Battered Woman Syndrome Research Articles

Violence and the Prevention of Violence

Adler, Leonore Loeb, and Denmark, Florence L. (Eds.). (1994). and the Prevention of Violence. Westport, CT: Praeger. 248 pp. Hardcover ISBN 0-275-94873-0, price $55.00. This small volume is an interesting assortment of individual readings on dif ferent aspects of societal and family violence that are presented in 14 chapters sandwiched between two meaty forewords, a preface, and a lengthy epilogue. A handy index and sketches of contributors round out the book. In the first foreword, Leonore Walker draws on her developmental work with battered woman syndrome to offer an exhortatory call for the study of violence prevention. Among her suggestions is that the acceptance of human diversity is a foundation for moving toward a nonviolent world. Benjamin Wolman extends this theme in a second foreword, in which he links violence and violent behaviors with biological drives for survival and dominance and calls for societal elaborations of moral development as the route to violence prevention. In their preface, the editors provide a cursory overview of the 14 chapters and hint about their purpose in pulling together this collection of readings. Their goal is to provide for readers the latest expert scholarship on causes of violence, the different manifestations and forms it takes not just in the North American context but in other societies as well, and to suggest effective strategies for the elimination of violence from our social lives. It is a noble undertaking, and their success should be measured more by their having attempted than by their having accomplished their goal. The first three chapters are grouped together under the heading of violence as a societal phenomenon. Although the heading is misleading, the chapters are interesting nonetheless. Here we find a collaborative (cross-cultural) essay by Tsytsarev and Callahan, suggesting an individual motivational model of violent behavior as an outcome of abnormal cravings for tension reduction, selfesteem, sensation seeking compensation, or communication. This is followed by Lee's report of his empirical research on the subcultural theory of violence (e.g., Are Southerners more violent than Northeasterners?), which uses, among other aggregated data, subscription rates to magazines that exhort masculinity and macho values. Rounding out this section is Takooshian's and Verdi's presentation of their self report instrument for measuring attitudes toward terrorism. Their documentation of the psychometric properties of this research tool is in the early stages, but the instrument is included in full for others who may be interested. Given the April, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing, attributed to domestic terrorists, their research is timely. The next section, Violence Involving the Young, includes five quite different topics. The first is Chisholm's very loosely argued chapter on contemporary U.S. childrearing practices as antecedents of violent youth. Given the expansive empirical base for this topic, one wishes for a more carefully articulated review. This is followed by Herman and colleagues' discussion of treatment issues for abused children. Their solid review is helpfully located within the growing literature on trauma in children. This is followed by a treatment insider's useful discussion of incest abuse among children; Meyer draws upon his extensive clinical experience in his inventory of issues and responses to child victims of familial incest. …

Reactions to a battered woman who kills her abusive spouse: An attributional analysis

This study employs attributional analysis to investigate lay persons' reactions to a battered woman who kills her abusive spouse. Specifically, the study was designed to test the hypotheses that (a) presentation of battered woman syndrome (BWS) information will exert a positive influence on respondents' reactions to a battered woman for her fatal action, (b) female respondents will react more positively towards the battered woman than male respondents in both pre- and post-presentation of BWS information, and (c) the process by which respondents come to form judgements of guilt and sentencing severity will follow Werner's (1979,1986) attribution-affect-action model for motivated behaviour. A total of 203 respondents (98 males, 105 females) from the Darwin metropolitan area completed questionnaires designed to elicit information relevant to the present study. Results indicated that females judged the battered woman less severely than did males, both pre- and post-BWS information. Path analysis suggests that judgements of guilt and sentencing severity were related both directly and indirectly, via affect, to responsibility attribution. However, the results offered only moderate support for the positive effect of BWS information. These findings are discussed in relation to their implications for the introduction of BWS information to Australian courts, and for the ongoing education of the general public with regard to the nature and effects of domestic violence.

