Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Child Victimization

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Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Child
Victimization

• The Intersection of Crimes
• of Personal Violence
• Judy C. Benitez, M.Ed.
• Executive Director
• Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault

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Cost of sexual assault

• National Institute of Justice sexual assault
  costs Louisiana 2,268,438,440 annually (508 for
  every person in the state)
• Includes
• Medical and mental health care
• Theft and property damage
• Lost earnings and quality of life
• Initial police response
• Does not include
• Police investigation
• Prosecution, court, and incarceration costs

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Personal Violence Crime

• Domestic Violence
• Sexual Assault
• Workplace Violence

• Child Victimization
• Stalking
• School Violence

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Intersecting of Crimes of Personal Violence
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Similarities

• Committed most often by men
• Committed most often against women or children
• Looked upon as a private matter, not a criminal
  act
• Severely under-reported
• Stigma attached to being identified as a
  victim/survivor

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Similarities, cont.

• Violence is rooted in gender roles and
  stereotypes-- nice girls and tough guys
  women being provocative, men owning their wives
• Control of women is reinforced by the constant
  threat of violence the female fear on the
  macro and micro level

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Similarities, cont.

• Victim/survivors often receive little support in
  trying to escape from, recover from, or even
  acknowledge the violence
• Victim/survivors are questioned about their
  actions and blamed for being victimized
• Perpetrator is someone the victim knows in most
  sexual assault cases and in all domestic violence
  cases

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Similarities, cont.

• Physical trauma can cover a wide range
• External support increases with increased
  physical trauma
• In some cases injury may not be visible
• Sometimes even the victim/survivor may not even
  identify what happened to her as a crime due to
  lack of physical injury

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Similarities, cont.

• Shared mythology
• Alcohol is the reason for the abuse
• These problems mainly impact lower income
  individuals
• Once a victim, always a victim
• Women make up or exaggerate abuse to get even
  with men
• It does happen, but its not a serious social
  problem
• Victims could prevent attacks if they took
  certain steps
• Service providers are anti-men or anti-family

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Differences

• Sexual Assault
• Recovery from violent, humiliating crime

• Domestic Violence
• Recovery from violent, humiliating crime, as well
  as major life changes. Problems may include
  housing, child care, job training and placement,
  etc.

• Sexual Assault
• Recovery from violent, humiliating crime

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Differences, cont.

• Sexual Assault
• Sympathy for victim of one-time traumatic event

• Domestic Violence
• Lack of understanding of the on-going cycle of
  abuse and the grooming/honeymoon period

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Differences, cont.

• Sexual Assault
• If perpetrator is convicted, he may spend years
  in prison

• Domestic Violence
• Penalties for convicted batterers are much less
  severe

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Victim Fear of Public Disclosure

• Sexual Assault Fear of being blamed too
  humiliated to discuss sexual acts
• Stalking Fear of being further victimized

• Domestic Violence Fear of being blamed for
  getting into and/or staying in the relationship
• Other Crimes (often) No Fear!

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Piecemeal Disclosure

• Domestic violence victims often disclose the
  sexual abuse after other types of abuse have been
  disclosed.
• Sexual assault victims often disclose vaginal
  contact first, followed by oral contact. They are
  often most reluctant to disclose anal contact.

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Overlap of crimes, perpetrators, and victims
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Child Abuse/Sexual Abuse

• Component of sex, which makes people so
  uncomfortable
• Child victims are seen as more innocent and
  sympathetic
• Because of positive attention, favors, etc. child
  may initiate contact, adding to guilt and
  underreporting
• Physiological responses

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Sexual Abuse/Domestic Violence

• Physiological responses
• He has the right to it, prior consensual sex
• Victim may initiate to jump start the honeymoon
  period, making her feel complicit or to get it
  over with
• Sex linked to positive feelings, love, hope,
  intimacy, desirability, only source of kindness
  from abuser

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Domestic Violence/Child Abuse

• Majority of victims in domestic violence shelters
  are children, and one-half to one-third of those
  victims are victims of physical abuse
• Lack of information sharing, collaboration, and
  coordination between intervention systems
  criminal, family, and juvenile courts private
  agencies and public agencies
• Journal of Violence Against Women, Feb. 1999
  Child Maltreatment and Woman Battering

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Intervention Systems

• Criminal, juvenile, and family courts
• Child protection
• Service providers for adult victims of domestic
  violence and sexual assault
• Health care service providers

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Sample Issues

• Do OCS plans for child safety take into account
  that the mother may be non-violent and being
  abused herself is the emphasis on the abusive
  dad?
• Is criminal court undermining what has been done
  in family court?
• Has family court unwittingly awarded sole or
  joint custody to a violent father with DV
  convictions?
• Is DV and child abuse assessed and information
  bought to bear in child custody and visitation
  decisions? What about pending or adjudicated
  criminal cases?

