There is a growing recognition that domestic violence is common, and that it has consequences in both the immediate and longer term. The World Health Organisation (2013) reports that on average 30 per cent of women who have been in an intimate relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical or sexual violence by their partner. We also know that men can be victims within their intimate relationships. Nearly half of all incidents of domestic violence and abuse involve physical injury and globally as many as 38 per cent of murders of women are committed by a current or former intimate partner (Garcia-Moreno and Watts, 2011). The number of indirect deaths through suicide, maternal causes, AIDS and chronic illness means that the total number of deaths as a result of violence and abuse between intimate partners is much higher (Garcia-Moreno and Watts, 2011).
The consequences for victims of domestic violence are considerable in terms of physical health and psychological well-being. Garcia-Moreno and Watts (2011) state that when the cumulative impacts on mortality and morbidity are assessed, the health burden is often higher than for other, more commonly accepted, public health priorities. In addition to the human costs, policy research also shows that domestic violence has huge economic costs, including the direct costs to society of providing health, legal, police and other services, and the indirect costs for individuals (Walby, 2009).
At a transnational level, the European Commission and the Council of Europe have devoted considerable time and money to discussing the issue of domestic violence and agreeing how it should be tackled in order to deal with the human and economic burden (Council of Europe, 2011). This has filtered down to national governments, with most western economically developed countries having strategies designed to tackle domestic violence at both a societal and individual level. These strategies typically consist of three complementary strands: first, to introduce measures to prevent domestic violence occurring in the first instance or to limit its reoccurrence; second, where domestic violence does occur, to ensure that victims receive prompt and comprehensive support; and, third, to ensure that those who perpetrate domestic violence are held to account for their behaviour (Devaney, 2014).
This discourse of holding perpetrators to account for their behaviour has typically been enacted through a criminal justice response. Use of a justice lens in considering accountability has arisen in part due to the campaigning of the women’s movement which argued, quite rightly, that the state was in effect sanctioning the abuse of and violence towards women (and children) by not enacting legal protections that permitted the state to intervene in the private sphere of the family. For example, in the 1970s, legal actions were brought against police departments in the United States (US) for negligence and failure to provide equal protection to female victims from domestic violence, for example, Bruno vs. Codd (1977), Scott vs. Hart (1976) and Thurman vs. City of Torrington (1984). In each of these cases, the police department was alleged to have discriminated against the assaulted women due to the domestic nature of their complaints. For instance, in the case of Bruno vs. Codd (1977), 12 women were denied police assistance despite being assaulted by their partners, with one of the women being assaulted in front of police officers. Similarly, in Scott vs. Hart (1976), four women were denied police protection by receiving virtually no protection against physical assault. In Thurman vs. City of Torrington (1984), estranged wife Tracey Thurman was assaulted by her husband Charles Thurman over a two-year period before the police arrested him and took serious action against him (Banks et al., 2013). The serious inaction of the police in these instances was seen as a consequence of a society that was essentially patriarchal, privileging the rights of men in many aspects of daily life over women. Therefore, what individuals, and in particular men, wanted to do towards their partner was not a matter for the state except in the most extreme of cases (Hunnicutt, 2009).
The criminal justice response to domestic violence has a number of dimensions. First, and most significantly, accountability is equated with a legal sanction of this socially unacceptable behaviour. In the United Kingdom (UK) a range of both civil and criminal legislation provides protection for victims, whilst also punishing perpetrators for their actions. Many of the most serious legal sanctions relate to acts of physical violence, and are laws designed for serious violence in any context, between any individuals, whether known to one another or not (Bowen, 2011). Second, in policy terms, criminal justice agencies have been urged to respond robustly to the issue of domestic violence. As Theresa May (2010), the Home Secretary in England stated; “society must give the police and the courts the tools they need to tackle violence against women”. This can be seen in the efforts to improve the police response to emergency calls about domestic violence, the introduction of pro arrest policies and a continuing focus on the need to improve the low rate of criminal prosecutions (Devaney, 2014). Third, most services working with men who are domestically violent are based on the premise that individuals require a mandate to attend and participate in intervention. There is growing research evidence to show that for some men attendance and participation in group-based programmes is helped by a legal mandate, ongoing supervision by a probation officer during the period of attendance on the programme and regular court review (Gondolf, 2012). Similarly though, many programmes suffer from high drop-out rates, even where men are compelled to attend, raising the issue of whether legal sanctions in themselves are an adequate mechanism for effecting change in behaviour, and ultimately achieving the outcome measure that really counts, a reduction in men’s perpetration of violence against women.
