Domestic Violence and The Problem Of Indifference
January 23, 2005
Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. -Joan Vinge
Advocates familiar with the issue of domestic violence are painfully aware that many children who grow up witnessing or being subjected to violence by those who profess to love them, often can not escape the pain and torment when they reach adulthood.
The majority of advocates understand and researchers agree that because you witness abuse or are abused as a child does not mean you will be engulfed by a life of domestic violence. However, the majority of researchers agree and many studies document repeatedly witnessing domestic violence as a child increases the risk you will be abused or become an adult abuser.
The Thurman Saga
In 1983, Charles “Buck” Thurman was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the attack on his wife Tracy which led to a $1.9 million suit against the Torrington, Connecticut police. In the Torrington case, Thurman was found guilty of stabbing Tracey 13 times, stomping on her head, and partially paralyzing her for life. Their two year old son was present during this incident.
The Thurman case inspired books and a television movie. Publicity from the case fueled a dramatic nationwide change in domestic violence laws and intervention from the criminal justice system. Domestic violence laws in many states were changed to require mandatory arrest. The vast majority of law enforcement agencies nationwide, because of the Torrington case, must attend domestic violence training.
The Son
"You look wonderful Mr. Motusick," said the judge with a smile. "When I first came out, I said to myself, that can't be Mr. Motusick. There is something going on in your life that is working, and I hope you keep with it.” The judge had decided to be lenient.
Motusick was sentenced to jail for one year of an eight-year suspended sentence and ordered to serve three years of probation, for reportedly stealing $22,000 in gambling proceeds from an ex-girlfriend's relative. Motusick had long struggled with substance abuse problems.
After serving the one year sentence, he had been residing in a Waterbury drug treatment facility. The court had agreed to continue his probation as long as he successfully completed a substance abuse program and committed no more crimes during the six-year probation period.
It was a failed drug test that prompted the probation department to visit his house in January, where they discovered a 9-mm semi-automatic handgun, a small amount of cocaine and a syringe. His probation was revoked and Motusick was sentenced to serve six-and-a-half years in jail for violating his probation and assaulting a local woman. In the gallery sat Motusick's stepfather, and his mother, Tracey Thurman Motusick, who nodded her head and wept. Many domestic violence advocates know of and have recounted numerous similar sad sagas.
Boy and Girls, Women and Men
Most advocates are familiar with the many domestic violence studies that demonstrate the causal link between those boys who witness men repeatedly assaulting women and children and an increased likelihood of those boys growing into abusive men. There are few advocates or researchers who deny this unassailable truth. However, that is not the whole truth.
Richard E. Heyman and his colleague Amy M. Smith Slep, both from the State University of New York at Stony Brook examined data on more than 6,000 men and women from the 1985 National Family Violence Survey. They discovered that all victims are negatively affected by domestic violence. It is amazing what can be discovered when the search is for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Their study can be found in the 2002 Journal of Marriage and Family N. 64:864-870. It appears that Heyman and Slep are not indifferent to the abuse or suffering from domestic violence for all family members regardless of age or gender. Their concern for all victims of abuse should but does not hold true for all domestic violence advocates or researchers.
The authors discovered that women were most influenced by their mother’s behavior. The likelihood that a woman would abuse her child rose with every witnessed incident in which their mother assaulted their father. They also discovered that each incident increased the likelihood that a woman would abuse her partner by 6%.
Exposures to multiple forms of childhood violence increased the likelihood that both men and women would become victims of partner abuse as adults. Each act of abuse by the father, mother, or both raised the likelihood of being the victim of adult partner abuse by approximately 10%.
Women are most influenced by their mother’s behavior. Every act of abuse by the mother raised the likelihood of being the victim of adult partner abuse by 35%. Men are most influenced by their father’s behavior. Each witnessed attack by the father on the mother increased the likelihood that he would abuse a child or adult partner by 13% and 8% respectively.
The Heyman and Slep study documents what the vast majority of domestic violence advocates and researchers need to acknowledge. Advocates and researchers need to be equally concerned about perpetration and abuse, regardless of the age, gender and the percentage differentials.
The Violence Against Women [italics added] Act, by reason and the logic of its title is gender biased. The Violence Against Women Act, intentionally or not, displays an indifference towards the victimization of males. Indifference, as the above study notes, does make a difference.