• Do shelters screen for child maltreatment and
  make mandated reports to authorities?
• Are services offered at shelters and
  non-residential programs adequate for children
  who have been physically abused?
• Are batterer intervention programs providing
  corrective parenting education to men who abuse
  both their partners and their children?

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Information Gaps

• Common definitions and measurements
• How do these forms of violence develop in
  families over time?
• How can these families be helped by formal and
  informal systems of response?
• How often do different types of violence co-occur
  in the same incident?
• How do perpetrators of dual violence differ from
  other perpetrators?
• How do multiple victims in the family support
  each other and how are they helped or harmed by
  formal and informal systems of response?

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Women Sexually Abused as Children

• Increased risk of subsequent aggressive behavior
• Fighting, especially in adolescence
• Victims of violence by intimate partners
• Multiple sexual victimizations
• Compounded by history of exposure to other forms
  of violence
• Journal of Violence and Victims, Fall 2000

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Intervening Variables

• Increased risk
• Conflict, stress, other pathology in family
• Physical abuse
• Neglect
• Emotional abuse
• Witnessing violence
• Multiple combinations of the above

• Decreased risk
• Emotional support received by victim
• Strong maternal attachment
• Quality of family functionality

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Increased risks of childhood and adult violence

• Characteristics of the sexual abuse
• Perpetrator was close relative, especially dad or
  step-dad (degree of betrayal)
• Abuse escalated over time in frequency and in
  severity
• Penetration
• Use of physical force

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Continuums

• Physical Trauma
• ___________________________________________
• Minor Severe
• Method of Control
• ___________________________________________
• Coercion, manipulation
  Violence
• Type of Abuse
• ____________________________________________
• Emotional, psychological
  Physical

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Implications for Service Provision

• Resources are most readily available for these
  types of victims (in order)
• 1. Children
• 2. Domestic violence
• 3. Sexual assault
• 4. Stalking

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Historical Context

• Victims rights movement began as an outgrowth of
  the activism of the womens movement in the 1970s
• Rape crisis centers started as a way to offer
  peer support and defy the taboo
• Awareness of domestic violence increased and
  shelters began opening, eventually outpacing rape
  crisis centers

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Historical Context, cont.

• In the 1970s, survivors of childhood sexual
  abuse, with nowhere else to go, sought assistance
  from rape crisis centers
• Today these adults, plus child victims, comprise
  at least 50 of the client populations of the now
  re-named sexual assault crisis centers
• Today stalking victims are in the same no-mans
  land and may look to either sexual assault
  centers or battered womens programs or nowhere
  for assistance

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Historical Context, cont.

• Movement away from a peer-to-peer, grassroots
  movement to a professional field working closely
  with various systems
• Social change vs. social service
• Credibility to outside folks, systems, funders
  less political
• Moved away from community base and also put some
  distance between survivors and their advocates

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Historical Context, cont.

• At some point, we stopped being about helping
  people heal and started being about punishing
  offenders.
• Those 2 things can co-exist but the emphasis has
  to be on helping the survivor heal.

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Historical Context, cont.

• As of early 1990s, federal govt. funding several
  domestic violence resource centers, and DV
  service providers did a better job at sharing
  model programs
• Following the passage of VAWA, Urban Institute
  study showed that DV projects received far more
  grant awards and funding

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Who is perpetuating the disparity?

• Public officials The Violence Against Women Act
  is a landmark in preventing domestic violence
• Media (Simpson case)
• Current crisis in Catholic church reinforcing the
  innocence of child victims (as opposed to adults)
• Historical precedent ripple effect
• Service providers NO

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Why?

