jon aaronson, phd, lpc divorce conflict & partner abuse solutions, llc madison, wi 53703 april...

Jon Aaronson, PhD, LPCDivorce Conflict & Partner Abuse

Solutions, LLCMadison, WI 53703

April 8, 2011

State Bar of Wisconsin PINNACLE Seminar

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LITIGATION

Practical and Legal ConsequencesIPV—From Behind Closed Doors into the

Courtroom

From Behind Closed Doors into the Courtroom

Before the program to begins,

pleaseComplete Domestic Violence QuizRead Three Anecdotes

oJohn and CaroloRural Wisconsin coupleoFriend’s story

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Objectives To challenge what “everyone knows”

about IPV-affected custody/placement (C/P) litigation:o compare mainstream social science and “gender

paradigm” ideological methodologies as ways of thinking about IPV-affected C/P litigation;

o present sampling of long-established research data that contradicts what “everyone knows” about IPV.

3


Objectiveso Ask Wisconsin’s …

• Family Law Attorneys, including Guardians ad Litemand

• Family Court Judges, Commissioners, and case study Professionals

… whether their frame of reference for IPV-affected C/P litigation is evidence-based or reflects an ideological gender paradigm “mind-set.”

4

Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions

Wisc. Stat. 767(5)(13):If and how should social science research inform:

Assessment adjudication disposition of IPV allegations, defenses, and counter-claims in determining children’s best interests?

Mind-set or research-informed and evidence-based “blind” justice?

5

Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Procedural Questions

Compared to other allegations, defenses, and counter-claims arising in C/P disputes …

(e.g., regarding AODA, child abuse or neglect)

… does the “behind closed doors” nature of IPV warrant different standards of investigation, assessment, and judicial determination?

6


Objectives To call for the same standards of

thorough, evidence-based investigation, assessment, and decision making about IPV as should occur regarding any other Wisc. Stat. 767.41(5) factor.

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Beyond Power & Control Wheels:Urban Legends “Everyone Knows”

Generic anecdotes abound about harm resulting from family courts’ misapplyingWis. Stat. 767.41(5)(am)13 (“evidence of inter-spousal battery … or domestic abuse”):

→ father-child restricted contact for weeks or even months and “alienation”

after limited court scrutiny of women’s IPV allegations;

→ mothers and children’s “re-victimization”

by family court officers’ ignorance of men’s insidious, abusive uses of power and control behind closed doors.

8


Despite contradictory anecdotes of misguided system response to IPV, few social science data

are available of IPV allegations, actual incidence,

and disposition in family court cases.

Professionals’ perceptions and beliefs often echo empirically unfounded, governmentally

endorsed allusions to the distribution and nature of IPV in the community at large.

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Is power and control the single, universal motivation for all IPV perpetration …

… for any other human phenomenon?

What else in human behavior or experience is explainable by a single factor?

Is IPV a unique phenomenon, warranting a special kind of explanation?

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Power and Control Wheels

Co-habiting AdultsNon co-habiting Intimate (?) Partners

Heterosexual“Male Privilege”

Lesbian/Gay Using “Privilege” External

Homophobia Internalized

Heterosexism

Teen Dating

Young Adult Dating CouplesGender neutral / inclusive references to perpetrators and victims

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Lawyer - (Female) Client*Power and Control Wheel

“USING”: Attorney Privilege Information Abuse Economy Abuse Emotional Abuse Minimizing, Denying, & Blaming Coercion & Threats Terrorism & Assault Isolation & Guilt

*(http://www.ncdsv.org/images/Power%20Control%20Wheel%20Lawyer%20Client%20by%2.C.%20Wheeler_2009.pdf)

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Is the heterosexual equivalent of IPVViolence Against Women (and children)?

Does all (severe) heterosexual IPV have the same

perpetrators victims causes patterns dynamics consequences remedies

13


Are Power & Control Wheel markers – ascribed only to male intimate partners – equally applicable to females? Threats Intimidation and domination Humiliation Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse Minimization, denial, and blame Jealousy, possessiveness, isolation from family

and friends, stalking, relational intrusion Using children Male (female) “privilege”

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Is IPV ever justified/justifiable?

Is partial “responsibility” for IPV ever properly attributable to a purported victim?

Should an alleged perpetrator’s claim of reactive or responsive violence always be dismissed as only minimization or denial of all responsibility for the abuse?

(Should answers differ by victim and perpetrator gender?)

