Madness

[Rohrer 714]

So is there any formal movement to try to change these laws that you know of?

Elected officials (judges, legislators, etc.) are not about to do anything to change these laws. They don't want to run the risk of being considered "soft on domestic violence" and having someone run against them in the next election.

On their face, they are good laws. Who can defend domestic violence? The laws don't need to be changed - their administration does.

Also, prosecutors should prosecute people who file false police reports.

They don't. If they did, they might be branded as being 'soft on domestic violence'.

The sad thing is that a restraining order won't stop a true abuser, as a cursory examination of the headlines will reveal.

 

[Father Time]

Also no offense but your tales and videos don't exactly show how common this is. It'd still be a problem even if it only was 5 a year but still.

Watch this report: Restraining Order Abuse - Video - WCVB Boston

Google 'false allegations domestic violence'.

Couldn't really find much numbers (except for one site with no sources).

Although what I have is good enough to see that the justice system is flawed in that regard and needs fixing so I guess the numbers don't really matter.

 

[Rohrer 714]

Right, since no consequences attend to women who use this tactic there are no solid statistics, only estimates.

My life was ruined. Maybe the burden of proof/standards of evidence can be applied to spare other men in the future.

 

[Rohrer 714]

Apparently things are even worse in the UK:

"From next month, courts will have the power to impose the orders at the end of cases, regardless of whether the individual is convicted or not.

The aim is to give greater powers to deal with those suspected of domestic violence as well as those convicted."

Restraining orders for violent partners - Telegraph

 

[George Costanza]

Also no offense but your tales and videos don't exactly show how common this is. It'd still be a problem even if it only was 5 a year but still.

It is quite common. We get domestic violence cases (felony filings) on a daily basis. And here's another interesting thing about this situation which has not yet been mentioned on this thread.

In the vast majority of the cases, the (female) victim is recanting. She tells the officer who responds to the scene at the time of the event, that her man just beat the hell out of her. Pulled her down the stairs by her hair, kicked her in the stomach, punched her in the face, etc.

When the case gets filed and gets to court, and her man has been in custody for a week or so, it begins to dawn on her what she has created by calling the cops - and she changes her story. It didn't happen. I never said that to the officer. The officer is lying in his report.

She wants to "drop the charges," not realizing that the decision to do that is not in her hands but, rather, in the hands of the prosecution - who NEVER agrees to drop the charges.

If the case goes to trial and she gets on the stand and recants, the prosecutor simply puts the officer on and has him/her testify as to what the woman said at the time of the incident. The prosecutor then argues to the jury that she was telling the truth then and is lying now. Quite often, juries believe the prosecutor's argument.

Female victims of domestic violence have all sorts of reasons for recanting. Probably the main one is, they don't want their man going off to prison, thereby depriving them of income. There are other, deeper, more psychological reasons why women recant. In psycho/legal circles it is called "Battered Woman's Syndrome." In the really serious cases, prosecutors will bring on expert witnesses who will explain BWS to the jury in an effort to defuse the recantation on the stand by the victim.

One thing is almost universally true - when the female victim picks up the phone and calls the police, unless she has been through this before (and, sadly, many of them have), she has NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what is about to happen. What happens is, from the moment the officer arrives until her man is ultimately sent off to prison, the situation is totally out of her hands. Many women don't even think their guy is going to be arrested. They think he is merely going to be "counseled" by the officers who respond to the home.

Many of them are just plain angry and, at the time, don't care what happens to their guy. As mentioned above, that almost always changes after the anger of the moment fades away and reality as to what is going to happen, begins to set in.

Prosecuting domestic violence cases is generally very frustrating for prosecutors and police officers.

 

[MaggieMae]

Too true. My attorney (a woman) said this type of false accusation is becoming standard practice. My ex-wife actually sent me an email asking for the house + alimony + a lump sum to "drop" the DV case.

Judge didn't care.

I had to hire a mediator and she got everything she wanted PLUS I had to pay all the costs in exchange for a Consent Order.

Why on earth did you hire a female attorney?

 

[George Costanza]

Too true. My attorney (a woman) said this type of false accusation is becoming standard practice. My ex-wife actually sent me an email asking for the house + alimony + a lump sum to "drop" the DV case.

Judge didn't care.

I had to hire a mediator and she got everything she wanted PLUS I had to pay all the costs in exchange for a Consent Order.

Why on earth did you hire a female attorney?

You're joking, right? If you want a merciless, go-for-the-throat, no holds barred divorce lawyer, hire a woman attorney. Trust me.

Ever read "The Female of the Species" by Rudyard Kipling?