• Theories
• Shelter services are more expensive to provide
  than services for rape victims
• Funders, other community members uncomfortable
  discussing sexual aspect of sexual assault sex
  violence
• Women feel sorry for DV victims who ended up with
  violent partners but the randomness of SA scares
  them
• Maslows hierarchy of needs

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Why?

• Why does it matter?
• With the overlap in victims, seamless service
  provision is ethically mandatory.

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What we want

• SA and DV to be seen as two linked, but separate
  crimes
• SA and DV to both be adequately funded
• SA and DV to both be an integral part of the
  public discourse
• NOT to take anything away from the DV movement!

Who benefits from dividing us?
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Multi-tasking/Cross-training

• Hotlines, counseling staff
• Multi-disciplinary task forces
• First responders and investigators
• Prosecutors
• Family, juvenile, and criminal court judges

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Will sexual assault issues/victims be squeezed
out?

• Benefits of having one staff member delegated to
  sexual assault issues/victims
• Single point of contact for the community
• Consistent training regarding sexual assault, for
  other staff, allied professionals, and the
  community
• Awareness of gaps in services for sexual assault
  victims

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What about prevention?

• Underlying/causal issues are related, if not
  identical
• Changing negative attitudes in either arena will
  create a more positive environment for victims of
  both DV and SA
• Prevention and community education can and should
  include both issues equally

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Opportunities for collaboration

• Identify underserved communities and co-staff
  programs to reach these populations
• Write a grant for a specific project that will
  benefit both survivor populations
• Have a regular dialogue (formalized) among
  service providers
• Go beyond referrals advertise each others
  services
• Develop a written protocol for referring and
  working with clients in common

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Opportunities for collaboration, continued

• Present a united front to the media, community,
  funders, etc. even if the status quo benefits
  your agency more
• Support each others mission be visible during
  special events (SAAM, etc.)
• Educate on the differences and similarities of
  the issues
• Team-teach when appropriate
• Annette Burrhus-Clay, TAASA

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Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence

• Both are crimes committed most often against
  women, by men.
• Both crimes are supported by gender roles and
  stereotypes men have power over women husbands
  have a right to control their wives women are
  sexually provocative and therefore men have a
  right to have sexual access to them.
• Control of women is reinforced by the continual
  threat of sexual violence, as well as physical,
  psychological, and financial abuse.
• Survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence
  receive little support in trying to escape from
  and/or recover from the violence that has been
  perpetrated against them.
• Victim/survivors are questioned about their own
  actions the implication is that they are
  responsible for being victimized.
• At least 60, and possibly as many as 85-90, of
  sexual assaults are committed by someone the
  victim knows a date, co-worker, relative,
  neighbor, school mate, ex-boyfriend, etc. All
  domestic violence is committed by a current or
  former intimate partner of the victim.
• Marital rape and incest are forms of sexual
  assault that may occur within the context of a
  domestic violence situation.
• Physical trauma in both sexual assault and
  domestic violence cases can cover a wide range.
  In both cases, social support is much greater
  when physical trauma is extreme.
• Physical injury may not be visible in cases of
  acquaintance rape, when the assailant uses
  coercion or manipulation to gain control, or in
  domestic violence cases when the abuse is
  emotional or sexual. In both of these cases, even
  the victim may not identify what happened to her,
  due to the lack of physical trauma.

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Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence

• Sexual Assault
• Survivors face recovery from the trauma of a
  violent, humiliating crime.
• Many people express sympathy for victims of a
  one-time traumatic experience.
• If the perpetrator is convicted, the punishment
  may be severe.
• Survivors must deal with the impact of the
  victimization on their own sexuality.

• Domestic Violence
• Survivors face not only recovery from the crime,
  but also major life changes in leaving a
  relationship. They may face problems of shelter,
  childcare, and job training and placement.
• Many people dont understand the on-going cycle
  of domestic violence.
• Penalties for convicted batterers are much less
  severe than those of convicted rapists.
• Survivors must contend with the impact on their
  sexual functioning when rape was a part of the
  abuse.

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Contact Information

• Judy Benitez, M.Ed.
• Executive Director
• Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault
• 1250 SW RR Ave., Suite 170
• Hammond, LA 70401
• Phone [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• Email lafasa_at_i-55.com admin_at_lafasa.org
• Web site www.lafasa.org

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