Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Men not reporting and experiences from hotline callers

Some titdbits I found and wanted to save, so why not make a collective post:

37% of female victims of DV called the police only 15% of men did (Family violence in Canada - 2003)

17% of male victims of DV seeked helped with "formal social agencies" compared to 48% of female victims (Canadian General Social Survey - 1999)

Female victims are 9-time as likely to call the police and 5-time as likely to talk to a relative or friend than male victims (National family Violence Survey - 1985)

8% of male victims called the police compared to 22% of female victims (British Crime Survey - 1996)

47% Of female victims and 16% of male victims called the police. Only 39% of male victims defined their expierience as domestic violence but 77% of women did. (Scottish Crime Survey - 2000)

Often victimised men are not taken serious by the police (Farrell - 1993 | Wilkinson - Children and divorce - 1981) and often that leads to men not reporting their victimisation (Steinmetz - The battered husband syndrome - 1980 | Machietto - Aspects of male victimisation and female aggression - 1992)

Women are more likely to report minor cases to officials: Only 25% of all cases reported by women were severe cases compared to 86% of cases reported by men. Men were injured in most of this cases and most of this cases also involved weapons (most often knives) (McLeod - Women against men: An examination of domestic violence based on an analysis of official data and national victimization data - 1984)

How many know that survey research suggest that women who are assaulted are 9 times more likely to report to police and 5 times more likely to tell a friend/relative than men who are assaulted by their wives. (Stets, J. & Straus, M. A., 1990) In general only about 8-10% of women who are assaulted and 1-2% of men who are assaulted report the assault to an agency/authority. (Fontes, 1998) This is likely why archival data indicates more female victims.
(Information on Male Victims of Domestic Violence by David L. Fontes, Psy.D., CEAP)

I also found another survey by DAHM:

Best Practices: Service Provisions for Male Victims of Domestic Abuse Presented at the 9th International Family Violence Research Conference July 13, 2005 - Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men

Participants for the current study were 434 callers who called DAHM and STV between March 2004 to June 2005 for whom data was collected by seven of the ten volunteers at DAHM and STV (although jointly the two helpline's averaged 450 calls per month during that time period only complete1 self reports e.g. men reporting intimate partner violence (IPV) by their partners were included). Others who called the helpline such as female victims, friends, family members and agencies concerned about female or male victims were not included in this study.

[...]

16% of callers were in need of or seeking shelter.
53% indicated they were in need and/or seeking some type of support group.
89% of callers indicated that they were in need and/or seeking legal assistance.
13% indicated that they were in need and/or seeking financial assistance.
79% of callers indicated that they were being or have been physically abused by their intimate partners.
97% of callers indicated that they were being or have been psychologically/emotionally abused by their intimate partners.
31% of callers indicated that their intimate partners threaten to call the police and have them arrested on false domestic violence charges and/or file false protection from abuse orders as a means of keeping their intimate partners under their control and in the relationship. Also included in this statistic are callers who stated that their abusive females partners followed through on those threats once the partner left the relationship.
20% of callers indicated that their partners controlled the money in the relationship.
87% of callers indicated that they were being abused in multiple ways.
19% of callers indicated that along with physical and emotional abuse their intimate partners had used a weapon such as a knife, gun, and/or motor vehicle etc. against them.
59% of callers indicated that there were young children living in the household.
22% of callers indicated that they had requested services and support from police/domestic violence programs/family courts and services were denied them.
22% of callers indicated that they requested and received services from police/domestic violence programs/family courts.
55% of callers indicated that they didn't know where to go for help or were too embarrassed to ask for assistance from police/domestic violence programs/family courts.
88% of callers reported that they were calling regarding a girlfriend or wife.
4% of callers reported that they were immigrants and that their partners had threatened to have them deported in order to control them.

[...]

thirty percent (30%) of callers in this study were unemployed or disabled and living on a limited income and twenty
percent (20%) reported that their partners controlled the finances in the relationship. Combining those two scenarios and adding "imminent danger" to the equation e.g. being physically abused and/or having death threats made against them make the chances of these men needing safe housing or transitional housing services more likely.
Over half the callers had need of a support group. In Maine 1600 women attended support groups at domestic violence shelter programs throughout the state. (2003) No such groups were offered to men through these shelter programs.

[...]

nearly one-quarter of the callers to DAHM and STV reported that when they sought services as male victims of IPV by women they were either denied the same services available to females, not believed, referred to batterer's intervention programs and/or ridiculed for allowing a woman to "beat them up." And over half of the callers in this study didn't know where to seek help (believing that women's shelter programs were only for women and children) or were too embarrassed to ask. Some believed that they were the only ones suffering abuse at the hands of their female intimate partners.

Overall our data indicates that male victims have similar needs to their female counterparts.

Nothing to see here.

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