Compassion for Male Victims of DV Zero

Compassion, Support and Intervention for Male Victims Zero

The National Conference on Family Violence: Health and Justice convened in March 1994. This was 10 years after the first Attorney General’s Task Force on Family Violence. The 1994 conference noted that the problem of family violence in the United States is epidemic and estimated that the annual incidence of family members is at 2 to 4 million for children, nearly 4 million for women, and 1 to 2 million for elder adults.

This conference was co-sponsored by the American Medical Association and the National Institute of Justice. One need not be a National Institute of Justice researcher to note that the 400 professionals and 80 national experts that attended this conference estimated 4 million women were victims. The experts at this conference acknowledged zero men as victims of domestic violence.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) works for major societal changes necessary to eliminate both personal and societal violence against all women and children. The total of males victims acknowledged in the mission statement by NCADV is zero.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline Decade for Change: Final Report notes, “Despite significant efforts over the past decade to address the problem of domestic violence in our country, 33 million American women continue to experience abuse every year. The total number of men who might experience domestic violence victimization appears to be zero .

The May 19, 2006, “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report ” in the section titled “Physical Dating Violence Among High School Students – United States, 2003” notes, “Among adult women in the United States, an estimated 5.3 million IPV incidents occur each year, resulting in approximately 2 million injuries and 1,300 deaths. The number of IPV incidents, injuries and deaths for men is zero.

The above report noted that dating violence victimization can be a precursor for IPV. It notes that 8.9% of males and 8.8% of females reported experiencing physical dating violence. My home state is Massachusetts. Massachusetts is one of the most politically liberal of states and it is a state that is proud that it stands up the rights of all of its citizens. Jane Doe is the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.

The Jane Doe website notes that 1 in 5 female high school students report being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. The number of male high school students Jane Doe implies, by their absence, is zero .

The number of male victims that the authors of the Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey wanted to interview about IPV victimization was zero . Despite this obvious bias they were allowed to conduct the NVAWS. After reporting that 40% of surveyed women and 54% of surveyed men said they were physically assaulted as a child by an adult caretaker, the authors conclude that IPV is first and foremost a problem for women. Is it possible that the authors over looked another precursor for IPV?

The CDC report, “ Intimate Partner Violence Surveillance: Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements ” (IPVS), documents that the lack of an agreed upon definition of domestic violence limits the ability to properly identify victims at highest risk who need focused intervention and increased services. The victims at highest risk are not the only lost victims. The total times a male victim is mentioned in the IPVS is zero .

In criminal justice training, funded by the USDOJ, the NIJ and the OVW the offender is always referred to as “he” and the victims as “she.” This would seem to amount to zero male victimization. This “implicit association” – males are the offenders and females their victims – remains first and foremost in the minds of those who receive this training and remains when they respond to domestic violence incidents.