While successive national governments in the UK and elsewhere have supported the position that perpetrators of domestic violence should be held to account for their domestically violent behaviour through a strong criminal justice response, the statistics relating to what is happening in practice appear contradictory. Data collected from victims of domestic violence in the Northern Ireland Crime Survey shows that 80 per cent of the worst incidences of domestic violence are never reported to the police (Carmichael, 2008), and data collected from 22,000 16–59 year olds for the England and Wales Crime Survey indicate that only 31 per cent of women and 18 per cent of men who had experienced an incident of domestic violence (a combined rate of 24 per cent) reported having told the police (Office of National Statistics, 2013). For those who did not report the abuse to the police, the most common reasons given were the abuse was too trivial or not worth reporting (42 per cent), it was a private, family matter and not a matter of concern for the police (34 per cent), or the victim did not think the police could help (15 per cent) (Smith et al., 2012). The researchers asked respondents what happened when they did report the issue, with 18 per cent reporting that the police took no action, and perpetrators being warned in a further 39 per cent of cases. Perpetrators were arrested in 31 per cent of instances, and subsequently only 12 per cent of individuals were charged with an offence. This means that of those individuals who reported experiencing domestic violence in the England and Wales crime survey, only 3 per cent of instances of domestic violence resulted in the perpetrator of the abuse being charged by the police. According to Home Office data, less than one quarter of these cases (23 per cent) made it to court, a total of 0.63 per cent of all disclosed domestic violence incidents (Crown Prosecution Service, 2012).
When the reasons for cases not proceeding to court were explored, 41 per cent of the respondents said that they, the victim, decided not to continue; 34 per cent said that the police or prosecution service decided not to take further action; and the remainder (26 per cent) said that it did not make the courts for some other reason (Smith et al., 2012).
Alarmingly, the above statistics present a picture of an ineffective criminal justice system. However, what do victims say about their experience of involvement with the criminal justice system? Victims have been asked how satisfied they were with the outcome of police involvement, whether they felt safer as a result of the outcome and how helpful they found the police and the prosecution service. Around three-quarters were either very satisfied (36 per cent), or fairly satisfied (36 per cent) with the outcome they got from going to the police. Around a half (55 per cent) felt safer and 14 per cent felt less safe after the outcome. Around two-fifths found the police and prosecution service very helpful (39 per cent). The majority said the police and prosecution service were either fairly helpful (37 per cent), not very helpful (16 per cent) or not at all helpful (9 per cent) (Crown Prosecution Service, 2012).
During 2014/15, 112,898 domestic violence cases were passed by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in England for charging decisions (Crown Prosecution Service, 2015a). The CPS’s analysis of its own statistical returns states that of those cases passed to it during 2014/15, 69 per cent were proceeded with (Crown Prosecution Service, 2015a), of which 74 per cent resulted in a successful prosecution (a proportion which has remained steady for nearly a decade) (Crown Prosecution Service, 2015b). The overwhelming majority of prosecutions with female and male victims have involved male perpetrators (92 per cent) (Crown Prosecution Service, 2015c), even though crime surveys indicate that men and women are victimised by their female partners at a much higher rate than the 8 per cent of prosecutions might imply.
It is important to remember that domestic violence is very rarely a one off event, and therefore it is to be hoped that arrest and prosecution will serve a deterrent effect. Research involving 692 domestic violence perpetrators who were reported to the police during a three-year period in England found that exactly half (50 per cent) were involved in one or more subsequent domestic violence incidents (measured as a police report) during this three-period. Of the perpetrators who were re-reported, nearly one in five (18 per cent) were reported for assaulting a different partner (Hester and Westmarland, 2006).