Women, madness and medicine

Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. History of the relationship between Women and Psychiatry. includes: Women encounter psychiatry Psychiatrists and asylums Nineteenth--century psychiatric theories of female madness. 2. Modern Psychiatric Perspectives on Women. includes: Psychiatric diagnosis and the interests of women Problems with the conceptual foundations of the DSM--III--R Problems wit subjectivity Narrowness of focus Personality disorders Personality disorders and biological psychiatry Personality disorders and child abuse The medical profession responds to child abuse statistics. 3. Shifting Trends in Diagnosis. includes: Depression Biological studies of depression and diagnosis problems Research into the biological basis of depression Is depression an illness? The sociological challenge to biology Pre--menstrual syndrome (PMS) -- defined? PMS: the causal research generates puzzles Questions about the PMS diagnosis and its role in the discipline of women. 4. Epistemological Problems with the Dominant Medical Psychiatric Perspective. includes: Schizophrenia Genetic studies of schizophrenia Schizophrenia and body chemistry Brain imaging studies of schizophrenia Eating disorders The biological research into eating disorders Non--biological accounts of eating disorders. 5. Women, Psychiatry and Criminality. includes: Female crimes and appropriate female behaviour Biological psychiatry and female crime Pre--menstrual syndrome and female crime Psychiatric legal defences and the interests of women Battered woman syndrome and the law of self--defence. 6. Contrasting Feminist Philosophies of Women and Madness: Oppression and Repression. Examining the work of Phyllis Chesler and Luce Irigaray. 7. Women, Creativity, Reason and Madness. Examining the work of Virginia Woolf and Janet Frame. 8. Beyond Psychiatry. Notes. Index.

Battered Woman Syndrome Defense in Canadian Courts

As a result of a 1990 Supreme Court of Canada decision, battered woman syndrome defense is now accepted as a legitimate extension of self-defense in Canadian courts. This defense hinges on the expert testimony that a battered woman who is accused of murder or aggravated assault suffers from the psychological sequelae of abuse and that this psychological distress contributes to her apprehension of danger and ultimately her apprehension of death during a particular battering episode. The authors present a brief overview of the history of battered woman syndrome defense, the role of the expert in assessing the applicability of this defense in any particular situation, and the pitfalls of using battered woman syndrome defense.

Marital violence: comparing women in violent and nonviolent unions.

The purpose of this study was to explore the degree to which concepts drawn from North American research are applicable to marital violence among Israeli Jews. Interviews were conducted with 161 women after they gave birth in a large medical center, 29 of whom reported at least one occurrence of violent marriage (VM) during the study year. As in comparable North American research, marital violence was associated with economic hardship, with lack of collectiveness in the dyad, and with the conflict solving tactics employed by both spouses. VM women held different attitudes toward husband control and marital violence, and were emotionally dependent on their husbands. Discriminant analysis successfully classified 90% of the cases (67% of VM). The findings can be interpreted in terms of the battered women syndrome as well as in terms of a struggle for power within the family. The data strongly suggest that these may be two distinct patterns of marital violence.

Police Involvement in Domestic Violence: The Interactive Effects of Victim Injury, Offender’s History of Violence, and Race

While there is a proliferation of research devoted to ascertaining the efficacy of arrest and other formal sanctions in deterring domestic violence, little research has focused on factors related to the pivotal point at which this formal sanctioning process begins, namely, in a victim's decision to report her victimization to police. This paper is an attempt to rectify this omission by examining those factors most important in predicting the police-reporting behavior of 1535 female victims of intimate-perpetrated violence (e.g., by husbands and boyfriends) taken from the National Crime Victimization Survey during 1987-1992. In addition to predicting the reporting decision of these victims, models predicting various police responses to a victim's report were also examined, including police response times, police actions at the scene, and the probability of an arrest being made. A combination of contextual and demographic characteristics affected the probability that incidents would be placed into the realm of formal sanctioning. Black victims, victims who sustained injury as the result of their victimization, and victims who reported that the offender had not victimized them before were more likely to report their victimization to police. These same factors were also significant predictors of arrest. Police were more likely to make an arrest in incidents in which victims had sustained injuries, when the offender did not have a history of violence, and in incidents which involved Black offenders victimizing Black victims. Implications for the "Battered Women Syndrome" and suggestions for future research are discussed.

“Battered Woman Syndrome”: Some Reflections on the Invisibility of the Battering Man in Legal Discourse, Drawing on R v. Raby

(1995). “Battered Woman Syndrome”: Some Reflections on the Invisibility of the Battering Man in Legal Discourse, Drawing on R v. Raby. Australian Feminist Law Journal: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 141-151.

