Reshaping Responses to Victims of Violent Crime

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Re-shaping Responses to Victims of Violent Crime

• Linda Coates Allan Wade

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Agenda

• Recent Research on Social Responses to Victims of
  Violent Crime
• The Importance of Effective Social
  Responses
• The Frequency and Consequences of Negative
  Social Responses
• The Interactional and Discursive View of Violence
  and Resistance
• Violence is Social
• Comparing Accounts of Sexual Assault
• Violence is Unilateral
• Mutualizing in Legal and Mental Health Settings
• Violence is Deliberate
• Stereotype of the Out of Control Perpetrator
• Victims Invariably Resist
• Stereotype of the Passive, Self-Subjugating
  Victim
• The Cycle of Violence From Victim to
  Perpetrator and Perpetrator to Victim
• The "Neat Binary" (Maradorossian) of Men's
  Aggression and Women's Passivity
• Review of Examples
• Response-Based Interviewing in Diverse Settings

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Negative Social Responses

• Many victims report receiving negative social
  responses.
• Victims who receive negative social responses
  are
• more likely to receive diagnoses (e.g., PTSD
  and clinical depression)
• more likely to blame their own character flaws
  for the abuse
• less likely to disclose again
• Women are more likely than men to encounter
  negative social responses
• Negative social responses are more powerful for
  women than for men
• Positive social responses ameliorate the harm
  caused by violence
• But . . . negative social responses are more
  powerful than positive social responses

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Violence is Social Unilateral

• Violent behaviour is social in that it occurs
  within a particular socio-historic context and
  within specific interactions comprised of at
  least two people.
• It is also unilateral, in that it entails
  actions by one individual against the will and
  well-being of another. Violent action is best
  understood when it is examined in context.

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Rape Scenario 1

• He followed her down the sidewalk after dark.
  He ran and caught up to her. He grabbed her by
  the shoulders and threw her to the ground. He
  grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her into
  the bushes. He grabbed at her zipper and
  threatened to kill her if she screamed. He
  overpowered her and tore off her pants. He
  repeatedly forced his mouth onto hers, called her
  degrading names, and vaginally raped her.

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Rape Scenario 2

• He followed her down the sidewalk after dark.
  She sped up to get under the next street light.
  He ran and caught up to her. She tried to jump
  out of the way but he grabbed her by the
  shoulders and threw her to the ground. She
  rolled away from him but he grabbed her by the
  ankles. She kicked, yelled at him to stop and
  leave her alone and tried to hold on to a tree
  root to prevent him from dragging her into the
  bushes. Her dragged her into the bushes and
  grabbed at her zipper. She started to scream but
  he threatened to kill her. She crossed her legs
  and pushed out her stomach to stop him from
  getting them undone. He overpowered her and tore
  off her pants. She tried to turn over and keep
  her legs crossed while telling him not to hurt
  her. She tried to reason with him by telling him
  he did not want to do this. He repeatedly forced
  his mouth onto hers. She averted her face to
  avoid contact with his mouth. He called her
  degrading names. Realizing that she had no
  escape and that he might kill her, she laid still
  in order to get it over with as quickly as
  possible and avoid serious physical injury. He
  vaginally raped her.

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Why Include Victim Responses?

• To conceal resistance is to conceal violence
• Any account of violence that does not include an
  account of the victims resistance is incomplete
• Any theory of violence that does not take into
  account the victims resistance as a basic
  premise is deeply flawed because
• 1. Victims appear as co-agents, even consenting
• 2. Inspires contempt
• 3. Mitigates perpetrator responsibility

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Unilateral Vs. Mutual Actions

• Unilateral
• Other Object
• Shaking a Tree
• Doing a Pirouette
• Beating
• Forced Oral Contact
• Rape

• Mutual
• Other Partner
• Shaking Hands
• Waltzing
• Boxing
• Kiss
• Sexual Intercourse

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Summary of Studies

• Sexualized violence frequently represented as
  mutual
• they had sex, he kissed her, horseplay
• When represented as mutual, more likely to
  represent as non-violent and even pleasurable
• Correlated with sentence
• The less accurate language used, the lower the
  sentence

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Cooking . . .

• When you hit someone over the head with a frying
  pan, you dont call it cooking. (Unknown Genius)

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Violence is Deliberate

• The perpetrators of violence anticipate
  resistance from their victims and take specific
  steps to conceal and suppress it. Virtually all
  forms of violence entail strategies designed
  specifically for the suppression of victims'
  resistance.

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But . . .

• Violence is portrayed as an effect of biological,
  social, or psychological forces that compel the
  perpetrator
• Contradictory messages to perpetrators
• anger management (ONeill Morgan, 2001)

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The Chilling Fact Is . . .

