten her lives as some kind of refutation against the seriousness of DV. Think about it - what do you think he's threatened to do - either explicitly or implicitly - if those women hadn't assisted their partners. Just because they don't tell YOU about it doesn't mean the threat isn't there. Quite frankly, I wouldn't tell somebody who's attitude was that I was somehow to blame for being abused if I stayed past the time that the abuse was obvious, either.

[Rudolfsgottarednose]

I agreee with the fear of other things aspect, that is why the message has to be given loud and clear that personal welfare of the woman (and i have said as before it isn't only women but that is who we are focusing on) and the children that has to be put first, including being mentally well.

The abuser isn't always the childrens father, i have dealt with case were the fathers are fighting to take the children, hoping that their ex will see sense.

I have lived through poverty, most SW's decide to go into the field through their own experiences.

I will admit to also being someone who grew up with intense DV.

I trained as a counsellor before becoming a SW, i have seen more damage through situations such as DV than poverty, as will any drug/addiction counsellor tell you.

Whether you think poverty can ruin lives over a certain extent is down to personal/religous belief.

[sunshineandbooks]

Most women have to leave several times before they successfully break the relationship for good. Quite clearly they want to leave but find themselves pulled back in for various reasons, some of which are obvious, others less so.

Rudolf, I get where you're coming from regarding children. It frustrates me too when I see mothers covering up abuse that is making the children's lives miserable. Where I differ from you is that I still believe the main person at fault in these scenarios is the abuser. After all, it wouldn't be necessary for the mother to cover up anything if her partner wasn't an abuser.

I also think you are mistaken when you say it's not about fear. It may not be about fear of the man, but fear of other things are just as powerful - fear of where they will live, fear of how she will cope, fear of being unable to do this by herself (especially after years of being told they are worthless and cannot cope without their abuser's 'protection'), fear that the children will miss their father, fear that others will judge them for breaking up the family.

I am not making 'excuses' for why women stay. I am saying that unless we deal with these reasons - all of which are valid reasons - things will not improve.

And as an aside, fear of poverty should not be so easily dismissed. UK poverty may be a world apart from certain nations in Africa, but people do still die here from malnutrition and hypothermia, and unless you have sat in a woman's refuge on Christmas day with sobbing children, or in a bedsit on any other celebratory/family occasion day with no presents and no future, you really cannot say things like poverty can be recovered from. Poverty in the UK can and does ruin lives, sometimes for good.

[Rudolfsgottarednose]

I am just trying to explain why i don't think as professionals, low level support can be given, if there are children.

I am in my fourties and lived in a time were every few households had DV in them, it's only because of a low tolerance attitude that things are improving.

[Rudolfsgottarednose]

I am deliberatly giving the other side as i don't feel that leaping in with a hundred of excuses as to why the woman has to stay is helpful to the victim.

We wouldn't find those excuses as to why any other victim of a crime has to put up with it.

I have worked under three different LA's and obviously have friends who work under others, the system varies in them all, of course it does in the availability of housing, support etc.

Even were a woman is well supported there are cases were they go back, there comes a point were you have to remove the children and leave them to it. I can only put it down to personality disorders etc, perhaps. But these women are in all other ways strong and not lacking in any sense.

If the police make a contact to SS after a DV incident then it will build a picture and the children will be put on a Child in Need plan, direct work will be done with them and the parents will have to attend DV courses and self esteem raising etc. If this breaks down then the mother or children will not be expected to have unsupervised contact (or contact at all), so the police are not doing the family any favours by not doing what they are supposed to, as there is then no record of DV.

But there are situations were the children are asking teachers etc for help and the mother is covering up what is going on and it isn't always fear.

Sometimes there is an inevitable attitude to their situation, this is usually because they have grown up with DV, which is even more of a reason as to why we cannot nopw let children remain in the house because it normalises it. I have had it said by one mother "if DV is so bad why wasn't i removed as a child, then?"

[SardineQueen]

Rudolfs your experience with DV seems to point in one direction only - all of the examples you have given and comments you have made point to women being sneaky, sly, colluding and all the rest of it. You have mentioned no cases where a woman was experiencing DV and left and that was it. Have you seen no cases like that? Do they always go back? Even when they are emotionally and financially separated? And collude with the abuser? I am a bit confused. Your posts seem so one-sided.