The Battered Woman Syndrome and the Cultural Defense

The Battered Woman Syndrome and the Cultural Defense

The “new syndrome excuse syndrome”

I Introduction Behavioral science is on the march. Psychiatrists and psychologists are identifying an ever-proliferating and often bewildering array of new syndromes or disorders. Some have received the clinical and scientific imprimatur of actual inclusion the American Psychiatric Association's official diagnostic manual, referred to as DSM-IV.(2) Examples of the diagnostically respectable disorders include: Antisocial Personality Disorder,(3) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,(4) Intermittent Explosive Disorder,(5) Kleptomania, and Pathological Gambling.(6) DSM-IV characterizes other categories as in need of further study because their existence as discrete psychopathological entities is not yet sufficiently validated to warrant inclusion the manual.(7) Examples Postconcussional Disorder,(8) Caffeine Withdrawal,(9) and Dysphoric Disorder(10) (which was formerly termed Premenstrual Syndrome or PMS and, later, Late Luteal Phase Dysphoric Disorder). Finally, and least respectably, some alleged syndromes have not received general provisional recognition as valid, but are advocated with varying degrees of success by clinicians and researchers who have supposedly identified them. Examples from the last group, which have been chosen from the mental health and legal literatures and from legal cases, where they often arise, include, Battered Woman Syndrome,(11) Vietnam Syndrome,(12) Sexual Abuse Syndrome,(13) Holocaust Survivor Syndrome,(14) Urban Survival Syndrome,(15) Rotten Social Background,(16) and Adopted Child Syndrome.(17) Diagnostic identification, research, and advocacy are unproblematic if they are confined within the mental health professionals' domain. Although the concepts of mental and behavioral abnormality are hotly contested, human suffering is potentially involved, and we will all probably benefit from activities aimed at acquiring valid knowledge of how our mental and behavioral nature is carved at the joints. But swept away by the torrent of science and, alas, pseudo-science concerning alleged new syndromes, many people now suffer from yet another new that I have identified, or at least given a name: the Syndrome Excuse Syndrome. The primary diagnostic criterion for this is an almost irresistible impulse to use the alleged discovery of syndromes of mental abnormality as good reason to alter the criminal law. Those suffering from the new include many members of the criminal defense bar, properly seeking any possible purchase to exonerate defendants, legal commentators, some mental health professionals, and some judges and legislatures. Courts and, less often, legislatures are increasingly inundated with claims that syndromes old and new, validated and unvalidated, should be the basis for two types of legal change. The first is the creation of new affirmative defenses. Examples are claims for the creation of a discrete battered victim or urban survivor syndrome defense. The second change proposal is the expansion of old defenses: for example, loosening objective standards for justifications such as self-defense. All too often, I fear, the new syndromes are not sufficiently validated and are the product of unacceptably soft science or clinical crockery. Nevertheless, this paper will not discuss the pseudo-science problem. Instead, it will accept the validity of some of the new syndromes or some yet to be discovered syndromes because the legal issues are theoretically and practically important only if claimed new syndromes do have reasonable validity. Consequently, this article win assume away the scientific and clinical problems and will focus on the conceptual difficulties and policy dilemmas the New Syndrome Excuse Syndrome presents. This article attempts to clear the theoretical terrain to determine how the criminal law should understand and respond to claims that new evidence warrants the expansion of existing defenses or the creation of new ones. …

The admissibility of expert testimony on the battered woman syndrome in homicide cases

This paper examines the issue of the battered woman syndrome in homicide cases where the woman killed her abuser. In particular, state appellate court decisions where the admissibility of the battered woman syndrome was a central issue are analyzed to determine the extent to which courts have been admitting or excluding expert testimony in these cases. Our findings suggest that although courts today are more willing to accept expert testimony on the battered woman syndrome, there is a lack of uniformity among the courts regarding the criteria utilized to determine admissibility.

The battered woman syndrome: effects of severity and intermittence of abuse : D. G. Dutton, S. Painter Universities of British Columbia and Ottawa, Canada

The battered woman syndrome: effects of severity and intermittence of abuse : D. G. Dutton, S. Painter Universities of British Columbia and Ottawa, Canada

A Feminist Critique of Self-Defense and Provocation in Battered Women's Cases in England and Wales

This paper critically examines the law of self-defense and provocation in cases where battered women kill their partners. It is argued that neither self-defense nor provocation adequately recognizes the situation most battered women find themselves in, and the present criteria for both defenses reflects this inadequacy. Legal advocates and supporters of battered women who kill have thus sought to find alternative strategies for battered women's defense cases. One of these has been the introduction of expert evidence on the battered woman syndrome. This paper will consider the implications of introducing the battered woman syndrome into the English legal system.

Battered woman syndrome and defences to homicide: where now?