The Female of the Species
by Rudyard Kipling

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag, the basking cobra, hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can,
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail -
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws -
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale -
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the others tale -
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations, worm and savage otherwise,
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise;
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger; Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue - to the scandal of the Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same,
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions - not in these her honor dwells -
She, the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else!

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate;
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions - in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him, who denies!
He will meet no cool discussion, but the instant, white-hot wild
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges - even so the she-bear fights;
Speech that drips, corrodes and poisons - even so the cobra bites;
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw,
And the victim writhes with anguish - like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of abstract justice - which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern; shall enthrall but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him and Her instincts never fail,
That the female of Her species is more deadly than the male!

 

[Father Time]

Never read it but I've heard about through Clue.

 

[California Girl]

Perhaps you can try civil court. Although this truly is a disgrace of the legal system.

Also as per internet rules I'm required to post this due to your topic title

[youtube]eZeYVIWz99I[/youtube]

Even if I wanted to I doubt I could.

There is no silver bullet to prevent any man from being a victim of false allegations of domestic abuse.

This insidious threat will continue to exist as long as the present definition of abuse and lax legal standards of proof remain in place.

Meanwhile, any who doubt my tale should view this clip: http://www.drphil.com/videos/?Url=/house/flv/8041_1.flv&background=header_drphil_video.jpg

I think it is actually discriminatory for the court to behave this way. Just because one is female does not make one the 'victim'.

It's unfortunate that some women use the system to punish a man. Hell, some of us even accuse innocent men of rape.

 

[Rohrer 714]

When it comes to domestic violence legislation, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) owns an asphalt company. Biden’s latest domestic violence bill is the National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network Act, which amends Biden’s Violence Against Women Act to create an extensive network of volunteer attorneys to help abused women. The attorneys would provide free legal help in forging divorce or separation agreements and in winning child custody.

According to Biden, S.1515, which will soon be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee and is co-sponsored by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, will enlist 100,000 volunteer attorneys. The bill is supported by the American Bar Association, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, and the National Organization for Women, which is currently running a campaign in support of the bill.

S.1515 will do some good in aiding abused low-income women. The problem is that the bill will also greatly exacerbate the already widespread problem of false domestic violence claims being used to strip decent, loving fathers of custody of their children. There is no mechanism within the bill to distinguish between false accusations and legitimate ones.

Currently, domestic violence service providers assist women who claim to be abused. Let’s say Bob and Jane are married and have two kids. If Bob abuses Jane, Jane can go to a local shelter and receive legal assistance in obtaining a personal protection order (aka restraining order) against Bob. Bob is forced to vacate his house immediately. A couple weeks later there is a hearing to determine if the protection order will be made permanent, and the domestic violence service provider again furnishes assistance for this hearing. At these hearings, the protection orders are usually extended.

All this is as it should be—provided Bob is guilty. The problem is that the same process and laws which protect a battered Jane from an abusive Bob also allow an unhappy but not abused Jane to boot an innocent Bob out of their home and set a child custody precedent with herself as sole caregiver. This aids Jane greatly during the divorce process.

Many prominent family law professionals are cautioning that this system is being widely misused, and that there are scant protections for the falsely accused. The Family Law News, the official publication of the State Bar of California Family Law Section, recently explained:

"Protective orders are increasingly being used in family law cases to help one side jockey for an advantage in child custody…[the orders are] almost routinely issued by the court in family law proceedings even when there is relatively meager evidence and usually without notice to the restrained person.”

An article in the November, 2007 issue of the Illinois Bar Journal article explains:

"If a parent is willing to abuse the system, it is unlikely the trial court could discover (his or her) improper motives in an Order of Protection hearing."

The hearings to make the orders permanent are often just a formality for which no more than 15 minutes are generally allotted. In fact, the State of California’s website gives the following advice for men who are contesting restraining orders:

“Practice saying why you disagree with the charges. Do not take more than three minutes to say what you disagree with. You can bring witnesses or documents that support your case, but the judge may not have enough time to talk to the witnesses.”

This process is already damaging and unfair to fathers, but S1515 will make it far worse. Once the National Domestic Violence Volunteer Attorney Network is in place, false accusers who have obtained initial assistance through domestic violence service providers will be provided free attorneys to litigate their divorces. This legal assistance will give the mothers a huge advantage over low-income fathers, one which will cause many innocent dads to lose custody and even access to their kids.

What’s needed instead is an overhaul of the domestic violence system to emphasize serving and protecting only those who are legitimately abused. Until there is meaningful judicial oversight of domestic violence claims, Biden’s bill will do much more harm than good.

This column first appeared in The Philadelphia Daily News (12/7/07).