[SardineQueen]

There have been loads of threads on here where women are forced to allow their children contact with violent exes.

I thought that the bar was set quite high before the courts would say that a man was not allowed to see his children after separation?

[Rudolfsgottarednose]

"But still, except when children are placed at risk, if a woman chooses to stay with an abusive partner, is it really right to undermine her decision by forcing her or the perpetrator to leave? That does not empower her, in fact, it can serve to re-enforce her powerlessness. Sometimes we have to accept that a woman chooses to stay in a harmful relationship, that is where we need to offer ongoing low-level long-term support. And that is why we need to keep working to change attitudes, beliefs and behaviour before young people enter relationships, these patterns start young."

That would undermine all of the programmes which worl hard to show the damage done to the children. Before it becomes phsyical there is usually emotional abuse happening, giving low level support, would once again minimise what is happening.

We need a zero tolerance approach to DV to rid our society of it. We disempower women by making random excuses which put women into the victim mode. Poverty is recoverable from for both women and children (especialy the poverty in the Western world), DV may not be and will not be from a emotional aspect.

There is to much focus on the adults and not enough on the children.

" At the moment, the woman is practically forced by law to maintain contact with her abuser if they have children together,"

Not under my LA they aren't, it varies and where a woman is coluding and covering up for the man the focus has to shift to the safeguarding of the children.

There has just been a case in the media were a woman was hiding the man in the loft when SS visited. I have dealt with at least three cases were that has happened, the men would be in prison if they had not of done. These are not women finacially dependant on the men.

[SardineQueen]

Great post sunshine and books.

I agree. I think that's what I was sort of trying to get at but I don't have the knowledge to really know how to put it. Just a feeling that DV is still seen as something different to other violent crime.

[sunshineandbooks]

It is true that many women 'choose' to continue in abusive relationships, and that control can still be exercised while a man is locked up in prison. I've seen it happen. However, again I believe this is because there is inadequate support for abused women.

As a society we talk the talk about why it's right to end abusive relationships - damaging the children, setting poor relationship models, history repeating itself etc. But the reality for women who do end it, is very very different. They are applauded for their brave and difficult decision and then pretty much cast to the wind:

Very little ability to remove the man from the house permanently and effectively. No where to go, except a refuge full of other abused women, some of whom will be so badly traumatised that they are a risk to others themselves. No financial support able to kick in sometimes for weeks. Talk of benefit scrounger single mothers living off the state and how children rom 'broken' families have such terrible outcomes in life. Charges brought in for those attempting to use the CSA and no legal aid for family law unless you can prove DV (which as most women tolerate approx 35 instances before involving the police, is as good as removing legal aid full stop).

Leaving an abusive relationship is one of the most singularly traumatic events any woman can go through, and it is only just beginning when she leaves. There follows months of upheaval financially and sorting out living arrangements, new schools, etc, all the while trying to recover emotionally without having any of the practical stability needed to aid emotional recovery.

Contrast this with what happens when the relationship was still on - no SS involvement, accommodation/financial security (of a sort, even if she had no control over it), periods where the man is making up for his last outburst and being the 'perfect' partner/husband. If you're going to sleep worried about how on earth you're going to cope, more stressed out than at any time in your life, it is human nature to remember that your XP 'only' lost his temper about once a month and was ok most of the time and every relationship has its ups and downs, right? He's a good dad and the children shouldn't grow up without a father. When said XP then turns up with flowers promising he's learned his lesson and things will be different in the future, is it any surprise that the path of least resistance is chosen?

Leaving an abusive relationship with no independent financial means and no active support network sucks. It IS harder than staying and it is WRONG to judge women for doing it when the person who should be judged (and isn't) is the violent offender.

Why put women through this when it would be quite simple to ensure that these men cannot badger women into taking them back. Make it automatic that a man who has committed a violent offence against a woman receives an injunction against going anywhere near her and is given an electronic tag to enforce it (since most violent men completely ignore injunctions). This would mean he was arrested before he could perform another act of violence or sweet talk the woman back into his life and could mean that more women could stay in the family home without having to flee to a refuge. Stop courts awarding unsupervised child contact to violent offenders. Men who beat women are also child abusers. SS recognise this, as does the NSPCC (DV features in 75% of households where child abuse takes place). Why don't the courts?