Of course, the statistics presented here do not necessarily mean that a criminal justice response or legal sanctions are the wrong approach, as there may be much that could be done to improve the detection, investigation and prosecution of such cases. Indeed, the CPS in England presents some information indicating that legal processes are improving (Crown Prosecution Service, 2012). Indeed, a strong criminal justice response is part of the wider strategy required to protect victims and wider society. If, though, the outcome is to ensure that individuals who perpetrate acts of violence and abuse towards their partners or ex-partners stop this behaviour, then using criminal justice remedies in isolation appears extremely limited as the main form of response. And surely this is the nub of the issue: whilst the outcome that society seeks to achieve is a reduction in recidivism, the underlying process for achieving this is wrapped tightly in the paradigm underpinning our understanding of what causes and sustains such behaviour. The criminalisation of domestic violence serves a symbolic function of signalling society’s rejection of the abuse and victimisation of women (in particular, and men’s victimisation more generally), and is intended to act as a general deterrent. The question then arises of whether it is an effective deterrent for existing perpetrators, and more generally acts as a warning to any potential future perpetrators. Various studies have argued that at an individual level, female victims often do not feel that criminalising their partners or ex-partners behaviour is desirable (Smith et al., 2012). In addition, from a societal point of view, criminalisation of domestic violence appears extremely limited as a method for reducing recidivism (Olver et al., 2011). As McGuire (2013, p. 21) notes in relation to the growing evidence base in respect of what works with offenders “the double paradox here is the now more solid than ever evidence on the futility of punitive sanctions as a solution to the problem of criminal recidivism”.
An alternative view of accountability is that perpetrators of domestic violence should be supported and encouraged to take personal responsibility for their behaviour, and to hold themselves to account for how they have behaved in the past and will behave in the future. This perspective is rooted in a belief that personal change is more likely to be achieved and sustained when individuals make their own free choice to change rather than being coerced (Mahon et al., 2009). This, of course, is problematic in situations where the behaviour of one individual can have such drastic consequences for others (such as their partner and their children), however there is a need to confront the current paradigm that sees individuals who are abusive towards their partners as homogenous, and defines them solely by this characteristic behaviour. In aiming to provide better services to victims of domestic violence there is a need to engage with those who perpetrate violence and abuse against their current or former intimate partner, rather than “other” them, and that professionals in working with those who have perpetrated violence towards their partner “recognize the importance of not condoning violence, but are able to appreciate the importance of engaging with the complexities of individual life histories and opens up possibilities for the re-authoring of their lives” (Featherstone and Peckover, 2007, p. 197).
In addition, there has been a growing acceptance over the last decade that women can perpetrate domestic violence in their intimate relationships (Hester, 2013). This has, unhelpfully, become embroiled in a polarised debate about the symmetry of domestic violence between the genders, and a feeling among some advocates that there is a deliberate attempt to minimise men’s experiences as a means of asserting feminist ideologies (Hines, 2015). Rather than engage in a debate about whether violence perpetrated against men and women is the same or different, we should be seeking to acknowledge the victimisation, and striving to improve the accountability of perpetrators for their behaviour. This is not to avoid exploring the different forms of violence that men and women experience, or the potential for differential impacts. Rather we need to open the discussion about who perpetrates domestic violence as a means of starting to better conceptualise how to respond. At the same time we also need to look at the intersectionality of issues alongside gender, such as sexual orientation, race and a range of health issues on the nature, presentation and response to domestic violence.
The purpose of this book is to provide a narrative review of the evidence informing our understanding of domestic violence with a particular focus on those who perpetrate abuse and violence towards their current or former intimate partners. While there is now a very well established body of literature focusing on the needs and experiences of victims of domestic violence (although it mostly focuses on children, and women in heterosexual relationships), there is considerably less research that informs our understanding of who perpetrates domestic violence, in what ways, for what reason(s) and the effectiveness of different interventions in engaging perpetrators and changing abusive behaviour. This book seeks to add to this growing literature by drawing upon the published work to date and presenting an assessment of what it actually tells us. Underpinning the book is a number of key beliefs, and it is important that we are explicit with readers about our own philosophical and theoretical orientations to the issue.
First, we are committed to ensuring that work with perpetrators of domestic violence is primarily about promoting the safety of both past a...