The Social And Exchange Theory Of Domestic Violence

Superior Essays
What is Domestic Violence? Domestic Violence is also called intimate partner violence is a serious public health concern because it affects the most important unit of society, which is the family. Unlike other forms of violent crime across social interaction, violence within the household occurs amongst individuals with intimate and trustworthy relationships. The term ‘domestic violence’ is defined as patterns of abuse in a relationship in order to gain or maintain power over the victim. This form of violence may include physical, sexual, emotional, economic, and psychological. Legal response to violence in the home did not start until the mid-1970s/early 1980s, because incidents were treated as a private family matter. The criminal justice …show more content…
Exchange theory proposes that family violence is governed by the principle of cost and benefit, through abuse when the reward is greater than the cost. Sociocultural approval of violence allows the expressive and instrumental violent behavior to produce the significant reward of social control or power. Whether it is a parent or partner, according to this theory the goal is to gain or maintain control and power over the relationship through abusive behavior. The repeated act of violent towards the victim leads them to feel vulnerable and helpless in abusive relationship as victims deal with many forms of abuse. The victim develops learned helplessness and use various coping method to survive the mistreatment. The term learned helplessness is defined as feelings of helplessness and powerlessness to control, change or leave an abusive environment. Often results in not seeking help out of fear of potential abuse if nothing is done. The abuses experienced may become normalized and leads them to believe that it was something they have done to provoke the …show more content…
Legislature desired reform and passed policies for a more direct approach to incidents of domestic violence and mandated law enforcement departments to take action. “In this atmosphere ripe for change, the pioneering and widely publicized Minneapolis Domestic violence Experiment provided some evidence that arrest was a better deterrent of repeat domestic violence than were traditional methods of separation and/or mediation” (Shearman & Berk, 1984). Public policies had an effect on law enforcement practices and impacted wide range of cases than intended. “Domestic violence cases were more likely than nondomestic violence cases to result in the arrest of an offender. While 49.9% of intimate partner cases and 44.5% of other domestic violence case resulted in arrest, only 35% of the cases in which the victim and offender were strangers, and 29.1% of the nondomestic cases in which the victim and offender knew each other ended up with an arrest.”(Hirschel et al, 2007). The policies have resulted in higher caseloads for prosecutors, including cases with victims who do not desire

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    This essay will address the question ‘Is Domestic Violence underrepresented in society?’ in particular it will focus upon the policing of Domestic Violence as well as the punishment associated with this criminal offence, including background of issues highlighted within previous assignments. These include the history of domestic violence, gender differences and generational differences. A main objective would be to address in particular whether domestic violence is underrepresented within the criminal justice system. This will be achieved by looking at how domestic violence is approached legally.…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Domestic violence is a serious problem in the United States. It is estimated that 30 percent of women and 10 percent of men within this country have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by a partner (Miller, Hess, Orthmann, 2014, p. 432). In 2007, 2,340 deaths were related to domestic violence and about 70 percent of those people were females (Miller, Hess, Orthmann, 2014, p. 408). With such a large percentage of the population being affected by domestic it is a public health issue.…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Sherman and Berk Minneapolis Domestic Violence experiment was an experiment that focused on the effects of arrest with an emphasis on domestic violence cases. During the experiment, police were given three methods to use in order to reduce domestic violence cases. These methods included arresting the individual who committed the crime, an attempt to counsel both parties involved, and sending the offender away from the victim in order to cool down. As a result, some problems arose from the experiment due to “prematurely and unduly publicizing” the results of the experiment labeled as a “slippage”.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Mandatory Arrest Research

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The law enforcement’s response to domestic violence remains a closely studied topic among researchers and policymakers. Beginning in the 1970s, domestic violence policy reforms swept the nation as a result of political pressure exerted by women advocate groups (Xie & Lynch, 2016). Within ten years, mandatory arrests policies were enacted in states across the U.S. with the purpose of reducing intimate partner violence. In light of the newly enacted mandatory arrest policies, a surge of research emerged with the aim of determining whether arrest policies were efficient in reducing and deterring acts of intimate partner violence (Novisky & Peralta, 2014).…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Brilliant Essays

    Introduction The definition of intimate partner violence, which is commonly referred to as domestic violence, can be psychological aggression, physical violence, forced acts, or sexual by an intimate partner from the present or the past (Wilson, Graham, & Taft, 2014). During the 1960s, law enforcement officers and judges viewed intimate partner violence as an insignificant crime and cases would never make it to the court rooms (Clark, 2011). This type of aggression was seemingly a common practice among many households across the nation and was viewed as a tool that men utilized often in an attempt to correct their partners. On many occasions, officials would just tell men to calm down and tell the women who were being victimized to not provoke…

