Introduction
Criminal behavior refers to the outcome of a complex interaction between social, ecological and individual factors. The influence of intellectual, physical, and emotional attributes within a particular environment hinders the behavior of a person. It also enables the individuals, especially the criminals, to display a wide array of behaviors (Schiller, Black, & Murphy, 2002). Based on the theory of crime, personal factors are the most critical factor, which urges an individual to commit crimes. Moreover, the social or the surrounding environment of a person can compel others to perform offensive or criminal acts (Ozdemir & Ozkan, 2017).
This assignment aims at determining the major factors that urge an individual to commit the crime of domestic violence. The reasons behind the distribution of crimes across national boundaries include the situational factors, criminal profiles and offender-victim relationships. These aspects further portray different social control attributes such as cultural values, criminal sanctions, public reactions, and law enforcement. Besides, the crime is analyzed through the introduction of criminological theories and their implementation (Domestic Violence) along with the strengths and limitations of the theories introduced in the study.
Description of Domestic Violence Crime
The term ‘Domestic violence’ refers to the offensive acts related to varied ranges of criminal behavior such as displaying physical, sexual, verbal and psychological aggression. However, in this case of domestic violence, a criminal uses display behaviors that are offensive as well as violent at the same time for dominating other individuals. Thus, legally speaking, domestic violence is a criminal act taking into consideration the offenders for making decisions on committing offensive acts. Furthermore, legal authorities such as prosecutors or lawyers take control over further ruling or judgment on these types of acts (Buzawa & Buzawa, 2003).
Distribution of Crime from Local and National Perspective
Domestic violence is one of the criminal activities, which is neither prosecuted nor resolved through legal methods. The government does not take action against this issue to an extent similar to that of the other offensive acts such as murder or theft. Hence, it has become prevalent across different regions in the US. Although the husbands violently abuse the wives both physically as well as verbally, the police departments do not guarantee the arrest of the convicts. Instead, the police department engages in the task of getting these issues resolved through mutual reconciliation or other informal means. Thus, filing a case on the husbands for abusing their wives can never succeed, as the jurisdictions lack the power to control this issue (ACLU, 2014).
Emphasizing the offensive acts within the national boundaries of the US, different types of domestic violence have been identified, which are associated with husbands and wives, friends, parents, sister or brother, children, neighbors, and women residing within the country. Distribution of domestic violence has spread in different regions (urban and rural areas) of the world. The victims’ profiles comprise different age groups, education levels, and individual independent income as well. Locally, the figures of such abuse have reached the level of 48 women, who are offended by their partners (husband) daily in the urban sections of the country, whereas domestic violence upon women in rural areas of the country has reached up to 59.
Overall, 115 women within the age of 35-44 years have been recorded for being victimized under the criminal act (domestic violence) regularly. “The Soviet Union’s “liberation” of women through giving them equal rights with men in every dimension of social life was never supported by serious institutions like gender-oriented social policy. The right to work, generously given to women, was nothing other than an additional slavery engagement in the labor force on top of their traditional obligations. After the collapse of the Soviet regime, the formal equality slides back clearly pointed to the vulnerability of women and the issue of violence was raised once again” (p. 15). Even though there is law available to protect the victims (women) and influence them to take actions enforcing equal opportunity and rights, they do not engage in any further proceedings because they need to get it sanctioned by the national law. In most domestic violence cases, a relationship between the offender and the victims comprise husband and wife relationship, which is cited as one of the social control factors that motivate husbands and other people to abuse their power by committing offensive criminal acts of domestic violence (Chitashvili, Javakhishvili, Arutiunov, Tsuladze, & Chachanidze, 2010).
Figure 1: Distribution of Local Domestic Violence
Source: (Chitashvili, Javakhishvili, Arutiunov, Tsuladze, & Chachanidze, 2010)
The above figure 1 portrays a pyramid comprising different ages and victims of domestic violence. In the US, age is a major factor of a victim’s profile in association with these types of criminal behaviors.
Distribution of Crime from a Global Perspective
A global perspective on domestic violence presents that the rural areas are more prone to these types of criminal or offensive acts, rather than urban regions of different countries. The large population in rural areas is one of the major reasons for witnessing instances of domestic violence in this region. In England and Wales, the offender’s profile entails subtypes and the nature of heterogenic behaviors when committing acts of domestic violence such as sexual harassment on women. The subtype profile of the offenders portrayed dysphoric/borderline and violent/antisocial behavior. However, the subtype profile of the criminals with violent/antisocial behavior indicated that they belonged to families with a lower proportion of members. Similarly, dysphoric/borderline behaviors predicted that the offenders belonged from a family with a larger proportion of members. The most common risk factors detected under the subtype profile of criminals also portrayed several characteristics such as the experience of violent acts, the experience of physical abuse, facing sexual harassment, and several attempts to commit suicide in the past. Among these characteristics, most of the criminal’s profile in the nation displayed that criminals were the victims of violent acts in the past (Johnson, Gilchrist, Beech, Weston, Takriti, & Freeman, 2006).
Besides, females or wives might play the role of offenders committing domestic violence. However, the profile of these female offenders committing violent acts portrays that their husbands had physically abused them in the past. Besides, 56 female offenders, who were undereducated as well as unemployed, committed domestic violence. The major components used by the offenders were explosives, drugs, poison, and fire among others. Besides, the relationship between the offenders and the victim on these types of cases were intimate partners, such as family members, friends as well as acquaintances and even strangers at certain points of time (Chan & Frei, 2013).
