Jon Aaronson, PhD, LPC Divorce Conflict & Partner Abuse Solutions, LLC Madison, WI 53703

1. State Bar of Wisconsin PINNACLE SeminarDOMESTIC VIOLENCE LITIGATIONPractical and Legal ConsequencesIPV—From Behind Closed Doors into the Courtroom Jon Aaronson, PhD, LPC Divorce Conflict & Partner Abuse Solutions, LLC Madison, WI 53703 April 8, 2011

2. From Behind Closed Doors into the Courtroom • Before the program to begins, please • Complete Domestic Violence Quiz • Read Three Anecdotes • John and Carol • Rural Wisconsin couple • Friend’s story 2

3. From Behind Closed Doors into the Courtroom • Objectives • To challenge what “everyone knows” about IPV-affected custody/placement (C/P) litigation: • compare mainstream social science and “gender paradigm”ideological methodologies as ways of thinkingabout IPV-affected C/P litigation; • present sampling of long-established research data that contradicts what “everyone knows” about IPV.

4. From Behind Closed Doors into the Courtroom Objectives • Ask Wisconsin’s … • Family Law Attorneys, including Guardians ad Litem and • Family Court Judges, Commissioners, and case study Professionals … whether their frame of reference for IPV-affected C/P litigation is evidence-basedor reflects an ideological gender paradigm “mind-set.”

5. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • Wisc. Stat. 767(5)(13): If and how should social science research inform: • Assessmentadjudicationdisposition of IPVallegations, defenses, and counter-claims in determining children’s best interests? • Mind-set or research-informed and evidence-based “blind” justice?

6. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Procedural Questions • Compared to other allegations, defenses, and counter-claims arising in C/P disputes … (e.g., regarding AODA, child abuse or neglect) … does the “behind closed doors” nature of IPV warrant different standards of investigation, assessment, and judicial determination?

7. From Behind Closed Doors into the Courtroom • Objectives • To call for the same standards of thorough, evidence-based investigation, assessment, and decision makingabout IPV as should occur regarding any other Wisc. Stat. 767.41(5) factor.

8. Beyond Power & Control Wheels:Urban Legends “Everyone Knows” • Generic anecdotes abound about harm resulting from family courts’ misapplying Wis. Stat. 767.41(5)(am)13 (“evidence of inter-spousal battery … or domestic abuse”): • father-child restricted contact for weeks or even months and “alienation” after limited court scrutiny of women’s IPV allegations; • mothers and children’s “re-victimization” by family court officers’ ignorance of men’s insidious, abusive uses of power and control behind closed doors.

9. Beyond Power & Control Wheels:Urban Legends “Everyone Knows” • Despite contradictory anecdotes of misguided system response to IPV, few social science data are available of IPV allegations, actual incidence, and disposition in family court cases. • Professionals’ perceptions and beliefs often echo empirically unfounded, governmentally endorsed allusionsto the distribution and nature of IPV in the community at large.

10. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • Is power and control the single, universal motivation for all IPV perpetration … • … for any other human phenomenon? • What else in human behavior or experience is explainable by a single factor? • Is IPV a unique phenomenon, warranting a special kind of explanation?

11. Power and Control Wheels Co-habiting Adults Non co-habiting Intimate (?) Partners Heterosexual “Male Privilege” Lesbian/Gay Using “Privilege” External Homophobia Internalized Heterosexism Teen Dating Young Adult Dating Couples Gender neutral / inclusive references to perpetrators and victims

12. Lawyer - (Female) Client*Power and Control Wheel • “USING”: • Attorney Privilege • Information Abuse • Economy Abuse • Emotional Abuse • Minimizing, Denying, & Blaming • Coercion & Threats • Terrorism & Assault • Isolation & Guilt *(http://www.ncdsv.org/images/Power%20Control%20Wheel%20Lawyer%20Client%20by%2.C.%20Wheeler_2009.pdf)

13. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • Is the heterosexual equivalent of IPV ViolenceAgainstWomen(and children)? • Doesall (severe) heterosexual IPV have the same • perpetrators • victims • causes • patterns • dynamics • consequences • remedies

14. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • Are Power & Control Wheel markers – ascribed only to male intimate partners – equally applicable to females? • Threats • Intimidation and domination • Humiliation • Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse • Minimization, denial, and blame • Jealousy, possessiveness, isolation from family and friends, stalking, relational intrusion • Using children • Male (female) “privilege”

15. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • Is IPV ever justified/justifiable? • Is partial “responsibility” for IPV everproperly attributable to a purported victim? • Should an alleged perpetrator’s claim of reactive or responsive violence always be dismissed as only minimization or denial of all responsibility for the abuse? (Should answers differ by victim and perpetrator gender?)

16. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • Undisputed:female victims suffer IPV’s worst physical consequences ... • Are there other meaningful differences between female and male victims? • Are there meaningful similarities between male and female IPV perpetrators and victims? • What, if any, is the emotional fall-out for childrenexposedto– but not directly targeted by – adult family violence? • Is the harm to children different, when the IPV victim is a male or female attachment figure?

17. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • When and how should IPV Psand Vs be distinguishable (legally and otherwise) not only by the physical consequences of the violence? • Is most IPV a zero-sum – P-or-V– phenomenon? • When and how should the “primary aggressor” be identified? • When might sanctioning and/or treating only the “primary aggressor”not be a useful recidivism-prevention strategy?

18. Beyond Power & Control Wheels:Urban Legends “Everyone Knows” Shelter and Criminal Justice Data Allusion to General Population IPV

19. Beyond Power & Control Wheels:Research Findings not Everyone Knows 30 Years of Gender Inclusive IPV General Population Survey Findings

20. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • Lacking IPV data for custody/placement (C/P) litigants • which other data sets … • shelter resident reports and criminal justice records • general population andcommunityresearch … • best frame expectancies about C/P litigant IPV • incidence • type/s • victim/perpetrator gender

21. Situational Couple Violence (SCV)When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators • McDonald, Jouriles, Tart, and Minze (2009) studied “children's adjustment in families with severe[male perpetrated] violence toward the mother.…” asked shelter residents about their own IPV perpetration: • These female victims in shelter reported 96% of their heterosexual partners and 67% of themselves ashaving engaged in “severe violence” toward the intimate partner.

22. SCV –When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators • McDonald, Jouriles, Tart, and Minze (2009) studied “children's adjustment in families with severe[male perpetrated] violence toward the mother.…” asked shelter residents about their own IPV perpetration: • These female victims in shelter reported 96% of their heterosexual partners and 67% of themselves ashaving engaged in “severe violence” toward the intimate partner.

23. SCV –When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators • “…one stereotyped portrait of a battered woman is someone who shrinks from conflict in fear of a violent reprisal ... quick to back down from an argument, and ... overly accommodating of the abusive man's need for dominance. However, [in laboratory] studies … [among] couples that have experienced husband-to-wife violence, both partnersengage in more critical, aversive, defensive, and hostile communication ... compared to partners in distressed, but nonviolent relationships…” (Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)‏

24. SCV –When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators • Many violent couples present as trapped within a closed loop of “back-and-forth … belligerence, contempt, disgust, and overt hostility [that is] longer lasting and ... more negative [than found] in…nonviolent couples.” (Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)‏

25. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • What is the impact, if any, of mandated Batterer Intervention Program (BIP) psycho-education on adjudicated offender recidivism? • What variables best explain why some men re-offend and others don’t?

26. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Substantive Questions • Should any act or result of IPV be judged equally severe to any other perpetration? • Is all IPV “battering” aka “intimate terrorism”?

27. Rethinking IPV in C/P Litigation: Procedural Questions • Is investigation and judicial procedure competent when it does not ask if an alleged victim may • be subjectively (normally) distorting? • be incompletely or selectively recalling? • have contributed to an incident or pattern of IPV? • To avoid “victim blaming” or for any other reason, should court professionals and hearing officers not ask such questions?

28. From Behind Closed Doors into the Courtroom Key Family Court Actors * (no. correct responses to 10 items) FCPsFLAs/Judges Mean 3.11 3.17 SD 2.01 2.32 * Hamel, J, Demarais, SL, Nicholls, TL, Malley-Morrison, K & Aaronson, J. (2009). Domestic violence and child custody: Are family court professionals’ decisions based on erroneous beliefs? Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 1, 2, 37-52.

29. What Makes Social Science“Science”? • Scientific theory is empiricallytestable: • Results may beindependentlyreplicated. • Nonecessaryagreement about the results’ meaning. • Can be falsified– refuted / proved wrong as well as confirmed(at a given level of probability).

30. What Makes Social Science“Science”? • Scientific theory is changeable: • it values negative results (corrective “feedback”) • evidence can change beliefs and way of thinking • all the data is never in—there’s no “final analysis” • Scientific belief systems are: • open and flexible,with • permeable boundaries between – what’s “true” today and what might be thought true tomorrow.

31. How Ideology is not Social Science? • Like science, ideology is a way of thinking: • negative findings are devalued, denied, dismissed, rationalized, etc. • closed, rigidly bounded, and certain • what is true today will certainlybe true tomorrow.

32. How Ideology is not Social Science? • Ideological propositions are not… • subjected to alternative hypotheses • changedbycontrary facts • When methodology and factscontradict theory  “cognitive dissonance”  (choice): • assimilate (revise/interpret) facts  fit the theory • accommodate facts (revise theory) or • change mind  abandon belief system

33. Advocacy and Science(Gelles, R.J. (2007). The politics of research: the use, abuse, and misuse of social science data—the cases of intimate partner violence, FCR, 45,1, 42-51.) • TEGWAR(“The Exciting Game Without Any Rules”) Recent Advocate “Factoids” • “Batterers” always escalate abuse and violence • IPV may begin with emotional abuse but eventually it escalates to physical attacks and severe violence • Batterers never desist on their own.