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Undisputed: female victims suffer IPV’s worst physical consequences ... Are there other meaningful differences

between female and male victims? Are there meaningful similarities between

male and female IPV perpetrators and victims?

What, if any, is the emotional fall-out for children exposed to– but not directly targeted by – adult family violence? Is the harm to children different, when the IPV

victim is a male or female attachment figure?

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When and how should IPV Ps and Vs be distinguishable (legally and otherwise) not only by the physical consequences of the violence?

Is most IPV a zero-sum – P-or-V – phenomenon? When and how should the “primary aggressor”

be identified? When might sanctioning and/or treating only

the “primary aggressor” not be a useful recidivism-prevention strategy?

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Shelter and Criminal Justice Data Allusion to General Population IPV

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♂ ♀

90 – 95%INTIMATE

TERRORISM

♂ ♀

2.5 – 5.0%

Situational Couple

Violence

♂ ♀

2.5 - 5.0%

Violent Resistance

Beyond Power & Control Wheels:Research Findings not Everyone Knows

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♂ ♀

25%

Male on Female

Unilateral IPV

♂ ♀50 %

Bilateral(reciprocal and retaliatory)

“Mutual” IPV

♂ ♀

25%

Female on Male

UnilateralIPV

30 Years of Gender Inclusive IPV General Population Survey Findings


Lacking IPV data for custody/placement (C/P) litigants which other data sets …o shelter resident reports and criminal justice records o general population and community research …

best frame expectancies about C/P litigant IPV o incidenceo type/so victim/perpetrator gender

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Situational Couple Violence (SCV)When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims

Perpetrators

McDonald, Jouriles, Tart, and Minze (2009) studied “children's adjustment in families with severe [male perpetrated] violence toward the mother.…”

asked shelter residents about their own IPV perpetration:

These female victims in shelter reported 96% of their heterosexual partners and 67% of themselves as having engaged in “severe violence” toward the intimate partner.

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SCV – When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators

McDonald, Jouriles, Tart, and Minze (2009) studied “children's adjustment in families with severe [male perpetrated] violence toward the mother.…”

asked shelter residents about their own IPV perpetration:

These female victims in shelter reported 96% of their heterosexual partners and 67% of themselves as having engaged in “severe violence” toward the intimate partner.

22


“…one stereotyped portrait of a battered woman is someone who shrinks from conflict in fear of a violent reprisal ... quick to back down from an argument, and ... overly accommodating of the abusive man's need for dominance. However, [in laboratory] studies … [among] couples that have experienced husband-to-wife violence, both partners engage in more critical, aversive, defensive, and hostile communication ... compared to partners in distressed, but nonviolent relationships…” (Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)

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o Many violent couples present as trapped within a closed loop of “back-and-forth … belligerence, contempt, disgust, and overt hostility [that is] longer lasting and ... more negative [than found] in…nonviolent couples.”(Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)

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What is the impact, if any, of mandated Batterer Intervention Program (BIP) psycho-education on adjudicated offender recidivism?

What variables best explain why some men re-offend and others don’t?

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Should any act or result of IPV be judged equally severe to any other perpetration?

Is all IPV “battering” aka “intimate terrorism”?

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Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Procedural Questions

Is investigation and judicial procedure competent when it does not ask if an alleged victim may be subjectively (normally) distorting? be incompletely or selectively recalling? have contributed to an incident or pattern of

IPV?

To avoid “victim blaming” or for any other reason, should court professionals and hearing officers not ask such questions?

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Key Family Court Actors *

(no. correct responses to 10 items)

FCPs FLAs/Judges

Mean 3.11 3.17

SD 2.01 2.32

* Hamel, J, Demarais, SL, Nicholls, TL, Malley-Morrison, K & Aaronson, J. (2009). Domestic violence and child custody: Are family court professionals’ decisions based on erroneous beliefs? Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 1, 2, 37-52.

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What Makes Social Science“Science”?

Scientific theory is empirically testable:

Results may be independently

replicated.

No necessary agreement about the results’ meaning.

Can be falsified – refuted / proved wrong as well as confirmed (at a given level of probability).

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What Makes Social Science“Science”?

Scientific theory is changeable: it values negative results (corrective “feedback”) evidence can change beliefs and way of thinking all the data is never in—there’s no “final

analysis”

Scientific belief systems are: open and flexible, with permeable boundaries between – what’s “true”

today and what might be thought true tomorrow.