Remove the opportunities for a man to harass a woman even after separation and you reduce the chances of her going back. At the moment, the woman is practically forced by law to maintain contact with her abuser if they have children together, made worse by heaps of pressure from society, media, politicians and well-meaning family and friends about not breaking up the family, etc. Spend some of the money that is currently wasted on anger management courses for abusers on the women - teaching them about traumatic bonding (the reason they are often unable to switch off the bond with their abuser) and red flags (so they can avoid the same problems in the future).

I agree prison doesn't work. It doesn't work for most crimes TBH. However, while rehabilitation is arguably the main purpose of our criminal justice system, another is that justice is seen to be done and protects the public. That's where prison has a useful role to play. Where people are incapable of being rehabilitated (and less than 5% of abusers stop abusing) then they should be locked up to send an unequivocal message that abuse is wrong and will not be tolerated. At the present time, most abusers could expect a longer sentence for theft than for beating up their partner. What message does that send about violence towards women? As a society it is well tolerated (despite the rhetoric) because it comes from a historical position where women were property and men had the right to use force to keep them under control. Only 20 years ago this viewpoint of women as men's property was still being enforced before rape within marriage was made illegal. We have a long way to go.

Sorry for long post.

[SardineQueen]

If a person repeatedly attacks people in the general public then they are tackled with confinement / mental health treatment surely?

[SardineQueen]

Haven't read all thread.

If a person beats another person then they should be prosecuted.

it's not a case of " if a woman chooses to stay with an abusive partner, is it really right to undermine her decision by forcing her or the perpetrator to leave" surely it's a case of if someone, anyone, is repeatedly committing violent crime then they should be in prison. At what stage does it stop being the woman's "choice" to have the crap beaten out of her, and the state should intervene? Before she's dead, I would say. Long before.

Why the lack of inclination to treat violence within the home in the same way it would be treated outside the home ie as a serious criminal offence?

[Rudolfsgottarednose]

"Well often, with good reason. There have been many cases of women being told that their children will be taken away from them if they don't leave the man."

We cannot, as a society allow children to stay in "at risk" situations. I see women frequently sneak the men back into their lives, even getting pregnant to them, when they are released from prison.

The system works differently in each LA. Some LA's have easy accessable programmes and solutions, but the women still don't take them up, or take the men back without the condition that he follows the plan put in place, so the CP process has to click in and the women have to make the choice between their partners or their children.

It isn't as simple as the support isn't gven in every case.

[ElfenorRathbone]

Yes but the difficulty isn't that women choose to stay... the difficulty is that the men aren't forcibly removed. They've committed a crime, it's a serious crime and the state should kick in to ensure that he's removed and stays removed, whatever anyone else says. I totally get what you're saying MrsM about the programmes being shit, but that is where as you say, long term education comes in and also the programmes need to be changed. Let's support women to keep men away from them and their children, punish and educate the men properly, make freedom programmes easily accessible and then we can start talking about how we have to remove the children - once we've actually given women and children proper support to extricate themselves from violent abusers. We just don't do that atm. We've gone straight into punishing women for putting up with abuse, without actually punishing the abusers and / or giving women proper support to escape the abuse first.

[ElfenorRathbone]

" officers seem to think that they will be adding to the womans problems by treating the incident as a child protection issue and making a 'contact' via SS"

Well often, with good reason. There have been many cases of women being told that their children will be taken away from them if they don't leave the man.

So next time he beats them up, they don't call the police, because they're scared of having their children being taken away.

The best support a woman can get, is for the state to have the man taken away and kept away from her and the family. Unfortunately, because the courts don't take DV seriously, women are pretty much left with the message that they're on their own, if they don't solve the problem, then they just have to put up with it.

[Rudolfsgottarednose]

Sunshine- tbh in my LA the problem is information sharing by the police, the officers seem to think that they will be adding to the womans problems by treating the incident as a child protection issue and making a 'contact' via SS. Sometimes it is only when the family (or rather children) is put on a CP plan through DV incidents that they seek help.

I think that although the charities, Banardo's, NSPCC and other local charities, do excellent work, the funding isn't static enough to handle something as complex and ongoing as DV work.

But then i have seen years of work done with the women and they for some reason as soon as they are de-planned, let the men back into the home, even when it puts the children at great risk. These are women whose children haven't had contact (that we know about) with the father and they don't rely financially on the men.