Domestic Violence And Domestic Abuse

Decent Essays
It is difficult to create a profile of the typical domestic abuser, as they come from all walks of life. People who commit domestic violence can include spouses, former spouses, adults in current or past intimate relationships, adults related by blood or marriage, and those who have a parent-child relationship. Abusers appear in all types of families, regardless of income, profession, region, ethnicity, level of education or race. Most research claims that abusers are usually male, but this may also be because of male victims of female abusers being too ashamed to come forward. The abuser likely witnessed domestic abuse as a child, as it has been found that at minimum 60% of men who batter were raised in homes where they themselves were …show more content…
Physical abuse includes bodily assaults, use of any weapon to create harm, purposely dangerous driving, property destruction, forcing the victim to view pets being abused, barring the victim from home, and sleep deprivation. Sexual abuse is rape, sexual degradation, forced sexual pain, forced unprotected sex, and using sexually debasing slurs. Emotional abuse involves insults, put downs, mind games, name calling, guilt tripping, making all of the other person’s decisions, and defining the other person’s role in the relationship. Social abuse is purposeful isolation from loved ones through methods such as ongoing insolence to family and friends, relocating to new places where the victim does not know anyone, and preventing the victim from meeting other people. Economic abuse is the abuser stopping the victim from keeping an independent income, demanding the victim’s money, controlling money, and not allowing the victim any influence on financial decisions. Finally, spiritual abuse is refusing access to religious services, preventing religious observance, forcing victims contradict their beliefs, scorn of cultural traditions, or using religion or culture as a motive for abuse. However, despite the wide variety of subcategories within domestic abuse, only behavior which is considered to be criminal by state law can trigger prosecution. For instance, if an abuser uses bodily force or threatens to do so and clearly could, the abuse is an assault. Meanwhile, the emotional and economic abuse common in many abusive relationships is not prosecuted as these factors usually do not meet the court’s requirements to be considered a legal

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