The Social And Exchange Theory Of Domestic Violence

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