Patterns of Domestic Violence

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Examine the Patterns of and reasons for, Domestic Violence in society. (24 marks) Domestic Violence is defined by the Women’s Aid federation (2008) as; Physical, mental, sexual, or financial Violence, that takes place within an intimate or family type relationship and forms a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour. It may involve partners, ex-partners, household members or relatives. A common view of Domestic Violence is that it caused by psychological effects, rather than social effects, but sociologists have challenged this view. It is thought that it is the behaviour of a few ‘sick’ or disturbed individuals, but in actual fact Domestic Violence is far too widespread to be the work of just a few individuals. A minority pattern is that men are abused by women in some cases; official statistics say that 1 in 7 men are abused at some point in their lives by a woman, and 1 in 20 men experience it repeatedly. Another pattern is 1% of Domestic Violence cases are committed by women on another woman. Mirrlees - Black’s (1999) survey of 16,000 people estimates that there are 6.6 million Domestic assaults a year, about half of those involving physical injury. Domestic Violence is not random but follows particular social patterns and these patterns have social causes. For example, the most striking pattern was found by Coleman et al (2007), who said that Domestic Violence mainly occurs through men being violent to women, she found that women were more likely than men to have experienced ‘intimate Violence’ across all four types of abuse, - partner abuse, family abuse, sexual assault and stalking. Statistics by Mirrlees – Black show that 99% of Domestic Violence cases against women were committed by men. She also found out that 1 in 4 women have been assaulted by a partner at some time in her life, and 1 in 8 women, repeatedly so. This is also
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