New DOJ Domestic Violence Study
Undercounts Male Victims
By Mike McCormick and
Glenn Sacks
© 2005
The Department of Justice's highly
publicized new findings on domestic violence are good news. Domestic
violence appears to have declined by more than half from 1993 to
2004. Unfortunately, misleading press reports and the study's
limited methodology have served to further minimize the
often-ignored problems faced by male victims of domestic violence.
The department's National Crime Victimization Survey was conducted
by interviewing members of a representative sample of households
regarding crime, including domestic violence. Respondents were
asked, "Has anyone attacked or threatened you?" "Did you call the
police to report something that happened to you which you thought
was a crime?" and "Did anything which you thought was a crime happen
to you, but you did not report to the police?" Although these are
reasonable questions, male victims of domestic violence are far more
likely to answer "no" to them than female victims, thus skewing the
survey's results.
Research shows that male victims are far less likely than female
victims to report such attacks to the police. Many men feel, with
some justification, that officers will not take their claims
seriously, or that once they report violence in their families,
their female abusers will claim abuse, and the women will be
believed. Perhaps most important, fathers trapped in abusive
relationships do not want to report abuse because it may create a
divorce or separation, and they fear losing custody of their
children to the abuser.
Survey respondents were told that they were being asked "crime
questions," yet research demonstrates that men are less likely to
see the abuse they suffer as a "crime" or a matter for public
intervention, and often don't mention domestic violence in crime
surveys. Also, seeking outside help because of a spouse's violence -
or even complaining privately about it - is seen as unmanly and
cowardly. And men tend to see a female partner's attacks or threats
of violence as isolated examples of her being "angry," "hormonal" or
"moody," instead of as part of a pattern of violence.
That women are frequently the aggressors in domestic combat cannot
be reasonably denied. The National Institute of Mental Health funded
and oversaw two of the largest studies of domestic violence ever
conducted, both of which found equal rates of abuse between husbands
and wives. Professor Martin S. Fiebert of California State
University, Long Beach maintains an online bibliography summarizing
nearly 200 academic studies that conclude that women are as
physically aggressive in their intimate relationships as men.
Women often employ the element of surprise and weapons to compensate
for men's greater strength. An analysis of 552 domestic violence
studies published in the Psychological Bulletin found that 38
percent of the physical injuries in heterosexual domestic assaults
are suffered by men.
Last year, more than 50 domestic violence researchers and treatment
providers signed a letter urging the California legislature to stop
the state's policy of excluding male victims and their children from
domestic violence services. Signatory John Hamel, author of the book
Gender-Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse: A
Comprehensive Approach, told legislators: "Men account for half of
all DV [domestic violence] victims and incur a third of DV-related
injuries. Ignoring female-on-male violence inhibits our efforts to
combat domestic violence."
The Justice Department survey has also been the subject of
misleading reporting. For example, the most widely published news
article on the report states that in intimate relationships, "women
are far more likely than men to be battered or assaulted. While
crimes at the hands of an intimate partner represented nearly
one-quarter of violent assaults against women in the period of the
study, they accounted for 3 percent of such incidents against men."
This is misleading. According to the Justice Department, the survey
found that "males experienced higher victimization rates than
females for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault."
Domestic violence inevitably constitutes a much smaller percentage
of the overall violence men experience. The survey found only a
3-to-1 ratio of abused women to abused men, not 8-to-1, as the
article implies.
Press reports have also focused on the legitimate possibility that
women in the survey have significantly underreported the domestic
violence committed against them. Yet no major press report has even
mentioned what is not simply possible but instead very likely: The
survey undercounted male victims.
This article first appeared in the
Baltimore Sun (1/12/07).
Mike McCormick is the Executive Director of the American Coalition
for Fathers and Children, the world’s largest shared parenting
organization. Their website is
www.acfc.org.
Glenn Sacks serves on the advisory board of Stop Abuse for Everyone,
an international domestic violence organization. His columns have
appeared in dozens of the largest newspapers in the United States.
His website is
www.GlennSacks.com.
Copyright 2005 Glenn
Sacks, all rights reserved
