Battered Women (From Issues in Criminal Justice Administration, P 42-52, 1983, Mark Findlay et al, eds. - See NCJ-92907)

• NCJ Number: 92910
• Author(s): J Crancher; S J Egger; W Bacon
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 10 pages
• Sale Source: George Allen and Unwin
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

A questionnaire answered by 451 victims of domestic assault in New South Wales (Australia) suggests that the primary factor in wife abuse is the structure and values of a patriarchal society and that the primary remedial need is provision for the economic needs of the victims outside the abusive relationship as well as more prompt and effective action by the criminal justice system.

Abstract

Since this study was based on voluntary response to a newspaper survey, it provides no reliable information on the extent of wife battering in New South Wales. The most adequate explanatory model of wife battering based on the background data given is that which links it to the status and perspectives of women in a patriarchy, which places women in a state of economic, social, psychological, and physical dependence and subservience in relationship to men. It is this model which explains why women continued in abusive relationships; nearly 28 percent of the women in the study had endured abusive relationships for 11 years or more. The official agencies of the patriarchal state (the police, the medical system, and the criminal justice system) had not been very effective in intervening on behalf of the victims. The primary need that emerged from the survey was provision for victims to have their subsistence needs met outside of economic dependence on the abusing husband. Unless victims are ensured of an adequate income and ready access to inexpensive and secure housing, no amount of counseling or legal advice will bring them to escape from the abusive situation. In conjunction with subsistence benefits, victims also require more effective police protection and accelerated and more sympathetic court procedures. The effectiveness of legal sanctions must be maximized not only for the sake of particular victims but as a means of placing a powerful negative value on violence against women. Charges should be consistently brought against abusers and prosecution undertaken. The victim should be a compellable witness against her assailant.