 

[Immanuel]

If you do something to a woman to make her feel she needs a restraining order then you deserve it.

If you had a relationship with someone who is soooo shitty a person they use this protection just to piss you off then quit letting the little one think for the big one.

Did you even read the OP?

I won't vouch for the "facts" presented in this case, but how the hell did David Letterman do anything to Ms. Nestler, if he had never even met her?

Guilty because he is a male? Or is it, Guilty because he is a Republican?

Immie

 

[Rohrer 714]

Another Downside to Overblown Rhetoric about DV

March 18th, 2010 by Robert Franklin, Esq.

According to this article (Science Centric | News | Male batterers consistently overestimate rates of violence toward partners) there may be a bigger downside to the continual misrepresentations about domestic violence in the news media and by DV adcocates than we thought (ScienceCentric, 3/15/10).

Over the years we've all gotten inured to the wildly overblown claims of DV advocates about the incidence of DV, who does it, why and how serious the results are. After all, when your livelihood is provided by governmental funding of DV programs, it's not exactly self-interested to understate the problem.

So we've been treated to claims that, for example, four million women a year in the United States are killed by an intimate partner. That was by Katherine Hanson who somehow managed to overlook the minor detail that under three million people of both sexes die in the U.S. of all causes in a given year.

But what matter? The point was not to get her facts right; the point was to stir up indignation against men and to keep those taxpayer dollars flowing.

We've also been told that violence is the leading cause of death to women when in fact it's nowhere in the top ten. DV advocates have claimed that being beaten by an intimate partner is the leading cause of injury to women when falls and auto accidents far outstrip DV.

Of course we shouldn't underestimate DV, but as things stand now, there's no danger of that.

Establish a "Google Alert" for the term "violence against women" or something similiar. Every day you'll receive links to articles, blogs, radio and television pieces containing claims about DV that bear little relation to reality.

One of the favorite words is "epidemic" to describe the incidence of domestic violence against women. And of course there's the routine blurring of the line between violence and abuse.

Those promoting the notion that DV is an epidemic have nothing like actual facts to support them, so they substitute the word "abuse." That includes things that are in no way violent such as angry stares or repeated attempts by a man to get his wife to buy fewer shoes, but they certainly pump up the figures.

It's all aimed at increasing the public's threshold for what they believe to be the actual incidence of domestic violence. The higher that is, the more money we'll be comfortable spending to combat DV.

As I've written about before, a study by the government of Scotland that was published just last December, showed that only 5% of men and 5% of women had been involved in any form of domestic abuse in the previous 12 months. More importantly, about 80% of those who had been reported no injury from the incident whatsoever or just a "minor cut or bruise."

The fact is that, even when real, physical DV occurs, it usually consists of a one-time push or shove and is in no way injurious. U.S. Government studies like the National Violence Against Women Survey show the same thing.

But because those facts contradict their preferred narrative, those who toil in the vineyards of the DV industry keep silent about them. That's dishonest, and it's self-serving too, but now it turns out it may be more than that. It may encourage men who do engage in actual physical assault on their intimate partners to do more of it.

University of Houston Psychology professor Clayton Neighbors did a study of men who admitted to assaulting an intimate partner. He asked them about what they thought was the prevalence of each of a series of assaultive behaviors such as throwing an object with the intent to injure, hitting, forced sex, etc.

It turns out that men who do engage in physical violence against a partner hold views of the incidence of DV that are radically at odds with the actual incidence. From that Neighbors concludes that the men's perception of the general incidence of violence tends to confirm and encourage their own violent tendencies.

Data on the percentage of men who actually engaged in these abusive behaviors were drawn from the National Violence Against Women Survey, funded by the National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In every case the men vastly overestimated the actual instances of abuse. For example, the participants on average thought 27.6 percent of men had thrown something with the intent of hurting a partner while the actual number is 11.9 percent. Similarly, they believed 23.6 percent of men had forced their partner to have sex involuntary compared to 7.9 percent in reality.

The idea behind the research derives from social norm theory that holds that people tend to conform their behavior to what they believe other people do, whether or not that is in fact the case. Neighbors' data parallels findings in other areas such as gambling, drug use and eating disorders.

There's an obvious hole in Neighbors' data. Since he didn't also survey a group of non-violent men, his conclusions can't be considered definitive, but they are suggestive.

And what they suggest is that the overblown media hype about DV that routinely parrots the claims of the DV industry tends to perpetuate and perhaps exacerbate the problem of DV. In other words, if they told the truth about DV - that it's fairly rare and seldom injurious - men at least might cease to see it as normative and would therefore commit less DV.

But DV advocates and the industry they've built up want no part of that.

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