Getting Away With Murder: Weapons for the War Against Domestic Violence - Softcover
The reality is that women leave all the time. Often they give up their homes, friends, family, and jobs, all in an attempt to be safe and far from their abusers. And most of the time, leaving doesn't protect them or make them safe.
There are millions of women from many different social, racial, ethnic, religious, economic, and intellectual backgrounds, who call the police, testify in court, swear out orders of protection, seek care at hospitals or at the offices of private physicians, detail their injuries, allow their injuries to be photographed, flee to shelters, to friends or family, and even, trusting of the system, bravely name and identify their abusers for police to arrest, prosecutors to prosecute, and judges to sentence. These are the same women who depend on the system to protect them, rely on the good advice and instructions of law enforcement officers and on the judicial process, and in the end are brutally and violently disappointed, if not brutally and violently injured or killed.
Domestic violence is a crime. For this reason alone, it must be stopped. To stop it, however, takes courage, not only courage on the part of the victims to report it but courage on the part of every one of us to condemn it for what it is -- a crime. We have approached this issue as a journey, taking everyone -- victims and batterers, as well as men and women who believe they have never suffered abuse at the hands of an intimate partner or have never inflicted it -- through the process of this crime, from the beginning of a relationship to the beginning of abuse, to the actual physical assaults, to the police, hospitals, social service agencies, shelters, batterers' intervention programs,offices of lawyers and prosecutors, judges, and into the private lives of the victims and their children. This is the only way that we can see to find the weapons needed to stop it from happening again and again, before there is nothing left but shattered lives.
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From Kirkus Reviews:
This earnest polemic suffers from a fatal lack of proportion. Star divorce lawyer Felder and journalist Victor (Voice of Reason: Hanan Ashrawi and Peace in the Middle East, 1994) make a persuasive case, for those who remain unconvinced, that our criminal justice system fails to adequately protect battered women; to their credit, they not only describe the problem's many aspects but recommend solutions. Some of their ideas make sense, such as better communication among the medical, social service, and judicial systems in order to track the histories of victims and abusers. Other of their ideas merit debate, such as mandating arrests when domestic violence is a possibility, so that cops will not ignore an incident for fear of a wrongful arrest lawsuit. But the authors focus so narrowly on the need to protect victims that the surrounding reality gets blurred. They zealously demand that every injury that a medical professional suspects may involve battering be reported to authorities, as some states require in cases of suspected child abuse, and dismiss as ``politically correct'' the view, common among advocates for battered women, that an adult woman should be deemed capable of deciding whether to subject her relationship to months of police and judicial scrutiny. They endorse giving every woman who enters a hospital, for whatever reason, a detailed questionnaire to determine if she is a secret victim. They would subject a doctor or nurse to criminal liability for accepting a ``blatantly implausible'' explanation of an injury, thus enlisting people trained in medicine, not police work, as criminal investigators. They propose that every man who is charged with domestic violence, even if acquitted, be required to undergo treatment. They advocate a domestic violence program ``in every church, synagogue, school, university, government agency, and private corporation across the country.'' Reduces a tragedy to what seems a parody of well-intentioned reform. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From Publishers Weekly:
The analysis of domestic violence by lawyer Felder (The Lawyers' Guide to Equitable Distribution) and freelancer Victor (Friends, Lovers, Enemies) discusses why little is being done to improve the situation. The question "Why didn't she leave?" blames the victim, they assert. They show how the battered woman is also victimized by police, therapists who urge joint counseling and even the law itself, which makes a distinction between a man who beats a stranger on the street and one who beats his wife at home. Given male and female archetypes in our society, every man is a potential batterer, maintain the authors as they examine the meager attempts by local government agencies to curb domestic violence. They argue that more can be brought to bear to end what the AMA describes as "America's dirty little secret"-imprisonment, for example-but what the authors prefer to label "America's tacit little agreement."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherTouchstone
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0684870487
- ISBN 13 9780684870489
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages288
- Rating
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