Four per cent of domestic attackers jailed
It really hasn't been a good week for women's view of the "protection" of British law. After the "cautions for rape" cases earlier in the week, today it emerges that only 4 per cent of men convicted of domestic violence are sent to jail. Fifty-nine per cent are fined, which strikes me as a particularly stupid penalty, given that it inevitably penalises the victim as well as the attacker, in affecting the family budget(directly, if the couple are still together - as sadly they all too often still are, or indirectly if the father is providing child support); surely if you are going for non-custodial sentences a community service would be more appropriate?
Now I'm not, even on an issue like this, a Daily Mail "lock 'em up and throw away the key style person. Jailing should be rehabilitative purposes and, where necessary, for the protection of the community. (And that protection might be particularly necessary if the couple are still "together".)
But I'd like to see a comparison between a group of "domestic" assaults and "non-domestic" ones, grouped by the seriousness of the injuries caused to the victims. I suspect this would show that domestic assaults are still being treated as "less serious", and particularly that "respectable", relatively wealthy men who can present well in court are getting away with them, with a fine that will have little or no real meaning.
The government reflex of "make a new law" is not, however, likely to deal with this problem. The problem is not the law, or even the magistrates and judges, beyond the fact that they represent their societies. What needs to change are attitudes that make victims feel this is "just life", or "their fault", and attitudes among police, juries, lawyers - in fact everyone, that something "domestic" is somehow different to a random attack in the street. (Something that is actually statistically highly unlikely.)
To put this in context:
The annual BCS [British Crime Survey] estimate says that there were about 401,000 incidents of domestic abuse in 2004-05. However, the special BCS study points at more than a million victims each year, with 15.4m incidents involving threats or force happening each year in England and Wales. Researchers say the number would be even greater if the many sexual assaults that take place within the home were also included.
It should not be forgotten -- indeed it should be celebrated -- that we have come a long way in only a couple of decades in at least recognising that these assults are crimes. We still have a long way to go in treating them with proper seriousness.
3 Comments:
Have I missed it or havn't u posted this weeks Femme Fatales??! And I keep marvelling at the number of posts you manage....many on the same day...(and feel terribly embarrassed at my dwindling..not only in numbers but quality of posts)!
Domestic abuse victims who follow through to prosecution and imprisonment are rare.
Not exactly true. Of those who report to the police (admittedly a minority) 63% support a prosecution.
I find it interesting that whenever poor conviction rates for crimes of violence against women are discussed, that it is invariably the victim who is seen to be responsible and not the system...
domestic abuse requires more support and more complex attention than most other crimes.
I disagree. No detective work is required to identify the offender and witnesses / victims are not exactly clamouring to appear in court in a whole range of crimes. Moreover, many crimes also don't have witnesses to their occurrance. Recent pilots have also demonstrated that the support required by victims of domestic violence is little more than common courtesy and a reasonable amount of empathy. In the pilot areas the conviction rate improved significantly.
Whilst only 63% of domestic violence crimes reported to the police have a victim willing to appear in court, there are also successful prosecutions without the victims support.
I am not arguing that the criminal justice system works well, but it works a lot better for crimes that are not overwhelmingly experienced by women. Funny that.
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