Domestic violence may not be what you think it is

June 3, 1:40 PMDomestic Violence ExaminerTrudy Schuett

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Lifting the veil of secrecy on shelters and services for families affected by intimate partner abuse

Yuma County in far southwest Arizona has a population of about 200,000 year-round residents. In the winters this population can double, due to an influx of agricultural workers and snowbirds from northern states.  It is roughly halfway between Phoenix and San Diego, with very little in between Yuma and the major metropolitan areas. Perhaps it is this isolation or the fact that  those who live there do so because they’ve chosen to be there. Either way, this area is uncommon in the way its various charities and helping agencies relate to each other.

There is a dynamic and high-functioning network between the agencies, that benefits all. The people who work for the variety of non-profits in the area know each other, and it’s not long before a new arrival will know the rest of the people too. There is always something being shared, be it information or resources. It’s not hard to get know the agencies and what they do.

The only exception in this, and in most other locales, is in domestic violence services. I have spent many years volunteering or working as paid staff, for a variety of orgs, and it never was a subject of much discussion, only a casual comment here and there, that the people who work those agencies tend to keep to themselves. When I was doing research on a book in 1999, imagine my surprise when I discovered that the services and programs administered in aid of domestic violence victims were nothing like I, and most people expect that they are.

People generally believe that anyone seeking help for this kind of problem can find it. After all, this is the implication provided by the helping agencies themselves. So when I went online looking for information, primarily to keep my facts right in the novel I was writing, I found a completely different kind of situation than I believed existed.

The main character in this book was a man being abused by his wife. It was a slightly unusual choice of subject matter, but this is precisely why I chose it. I wanted to write something different than the usual Burning Bed scenario, that would be closer to reality. Not only did I find the information on programs for men I was looking for did not exist, in many cases my requests for information were either ignored or responded to with outright hostility. I persisted however, and this search for simple information ultimately became the foundation of an advocacy for unserved victims.

Along the way I discovered that men were both excluded from services other than so-called “batterer’s programs”, and blamed for causing all of domestic violence. While this was the most surprising item I uncovered, there were other things that were diametrically opposed to the “open to all” scenario drawn by the national agencies. Most women were also excluded. This left only a small minority of women that were considered deserving enough to be helped. Even that small group of women would find that freedom from violence in their lives was not the actual focus of all these programs, which since their inception in the 1970’s had expanded to thousands of locations nationwide.

Meanwhile, agencies were on a constant round of promotion and fundraising, citing ever-increasing need. Shelters turned away more people than they could ever house or aid. There was apparently a raging epidemic of battered women out there who would surely be killed if more shelters couldn’t be built, and ever-tougher laws enacted to punish batterers. Yet the national media, quoting reputable sources, insisted that crime of all kinds was decreasing. There was also a disturbing rumor floating around that neither shelters for victims nor training programs for batterers was helpful.

What was going on here?

This is Part One of a multi-part series examining the issue of domestic violence and the way today's society addresses this complex problem.  Part Two is here.  Part Three is here.  This series may be extended, so please check back for more!