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How Ideology is not Social Science?

Like science, ideology is a way of thinking:

negative findings are devalued, denied, dismissed, rationalized, etc.

closed, rigidly bounded, and certain

what is true today will certainly be true tomorrow.

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How Ideology is not Social Science?

Ideological propositions are not … subjected to alternative hypotheses changed by contrary facts

When methodology and facts contradict theory

“cognitive dissonance” (choice): assimilate (revise/interpret) facts fit the

theory accommodate facts (revise theory) or change mind abandon belief system32

Advocacy and Science(Gelles, R.J. (2007). The politics of research: the use, abuse,

and misuse of social science data—the cases of intimate partner violence, FCR, 45,1, 42-51.)

TEGWAR (“The Exciting Game Without Any Rules”)

Recent Advocate “Factoids”

“Batterers” always escalate abuse and violence

o IPV may begin with emotional abuse but eventually it escalates to physical attacks and severe violence

o Batterers never desist on their own.33

Advocacy and Science

“Batterers” always escalate(reported by severely abused victims in shelter)

General population data controlled foro high, moderate, and low risk to reoffend;o violence severity and frequency;o criminality;o psychopathology

most IPV perpetrators do not escalate their abuse types or severity

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“Batterers” always escalate(Feld & Straus, 1989, re-analysis of 1985 National

Family Violence Survey)

o one-third of severe offenders desist without intervention

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There is... considerable evidence [for] a mutual escalation theory of partner violence. ... Most notably, the correlation between the levels of aggression reported for two members of a couple are very high, often in the .6 to .7 range…. if one partner is frequently aggressive, the other partner also tends to be frequently aggressive.”(Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)

36


Studies summarized by Tolan et al. (2006):

“... couples with unilateral violence reported fewer forms and acts of violence than do bidirectional violent couples …, [and] acts … less likely to lead to injuries and further violence.”(Capaldi)

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In some couples, one partner’s learning nonviolence is “highly dependent on whether the other partner also stops hitting.”(Feld & Straus, 1989; Gelles & Straus, 1988)

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.... prevalence of any physical aggression toward … new partners was 32% .... for the couples who stay together, [male partner] violence ... at age 20-23 ... was just as well predicted by his partner’s prior physical aggression as by his own …. change ... in violence for each partner over time was strongly associated, indicating ... [intact] partners [tend] to [reciprocally].... increase or decrease in violence … factors related to the partner – and dyad – are critical…to the continuance of intimate partner aggression and violence.”(Capaldi & Kim, 2007)

39


[Mandatory] arrest effectively prevent re-offense.

o One follow-up study found less re-offense by employed arrestees than by men not arrested.

o Unemployed arrestees were more likely to re-offend than non arrestees.

o Recent findings suggest abused women may be less likely to call 911, after a first call resulted in abusive partner’s arrest.

40


Only men are violent in abusive families.

1. … the [empirical] evidence … confirms [this “suggestion”].

2. [Therefore,] we need to err on the side of safety…

3. ... [by assuming]…all [sic] violence [is male-on-female]

4. intimate terrorism

5. until proven otherwise. (Italics added.)

41


Only men are violent in abusive families.

o “Qualitative” shelter resident reports are almost always not crosschecked or corroborated

o i.e., reports of most severely abused female victims

o asked only about male partner perpetration

42


Only men are violent in relationships Compared to selective, shelter sample

studies, general population and community sample research almost always:

o involves much larger data sets: hundreds to thousands (vs. < 100) respondents

o tests hypotheses quantitativelyo includes male and female respondentso asked about their own and their

partner’s abuse and violence

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Arrest is an effective intervention, which brings about a cessation of violence.

(Mandatory arrest is good public policy.)

o Based on a single, 1984 study of arrest and recidivism in Minneapolis.

o Several subsequent studies, including by the same researcher, failed to replicate the original findings.

44

Theory in Practice: BIP Efficacy

Batterers intervention programs (BIPs) that employ the Duluth model are effective

Per heterosexual partners reports of male BIP group members :o Men who declined or dropped out had a

35% chance of staying nonviolent

o 40% of BIP-completers remain nonviolent(CONT’D)

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o Thus, a woman is only 5% less at risk for re-assault by a male intimate partner who was arrested, sanctioned, and completed BIP than by a man who was simply arrested and sanctioned.

Meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies of BIP treatment efficacy(Feder & Wilson, 2005) .

46


~ 65% difference in treatment effects between psychotherapy and BIP. Why?

BIPs view and treat IPVo neither as mentally disordered or

socially deviant violations of intimacy, nor

o as a result of “dysfunctional relationship dynamics,” instead

o as culturally endorsed, normative male behavior – i.e., behavior men are taught and expected to enact.

(Babcock, et al., 2007)

47


All perpetrators are not alike.

Most IPV perpetrators are not batterers.

IPV perpetrators are not almost all male.

IPV is not uniform across situations/couples/families.

48


A “one size fits all,” criminal justice-oriented “intervention” protocol does not address:

o perpetrator individual differences;

o perpetrator personality traits

o differing (perpetrator – victim) couple and family dynamics;

o environmental conditions and stressors

49


Whether the dynamic of conflict-driven SCV is ...o dysfunctional communication or problem

solving or conflict resolution skill deficitsor

o abusive uses of “power and control”

... might perpetrators experience – and resist – BIP as more of the same?

50


Within the Duluth re-education model, a chief cause of battering is the violent man’s socially induced misogyny and sexism.

1. However, “only 2% of North America males agree that it is permissible to ‘hit your wife to keep her in line,’ [and less than] 10% of North American marriages are male dominant….”

(Dutton, et al., 2008)

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2. “… no conclusive research evidence ... that males with more sexist attitudes are more prone to IPV. ... personality factors account for more of the variance in domestic violence than do beliefs about male dominance….”

(Babcock, et al., 2007; italics added)

3. "... men in [BIPs] are not more likely than non-abusive men to endorse ... male privilege or [sexist beliefs about] women's roles and rights, as indicated by over a dozen…controlled studies…”

(Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)52


Contrary to effective psychotherapy’s therapeutic alliance, BIP’s “confronting” group members’ “denial” and “minimization” seems adversarial.

“…Many batterers react against frequent and intense confrontation with vociferous counterarguments, silence, ‘phony’ agreement, or termination of treatment.

“People rarely listen to alternatives to their own beliefs unless they feel heard and understood….” (Babcock, et al., 2007)

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AODA1. “Alcohol abuse is among the most

robust correlates of IPV. ... men seeking treatment for alcohol problems … [are] four to six times [more likely to be partner-abusive] than demographically similar, non alcoholic men.

(CONT’D)

54


2. “…among men seeking treatment for substance abuse, those who perpetrated IPV had more severe alcohol problems...and higher levels of illicit drug use…

3. “…individuals who achieve stable sobriety show substantial reductions in partner violence and are much less likely to continue violence when compared to relapsed patients.”Murphy & Eckhardt (2005)

55


More socially stable and integrated men may: feel humiliated and appalled – not rigidly

defensive or justified – by their behavior and the immediate, personal consequences (arrest and jailing)

sufficient incentives not to (risk) re-assault? openness / responsiveness and readiness to

benefit from psycho-education? more easily set aside their partners’ (real or

perceived) parts of the abusive episode / dynamic?

less motivated to externalize their own contributions?

56

Advocacy and ScienceSCV: Partly a Dyadic Process?

Couples counseling is never appropriate in cases of IPV

Wishing the abuse and violence to stop, but not necessarily wanting the relationship to end, 20% - 80% of “battered” women stay, or return to their abusive partner.

(Babcock, et al. 2007)

57

SCV: Partly a Dyadic Process?


When SCV men are involved in gender-specific group counselling (as in BIPs), the contributions of their mates and of their IP interaction are less likely to be attended or modified. (Stith, et al., 2005)

Thus, not involving both SCV partners in counselling can be less efficacious, and riskier to abused individual/s who remain coupled with situationally violent partner/s.

In some couples, one partner’s learning nonviolence is “highly dependent on whether the other partner also stops hitting.”(Feld & Straus, 1989; Gelles & Straus, 1988)

58

SCV: Partly a Dyadic Process?


“... a longitudinal…community sample of young couples found … significant [persistence of] physical and psychological aggression toward a partner by both the young man and woman, if the couple remained intact from late adolescence to young adulthood. However, if the young man was with a new partner, there was no significant [carry-over] in physical or psychological aggression (as reported each partner)….

Capaldi, Shortt, and Crosby (2003)

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jon aaronson, phd, lpc divorce conflict & partner abuse solutions, llc madison, wi 53703 april...

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