ACR101 Lecture 8: ACR101 Week 6
ACR101 Week 6
Crime and the home
Family violence
Violence within families, often but not necessarily perpetrated by men against women and
children, is not confined to any culture, class or creed or nation. Fischbach and Valentine
write: ‘a common thread of domestic violence weaves through nearly every culture
worldwide. Societies which maintain rigid gender roles that define masculinity or male
honour in terms of dominance are strongly associated with violence against women’.
Further: ‘In many patriarchal societies, it is accepted that a man has a right to discipline his
wife using physical means’(Fischbach and Valentine, 2007).
It is important to recognise that this was true of mainstream Australian society until quite
recently. Up until the 1970s, family violence was also something of a taboo subject in
Australia. Society collectively denied the reality of family violence, a denial made possible by
the fact that it was very difficult for victims to speak about it. One of the major
achievements of those concerned for the rights of women has been to break this silence,
and also influence police and other welfare agencies to take family violence seriously.
However, women exposed to family violence are still very vulnerable. Usually they have
little money, and may well have children to take care of. Particularly in rural and remote
areas, where services are much harder to access, victims of family violence face
considerable obstacles in escaping an abusive relationship (Wendt, 2009).
Even where resources and support are available, victims of family violence do not always
seek them out. Indeed, victims frequently shield perpetrators from exposure, or from the
legal consequences of their actions. How and why this happens varies, depending on
individual circumstances, but the question of why, in particular, women stay with violently
abusive partners is both complex and controversial (Nicolson, 2010). What is certain is that
an unknown but large amount of crime, ranging in seriousness from trivial to life-
threatening, occurs in Australian homes and is not reported.
The problem of intervention
Family violence and other forms of crime in the home pose particularly difficult issues for
law enforcement and welfare agencies.
oWhen should the authorities intervene?
oWhat methods of intervention are most likely to succeed?
oWhat is to be done when the victim of abuse refuses to cooperate with authorities?
oAnd if a major intervention has to be made, especially when children are removed from
the care of their natural parents, what happens next?
oOne of tragic aspects of family violence is that is that its victims may be ‘rescued’, only to
find themselves abused in their new ‘home’. As 2004 report into the abuse of children in
care in Queensland stated: ‘Clearly, if a child has been abused or neglected to the point
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Violence within families, often but not necessarily perpetrated by men against women and children, is not confined to any culture, class or creed or nation. Fischbach and valentine write: a common thread of domestic violence weaves through nearly every culture worldwide. Societies which maintain rigid gender roles that define masculinity or male honour in terms of dominance are strongly associated with violence against women". Further: in many patriarchal societies, it is accepted that a man has a right to discipline his wife using physical means"(fischbach and valentine, 2007). It is important to recognise that this was true of mainstream australian society until quite recently. Up until the 1970s, family violence was also something of a taboo subject in. Society collectively denied the reality of family violence, a denial made possible by the fact that it was very difficult for victims to speak about it.
