Domestic Violence, a Real Issue Thesis

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The SAFE Act not only protects victims of domestic violence, but also helps them become effective members of the country's economy. Domestic violence also account for about fifteen percent of total crimes committed in the United States. Reports from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute of Health indicate that each year, 5, 300, 000 non-fatal violent victimization committed by intimated partners against women are recorded.

Female murder victims are likely to occur compared to male murder victims to have been murdered by intimate partners (Congress 528). According to Congress, half of female murder victims and four percent of male murder highlighted in the Disease Control, Prevention, and National Institute of Health reports met their death in the hands of intimate partners. With respect to government statistics, approximately 987, 400 rapes take place in United State where 89% of the rapes are perpetrated against female victims. Since 2001, cases of rapes have augmented by four percent (Congress 528).

Domestic violence more than any other criminal act, entails a wide range of relationships and behaviors. Unfortunately, criminal codes are in general rather blunt instruments, describing violence as individual actions, specifically threat of physical harm or physical assault aimed at causing physical harm (Buwaza 4). In reality, most researchers precisely conceptualize domestic violence as a range of conducts, some clearly criminal in temperament, others more manipulative intended to exercise coercive control entailing sexual, physical, verbal and psychological conducts utilized to control another person. This approach focuses on the blueprint of abusive and violent conducts within the relationship as opposed to individual actions of perpetrators. Only in recent time, have criminal codes evolved to the point through which they have begun to acknowledge innumerable abuse forms, but also prohibiting harassment or stalking (Buwaza 4). . Even though such statutes solely centered on physical abuse, they are not as widely utilized and they hold foremost inconsistencies. Additionally, as a crime, stalking is difficult to prove.

Very little is recognized regarding the employment of these laws as a productive element of preventing abuse in its totality instead of individual actions of physical abuse evident in typical domestic violence laws. According to Buzawa, an author, examination of 2000 police reports in a ten-year period for all assaults indicated that eighteen to twenty percent of all victims were viewed as offenders (Buwaza 5). The victim-offender dichotomy confines people from viewing domestic assault as a form of interaction that in some situations may be maladaptive rejoinder to conflict in families. Victims and offenders usually experience the effect of such labeling, and in order to get services, victims must accept their publicly framed condition as victim and the anticipations that go along with this label.

Moreover, when there is an intricacy in identifying which party is the victim, police experiences the choice of either taking no action given that there is no lawfully recognizable victim or inconsistently, of arresting both parties (Buwaza 4). Moreover, there has been great concern over increasing rates of dual arrests in some jurisdiction through which both parties to an occurrence get arrested instead of the customary practice where police only identifies just one victim and one offender. While the dual arrest may be valid, research indicate that police officers employ dual arrests as a response towards presumptive or mandatory arrest policies thereby failing to differentiate self-defense on the victims' part. Domestic violence criminal codes also hold incomprehensible gaps in coverage. The links involved under these criminal codes differ from state to state and sometimes only include married individuals only or in some situations include past and current intimate partners, children, any relative, siblings, and people living in the same residence or any family member (Buwaza 4).

Proposed Solutions

Solution 1: Legal Responses and Interventions

Serious domestic violence is lop-sided; women's aggression against men differs considerably in terms of the consequences and context. The context of women's violence is often self-defense and the upshots for men are less severe (Buwaza 4). Females' aggression towards their male intimate partners does not take place with similar ferocity or frequency as men's violence towards female intimate partners. From this prospect, responses to domestic violence must be developed which must include legal responses. Policies aimed at tackling men's violence against women and strategies to support female victims must be developed (Burton 6).

To allow criminal justice system to operate efficiently, implicit need for the identification of a crime with a defined offender and victim in the context of an acknowledged applicable criminal law is paramount.

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Given the severity of the sanctions of criminal, it must be based purely on objective criteria for the determination of domestic violence. Nevertheless, an individual's condition may be intricate to identify and may as well not be constant in the several incidents that may take place during a given couple's relationship (Davis 38). Unfortunately, there are scores of violent families who are victimized and violent in both private and public settings and at different points in their lives

Solution 2: Counseling: A Systems Perspective

One fundamental assumption of a systems perspective is that an alteration is invariable. No domestic violence perpetrator is abusive always. As a result, every problem blueprint entails some sort of exception to the rule. Such an approach lies behind ones belief in the potential and strengths of participants. Notwithstanding problems or deficiencies, participants may think they have, there cannot lack a time when these offenders tackle their life conditions in a more fulfilling manner (Davis 38). There are times when a person is not violent and utilizes other ways to solve differences and conflicts. Such exceptions offer a clue for solutions and underscore a participant's unnoticed resources and strengths. Through the system approach, therapists help participants in amplifying, reinforcing, noticing and sustaining these exceptions. When offenders are involved in non-problem conduct, they achieve a solution building process

Solution 3: Deterrence Based Theories

Through treating domestic violence principally as a criminal justice issue, emphasis has considerably been placed on the criminals who commit violence and what can put off prospective violence. In this regard, deterrence based theories of felonious and reoffending must hold predominated policy responses. Largely tactical issues of certainty of deterrence and apprehension through aggressive prosecution, arrest and compelled attendance in batterer treatment programs and target hardening through issuance of restraining orders are paramount (Congress 528). Direct victim-based perspective and victim assistance to the problem must be adopted given that they have been downgraded to incidental condition usually not viewed as helpful by important policy makers and activists.

Solution 4: Counseling: Solution-based Approach

Counseling helps people in working out their problems and potentially impedes the occurrence of domestic violence. People who abuse their partners and relatives do not ask themselves why they mount abusive behaviors to their loved ones. However, a professional can ask them questions that will help them understand the roots of their problems through asking those questions that relates to their families' backgrounds and occurrence of violent cases in their families during their developmental stage (Milner 31). Social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists among others hold the capacity to make offenders contemplate on the foundation of their abusive problems.

Among the major causes of domestic violence, include drugs and alcohol. Although there is a disagreement regarding the role of drugs and alcohol in domestic violence, the truth of the matter is drugs and alcohol can cause or trigger domestic violence (Davis 24). People may take drugs and alcohol that makes them lose control and beat their partners. In such a situation, counseling helps in helping the offender to control or address his/her drug problem. Counseling through dialogue and appropriate use of appropriate language helps offenders get to the surface of their problems and create sustainable solutions. Dialogue facilitates construction of solution and meanings through description of observable behaviors, goals and progressives lives in novel and more beneficial ways.

Embracing a solution-based perspective to treatment of domestic violence perpetrators emphasizes strengths, health and solutions. A solution-based approach is consistent with empowerment-centered and strength-centered perspectives in human services (Davis 28). To enlighten the offenders and utilize their strengths, therapists utilize the language of empowerment and the lexicon of strengths in forming a conversation of change. In a solution-based approach that entails counseling, offenders must focus on strengths and health. In this approach, the therapists direct all the therapeutic energy toward helping offenders become responsible for developing solutions. The treatment is not easy and it calls for increased effort and hard work. Solution-focused therapy must be established in form of a goal determined and attained through participation during the counseling section. Establishment of attainable, specific and clear objectives offers a context for offenders to identify, rediscover, notice and reconnect with his/her resources and strengths.

Solution 5: Implementation of Educational Programs and Establishment of Crisis Centers

Domestic violence is a serious social problem that besides affecting victims, affects close relatives, children and the society as whole. Governments should establish local prevention systems, local.....

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