Critical Analysis of Domestic Violence
Feminist Theory on Domestic Violence Crime
Feminist theory is an easier and important approach of analyzing diversity and ensuring the safety and right of both the genders i.e. male and female. The major strengths of applying the feminist theory as perceived by women entail the actual victims in most of the cases as well as the offenders in several other cases of domestic violence. The ability to deconstruct, intersects, and post-deconstructs domestic violence cases are also the strengths of feminist theory (Kantola & Lombardo, 2017). This theory also portrayed that women and girls were highly victimized through the acts of domestic violence committed by male offenders of all ages. Relationships were determined to be intimate between the offender (male) and the victim (female) during these types of cases. Furthermore, the feminist theory helped in identifying that even though women display aggressive behaviors, the probability of facing injuries due to violent acts committed by the offenders (Male) is always higher. However, this theory focuses only on the perspective of women rather than giving equal importance to that of men, as they are victims of certain domestic violence-related crimes. Furthermore, legal sanctions discussed under the findings do not favor women in other situations of domestic violence since they are not condoned (White & Kowalski, 2009).
Social Learning Theory of Criminal Behaviors
Contextually, “Unhealthy lifestyle, the environment where they grow up can push kids become violent. If a child is raised in a normal family and nothing intervenes here, he will never do such a thing” (p. 70). Social learning theory portrayed that criminal behaviors are highly influential in most of the cases as some of them grow within a violent family. This theory mainly emphasized the portraying of the manner, in which surroundings enable offensive criminal behaviors developed within the offenders (Chitashvili, Javakhishvili, Arutiunov, Tsuladze, & Chachanidze, 2010). A major strength of this theory is to maintain a central focus on the criminal activities of domestic violence. Social learning theory also helped in determining the accurate fact about criminal behaviors and domestic violence crimes through the integration of the ‘ad hoc explanation’ approach (Piquero, 2016). However, the findings ignore the consideration of a woman’s perspective if compared with the feminist theory.
Cognitive-Behavioral Theory
The cognitive-behavioral theory considers the perspectives of both the genders to determine the perceptions in varied situations such as that of domestic violence. The strengths of this theory comprise the ability to highlight the manner, in which the perceptions and the interceptions of the criminals influence their aggressive behaviors. Individuals possess independent rights to make their choices as per their will so that the criminals can directly consider the poor cognitive abilities for undertaking offensive actions. The integration of therapeutic interventions in the theory of determining the core beliefs of a criminal and his/her aggressive behavior is a major strength of this theory. Additionally, cognitive-behavioral theory helps in understanding that the victims of domestic violence can assist in maintaining their safety, empowering themselves to make changes, recovering cognitive abilities and improving the mental health of the victims. Furthermore, the major limitations include the lack of social perspective towards domestic violence and inadequate focus on ensuring the safety of the victim (women) after an incident of violence acts (NIJ, n.d.).
Conclusion
Domestic violence is not only a minor but also a major crime, which can be determined by properly assessing the situation of its occurrence and its impact on the victims. Application of theories entails the importance of considering the perspectives of a victim, whereas the other theory portrays a criminal to determine the reason behind the development of aggressive behaviors, which further leads them towards committing violent acts. However, the emphasis on examining the different behaviors of the criminals can contribute to maintaining focus on the development of legal commands to prohibit them from committing offensive acts. Understanding the characteristics and behaviors of a criminal and victim by examining their profile, the maintenance of the relationship between the victim and an offender could bring a reduction in the rate of domestic violence within the national boundaries of the US as well as other countries. Since rural areas comprise a larger population, the introduction of legal regulation can be associated with domestic violence acts, thereby ensuring women’s safety.
References
ACLU. (2014). Domestic violence & sexual assault in the United States: A human rights based approach & practice guide. Women’s Rights Project, 1-41.
Buzawa, E. S. & Buzawa, C. G. (2003). Domestic violence: The criminal justice response. USA: SAGE Publications.
Chan, H. C. O., & Frei, A. (2013). Female sexual homicide offenders: An examination of an underresearched offender population. Homicide Studies, 17(1), 96-118.
Johnson, R., Gilchrist, E., Beech, A. R., Weston, S., Takriti, R., & Freeman, R. (2006). A psychometric typology of UK domestic violence offenders. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21(10), 1270-1285.
Kantola, J. & Lombardo, E. (2017). Feminist political analysis: Exploring strengths, hegemonies and limitations. Feminist Theory, 18(3), 1323-1341.
NIJ. (n.d.). Interventions for domestic violence offenders: Cognitive behavioral therapy. Retrieved October 21, 2019, from https://www.crimesolutions.gov/PracticeDetails.aspx?ID=16
Ozdemir, F. & Ozkan, B. (2017). The nature of crime: Different approaches toward the causes of the criminal act. Nesne Psikoloji Dergisi (NPD), 5(11), 1-17
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Schiller, J., Black, W., & Murphy, P. V. (2002). Chapter 16. Crime and criminality. Crime and Criminality, 1-23.
White, J.W. & Kowalski, R. (2009). Deconstructing the myth of the nonaggressive female: A feminist analysis. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18, 477-498.