    • 2084 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Brilliant Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Historically, domestic violence affairs have been handled in such a way that it was not a matter of law enforcement. Prior to the 1970’s, in the U.S there weren’t any police agencies that provided training on domestic violence occurrences, and there was only very few written policies on the subject (Hendricks, 1991). Domestic violence was seen as a family concern. With domestic violence being seen as a family concerned it called for non-intervention by law enforcement professionals.…

    • 673 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, can be defined as a systematic pattern of behavior entailing a person’s use of intimidating, violent, or other abusive tactics to gain control of another in a domestic relationship. These tactics include mental, sexual, physical, emotional, and even economic abuse. The frequency and severity of domestic violence can vary dramatically from one relationship to another; but, the goal of gaining and maintaining power and control over the other stays the same (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence [NCADV], n.d.). Abuse can range from verbal threats to physical injury, and even death in some cases. This abuse happens in heterosexual relationships as well as same sex relationships.…

    • 1201 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Domestic violence is defined as consistently abusive behavior by one person against another involved in an intimate relationship, such as dating or marriage. It is recognized as a criminal offense in almost all countries across the world. Also called spousal abuse, battering, and family violence. Domestic violence must be identified as a public, national crime. To reduce domestic violence today, the US criminal justice systems should change the arrest policies, violations of order of protections and referring domestic violence as a misdemeanor.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Domestic Violence: Legislative laws and support for Victims + I am going to discuss domestic violence. * Within this paper I will define domestic violence, discuss general legislative laws both on the state and federal level, and identify funding and assistance available to its victims. Domestic Violence is a form of non-gender based violence and manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women. The violence can be physical, emotional, mental, and/or economical in nature.…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sexual Abuse In Australia

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages

    What is Domestic Violence? There are many different types of Domestic Violence, such as; physical, emotional, social and sexual violence. On average, at least one woman a week is killed by by a partner or former partner in Australia.…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The prevalence of domestic violence in the United States, a developed and largely educated society, is exceedingly high. Victims of domestic violence have civil and criminal remedies in order to protect themselves and their children from further…

    • 1642 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The violent, abusive physical or verbal behavior within a home, usually with a spouse or partner, is a majorly existent problem in current times and needs to succumb as soon as possible. Domestic violence can be dated back to around 750 B.C. when Romans were justifiably allowed to beat their wives under the law (Dyess.af). Government enforcement and legislation against domestic violence cultivated around the 1500s in early old English laws to prevent the intolerable acts of abuse. The majority of the population in the United States have either heard of, been a part of, or witnessed some kind of domestic violence issue. The problem of domestic violence has unquestionably expanded in the past decade.…

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When an innocent child observes domestic violence they become a prisoner in their own home. They begin to learn the business of abuse; resulting in damaging situations later in life. In order to stop the cycle of abuse our current law should be amended to mandate mental health services for all children who are involved in these disturbances. Evolution of Domestic Violence laws Lemon (1996) explains that thousands of years ago women have fallen victim to the abuse of a man; their ruler who used beatings as a form of punishment for crimes committed by women. Lemon wrote about the history of “The rule of thumb” which was an actual law that allowed men to whip their wives with a stick, based off the measurement of the man’s right thumb.…

    • 1213 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Prevent Domestic Violence

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Today the Queensland police have already dealt with 373 cases of domestic violence (Blumer, 2015). Domestic violence takes many forms, none of which are mutually exclusive. While physical violence may be the most visible, contrary to many beliefs it is not the most frequent or detrimental. Domestic violence can take form as sexual, emotional, social, spiritual and economic abuse (DVRCV, 2013). Domestic violence can take part in any relationship, and although 37% of women who suffered physical assault said the perpetrator was a current or previous male partner, this leaves a grave amount who suffer physical assault from mothers, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles or any other significant trusted figure (DVPC, 2016).…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Thesis: Domestic violence his generally defined as violent or aggressive behavior within a home, that typically involves the violent abuse of a spouse or partner (Gosselin, D. K. , 2014). Within society today domestic violence is all around us, sometimes it is visible but other times victims of this abuse fail to report such activities to authorities. Furthermore, this paper will discuss the topic of domestic violence, and the intervention programs that are put in place for the minimization such violence. In addition these programs weaknesses will be addressed, and how they can be made to be more effective.…

    • 2304 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays

Related Topics