For many women, the abuse of power in the form of physical and emotional battering by their so-called ‘partners’ is a fact of life. Individual women feel the pain, the humiliation, the fear and the anger. But the debate about how legally we should respond to a woman who finally kills her abuser is significant beyond the individual. Whatever the predicament of women such as Sara Thornton, or Kiranjit Ahluwalia, sentenced to life imprisonment and forced to scale seemingly impossible obstacles in the appeal process, the exponential rise in literature on this subject is quite disproportionate to the number and increase (if any) in such cases. The real significance of the ‘self-defence for battered women’ movement lies less in these concrete examples and more in its metaphorical role as witness to the social reality of the abuse of women.

The Battered Woman Syndrome: Self-Defence and Duress as Mandatory Defences? Part 2

The Battered Woman Syndrome: Self-Defence and Duress as Mandatory Defences? Part 2

The Debate on the Battered Woman Syndrome

The Debate on the Battered Woman Syndrome

The Battered Woman Syndrome: Self-Defence and Duress as Mandatory Defences?

The Battered Woman Syndrome: Self-Defence and Duress as Mandatory Defences?

Jurors' Decisions in Trials of Battered Women Who Kill: The Role of Prior Beliefs and Expert Testimony1

The present research explored the influence of four factors on mock jurors' decisions in a homicide trial involving a battered woman who killed her abusive husband: (a) jurors' preexisting beliefs about wife abuse, (b) the presence of expert testimony on the battered woman syndrome, (c) jurors' beliefs in a just world, and (d) gender. Mock jurors listened to a trial involving a woman who had killed her abuser, which either contained expert testimony or did not, and then rendered various judgments about the case. Results indicated that those individuals who were more informed about the dynamics of abuse and those exposed to the expert testimony, compared to their respective counterparts, were more believing of the battered woman's account of what occurred. In general, weak believers in a just world were more lenient in their judgments, with verdicts of not guilty being associated with weaker beliefs in a just world than guilty verdicts. Weak believers in a just world also felt that the expert testimony applied more to the defendant than did strong believers. Finally, women who were weak believers in a just world were less likely to hold the defendant responsible for the events and to be more informed about the dynamics of abuse following the experiment.

A Matter of Evidence or of Law - Battered Women Claiming Self-Defense in California

This essay examines the obstacles battered women face in the form of evidentiary rules and in the definitions of certain elements of self-defense, focusing specifically on the appellate court opinion in Aris. The essay then evaluates existing and pending legislation in California which has sought to undo the narrowing effected by Aris. Finally, the essay proposes statutory language which would be more effective in ensuring that battered women who kill their batterers in non-traditional confrontational situations may fully present their claims of self-defense. Where a defendant claims self-defense and presents evidence regarding the Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS), my proposal would require judges to instruct juries to consider such testimony when evaluating the reasonableness of the defendant's use of self-defense. Furthermore, where the defendant alternatively argues for imperfect self-defense, the proposal clarifies the definition of imminence to be whether the defendant actually believed the danger to her life was imminent.

Mental Disorders in Battered Women: An Empirical Study

Prevalence of mental disorders in 62 battered women receiving services from a Florida battered woman agency was identified by means of a structured interview, the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. Of the total sample of battered women, 30 were in a shelter operated by the agency and 32 were living in their own homes and receiving assistance from the agency. Resultant diagnoses met diagnostic criteria developed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (3rd. ed.) of the American Psychiatric Association. The Diagnostic Interview Schedule is a 263 item structured interview used in the National Institute of Mental Health Epidemiological Catchment Area program carried out in the early 1980s. The Diagnostic Interview Schedule permits the use of 10,953 females in the epidemiological study as a comparison group of normal women. Scoring of the interviews was done by a computer diagnostic program with absolute decision rules. Extremely high prevalence was found for psychosexual dysfunction, major depression, post traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder. These diagnoses appear to reflect the major components of the battered woman syndrome developed by Lenore Walker and the study approximates Walker's request for improved methodology in the research into the psychology of the battered woman.

The battered woman syndrome: effects of severity and intermittency of abuse.

The concept of a battered woman syndrome was tested by assessing 50 battered women and 25 emotionally abused women who had recently left their relationships. For both groups, essential features of the syndrome were present and were significantly interrelated. Dynamic features of the prior abusive relationship correlated significantly with these sequelae. The concept of intermittency is proposed as an alternative to the cycle of violence theory as main contributor to the syndrome. Predictability of abuse was found to be unrelated to the intermittency measure.