• Perpetrators are operating on a much more
  accurate set of assumptions about victims than
  are legal and mental health professionals

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Resistance is Ever-Present

• When individuals are subjected to violence, they
  resist. Within each history of violence is a
  history of resistance by the victim. Victims of
  violence face the threat of further violence for
  any act of open defiance. Consequently, open
  defiance is the least common form of resistance
  (Scott, 1990).

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The Nature of Resistance

• Mental, physical, spiritual
• At-the-moment or long after
• Micro-level
• Disguised, indirect, covert
• Effects/impacts as responses/resistance
• A drop of longing says as much about the human
  spirit as a grand gesture of love or defiance.

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Instead . . .

• The therapists work is not to establish the
  accuracy of earlier sexually traumatic events
  (which in any case is often in vain, and
  traumatic), but does necessitate in-depth
  exploration of the victims subjective
  experience. This could include psychodramatic
  enactment . . . with simulated (and enacted)
  physical aggression, which awakens the invasive
  feeling of fear, panic, anger, often guilt. We
  usually suggest, with this sort of experience, a
  short sequence where the victim himself or
  herself enacts the attacker, so as to dissolve
  the deep neurological imprints of passive
  submission.
• (Ginger Ginger, 2000, p. 6)

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So . . .

• Violence is unilateral but is treated as mutual
• Violence is deliberate but is treated as an
  effect
• Resistance is ever-present but victims are
  represented as passive and socially conditioned

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The Origins of Negative Social Responses Four
Operations of Language

• Conceal Violence
• Mitigate Responsibility
• Conceal Resistance
• Blame/Pathologize Victims

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Example of Cycle of Abuse

• In addition, women are often manipulated into
  staying in abusive relationships by the abuser. .
  . . Walker developed a . . .cycle theory that
  depicts the trap keeping women in abusive
  relationships.
• During the first stage, the batterer engages in
  minor verbal abuse. At this time, the woman
  tries to calm the abuser and often changes her
  lifestyle to avoid angering the man. This
  usually sets a precedent of submissiveness by the
  women building the gateway to future abuse.
• The second stage consists of an uncontrollable
  discharge of tensions that have been built up
  during phase one. . . .
• During the third stage, the abuser acts
  remorseful and apologetic, usually promising to
  change. As a result, many women grant abusers
  multiple opportunities to repent and thereby fall
  into a cycle of abuse.
• Ciraco, V. N. (2001), Fighting Domestic
  Violence with Mandatory Arrest, Are We Winning?
  An Analysis In New Jersey. Womens Rights Law
  Reporter, volume 22, Number 2, Spring 2001,
  169-191

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The Neat Binary . . .

• The partners' characteristics hold them together.
  . . . As abused partners adapt and become more
  compliant . . . the partners' characteristics
  make them increasingly dependent on one another.
  After prolonged abuse they develop
  complementary characteristics aggressive/passive,
  demanding/compliant blaming/accepting guilt.
• Anonymous Program Literature

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RCMP Policy on VAWIR

• Tension Building Stage
• The victim senses the aggressor becoming edgy
  and more prone to react negatively to any trivial
  frustration. Many victims learn to anticipate
  violent outbursts and try to avoid it by becoming
  nurturing, compliant or by staying out of the
  way.
• Acute Battering Stage The Explosion
• The aggressor appears to lose control physically
  and/or emotionally. Many aggressors report they
  do not start out wanting to hurt the victim, but
  want only to teach the victim a lesson. The
  violence may involve pushing, shoving, shaking or
  hair-pulling. It may involve hitting with an
  open hand, a closed fist or a weapon. This is
  the stage where the victim, the aggressor or the
  police may be physically injured or killed.
• Aftermath The Loving Respite or Honeymoon
  Stage
• The aggressor appears genuinely sorry for what
  has happened. Their worst fear is that the
  partner will leave them as a result of what has
  happened and they try to make up for their
  behaviour. The victim wants to believe that the
  abuse will not occur again. Often the victim
  will feel responsible for the conduct that leads
  to the beating. Both feel guilty about the event
  and both resolve to never let it happen again.
  Part of the cycle of violence can include the
  aggressor sending gifts, flowers, apologies or
  making promises to the victim that the assaultive
  behaviour will never occur again.

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Four Operations of Discourse
Obscure Responsibility
Conceal Resistance
Blame Victim
Conceal Violence
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Response Based Interviewing
Elucidate Responses, Honour Resistance
Clarify Responsibility
Contest Victim Blaming
Expose Violence
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Re-shaping Social Responses

• Develop concrete and detailed accounts in situ
• Avoid mental abstractions
• Reveal the unilateral nature of violent acts
• Contest mutualizing/eroticizing
• Clarify perpetrators' responsibility
• Expose the suppression of resistance
• Elucidate victims' responses and resistance
• Ask about responses to adverse events
• Contest the blaming and pathologizing of victims
  
• Recast effects as responses

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Thanks !

• For publications or further information . . .
• Linda Coates lcoates_at_okanagan.bc.ca
• Allan Wade awade_at_cityu.edu