34. Advocacy and Science “Batterers” always escalate (reported by severely abused victims in shelter) General population data controlled for • high, moderate, and low risk to reoffend; • violence severity and frequency; • criminality; • psychopathology  most IPV perpetrators do not escalate their abuse types or severity

35. Advocacy and Science “Batterers” always escalate (Feld & Straus, 1989, re-analysis of 1985 National Family Violence Survey) • one-third of severe offenders desist without intervention

36. SCV – When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators • There is... considerable evidence [for] a mutual escalation theory of partner violence. ... Most notably, the correlation between the levels of aggression reported for two members of a couple are very high, often in the .6 to .7 range…. if one partner is frequently aggressive, the other partner also tends to be frequently aggressive.” (Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)

37. SCV – When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators • Studies summarized by Tolan et al. (2006): “... couples with unilateral violence reported fewerforms and acts of violencethan do bidirectional violent couples …, [and] acts … less likely to lead to injuries and further violence.” (Capaldi)

38. SCV – When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators In some couples, one partner’s learning nonviolence is “highly dependent on whether the other partner also stops hitting.” (Feld & Straus, 1989; Gelles & Straus, 1988)‏

39. SCV – When Perpetrators are Victims and Victims Perpetrators .... prevalence of any physical aggression toward … new partners was 32% .... for the couples who stay together, [male partner] violence ... at age 20-23 ... was just as well predicted by his partner’s prior physical aggression as by his own …. change ... in violence for each partner over time was strongly associated, indicating ... [intact] partners [tend] to [reciprocally].... increase or decrease in violence … factors related to the partner – and dyad – are critical…to the continuance of intimate partner aggression and violence.” (Capaldi & Kim, 2007)

40. Advocacy and Science • [Mandatory] arrest effectively prevent re-offense. • One follow-up study found less re-offense by employed arrestees than by men not arrested. • Unemployedarrestees were more likely to re-offend than non arrestees. • Recent findings suggest abused women may be less likely to call 911, after a first call resulted in abusive partner’s arrest.

41. Advocacy and Science Only men are violent in abusive families. • … the [empirical] evidence … confirms [this “suggestion”]. • [Therefore,] we need to err on the side of safety… • ... [by assuming]…all [sic] violence [is male-on-female] • intimate terrorism • until proven otherwise. (Italics added.)

42. Advocacy and Science • Only men are violent in abusive families. • “Qualitative” shelter resident reports are almost always not crosschecked or corroborated • i.e., reports of most severely abused female victims • asked only aboutmale partner perpetration

43. Advocacy and Science Only men are violent in relationships • Compared to selective, shelter sample studies, general population and community sample research almost always: • involves much larger data sets: hundreds to thousands (vs. < 100) respondents • tests hypotheses quantitatively • includes male and female respondents • asked about their own and their partner’s abuse and violence

44. Advocacy and Science • Arrest is an effective intervention, which brings about a cessation of violence. (Mandatory arrest is good public policy.) • Based on a single, 1984 study of arrest and recidivism in Minneapolis. • Several subsequent studies, including by the same researcher, failed to replicate the original findings.

45. Theory in Practice: BIP Efficacy • Batterers intervention programs (BIPs) that employ the Duluth model are effective Per heterosexual partners reports of male BIP group members : • Men who declined or dropped out had a 35%chance of staying nonviolent • 40%of BIP-completers remain nonviolent (CONT’D)

46. Theory in Practice: BIP Efficacy • Thus, a woman is only 5% less at risk for re-assault by a male intimate partner who was arrested, sanctioned, and completed BIP than by a man who was simply arrested and sanctioned. Meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies of BIP treatment efficacy (Feder & Wilson, 2005) .

47. Theory in Practice: BIP Efficacy • ~ 65% difference in treatment effects between psychotherapy and BIP. Why? • BIPs view and treat IPV • neitheras mentally disordered or socially deviant violations of intimacy, nor • as a result of “dysfunctional relationship dynamics,” instead • as culturally endorsed, normative male behavior – i.e., behavior men are taught and expected to enact. (Babcock, et al., 2007)‏

48. Theory in Practice: BIP Efficacy • All perpetrators are notalike. • Most IPV perpetrators are notbatterers. • IPV perpetrators are notalmost all male. • IPV is notuniform across situations/couples/families.

49. Theory in Practice: BIP Efficacy • A “one size fits all,” criminal justice-oriented “intervention” protocol does not address: • perpetrator individual differences; • perpetrator personality traits • differing (perpetrator – victim) couple and family dynamics; • environmental conditions and stressors

50. Theory in Practice: BIP Efficacy • Whether the dynamic of conflict-driven SCV is ... • dysfunctional communication or problem solving or conflict resolution skill deficits or • abusive uses of “power and control” ... might perpetrators experience – and resist – BIP as more of the same?