[Cont']

I'm not saying non-phyical provocation should be allowed as a defence of physical harm inflicted, but it should be a consideration of 'relationship breakdown' in creating strategies for reducing DV that work.

Why would you settle for a system thats maximum effectiveness is only ever going to be 25% when a better strategy could increase that effectiveness 3 fold? (Don't know the real statistics)

Not only that when you have a strategy that is much more effective in removing the ones that should never have been there, and gain critical mass over the problem, you EARN the right to then crack down harder on all the bad offenders.

If you don't prepare people properly for relationships, then we can't get too upset when things go wrong.

'If we don't prepare men for the potential that they can be used, manipulated, emotionally blackmailed, entrapped, and have their partner deliberately undermine them and destroy them emotionally based entirely on (the females) own insecurities, as well as using kids and finances as weapons and even then they cannot say anything about it.'

If we don't educate men on this, is it not just as irresponsible as letting an unskilled unlicensed driver on the road?
What's the difference?

I don't want to support a system that only seeks spend taxpayers money locking people up.
I want to support a system that prevents the bloke from ever ending up in court in the first place by changing his thinking before he finds himself in a situation harmful to himself and others.
He's probably a taxpayer too.

Hi AC,

That's a very good point: it reminds me of so much in Aboriginal policy: to wait for a problem, then find someone to blame (usually 'colonialism', no matter what), and to patch up the horrific consequences of letting a problem fester, but only if the victims are still alive.

Yes, surely it's better to have pro-active, preventative, policies, than patch-up, remedial, dumb-down policies ?

Yes, your suggestion of education programs in the media to educate women and men as to their rights and responsibilities, and how to improve relations with partners, how each can appreciate the roles and responsibilities of the other partner - this could be done in many different ways, from the elementary to the more reflective and philosophical.

After all, equal rights is probably the most outstanding achievement of the long-fought-out Enlightenment.

If we started early enough, and kept at it, hopefully we could push that target up to 100 %.

Cheers,

Joe

Lets go back to Killarney's earlier relating that the guy in that court case was 'acting like a complete jerk' sending a multitude of abusive text messages etc.
- But she also said he 'Seemed to be a good dad when the court case was over'.
She argued over the huge expense of the court case.

Well you must remeber there's 3 sides of the story.
His, hers and the truth.

How do I know she wasn't sitting on the couch saying.
"I don't care that we've only been together a year, I'm going to sit on this couch spending your money on hairdressers, pedicures and expensive designer clothes, and if you don't like it and want a divorce I'm gonna take half your shite."

I imagine that's going to drive him up the wall until it's settled.
What about the idea he had to spend a fortune protecting herself from a woman who attempted to take more than she deserved?

Who had much better support around her, and the idea that court would traditionally argue in her favour?

We can all say he was jerk for going off, but did he not have reasons for doing so?
I don't know the whole story.

An act of domestic violence - which is what this thread is supposed to be about - is an assault. We still have calls from those who want to protect assailants to forget about the assault and what makes it possible - the assailant has access to the victim. The only sure fire way of making it IMpossible is locking up the scumbag who assaults. Here are some of the substitutes for actually stopping the assaults that constitute domestic violence:

#Restructuring society
#Getting victims to hide away in shelters (with or without the kids?)
#Inflicting lectures on schoolchildren who have never encountered DV and never will
#Waiting for gender equality
#Insulting men by claiming that men in general are violent scumbags
#Insulting women by claiming women seek relationships with violent scumbags
#Funding a marriage guidance industry
#Coming up with cures for lunacy (PC term "mental health issues")

The list is endless as sympathisers with violent scumbags - the basher lobby - seek protection for their bashing access.

These non-cures leave DV unimpeded and drain national budgets.

Like any enemy, "the things that batter" cannot be defeated by appeasement.

Hey Loudmouth,
I'm real glad someone was able to see my point.
I think we could get to around the level of efficiency I suggested, but with immigration and different religious and cultural issues there's always going to be a number of people that you'd expect to have problems with.

"Yes, your suggestion of education programs in the media to educate women and men as to their rights and responsibilities, and how to improve relations with partners, how each can appreciate the roles and responsibilities of the other partner - this could be done in many different ways, from the elementary to the more reflective and philosophical."

I didn't actually put forward any recommendations for a strategy or course of action just yet.
I was thinking along the lines of:
At School - '1 lesson per week on 'relationships' during Year 10 for a least' two of the four terms.
Around 20 classes plus a 80 to 100 page handbook.
There's a lot of topics, issues and examples to cover which I won't outline here.

Is that too much? Is one term and 10 classes to little?
The I'd have a Website and App, with more info and access to more support.
With Police: Both Parties involved in DV are given the updated handbook, access to support organisations and the original information is reinforced.

A media campaign could indeed promote these services.

I thought a little more about this topic and I came up with this 'compound interest' type of idea.
I say 'compound interest' because I can't find a better word for it but the idea I'm trying to express is more like 'emotional baggage accumulation'...

Lets say we taught kids all this info right from the get go - at school - before they ever start having issues.
If we prevent them from having messy breakups to begin with, we will also inadvertently be preventing them carrying baggage onto following relationships, and from those issues spreading out poisoning more and more relationships like cancer.

Does that make any sense?
The lawyers will hate me.

Hi AC,

Yes, that would be a good beginning. There's a couple of things we have to remember:

* men and women will be together, one way or the other, forever. Each can't do without the other for long. Nobody can say "Go back to where you came from."

* Gender relations can't avoid being of becoming power relations: especially if and when children come along, men are going to have different life and career pathways to women, if women are the ones who have to carry and bear the children, raise them, and by default therefore be stuck with all the humdrum domestic responsibilities, rather than the man in a relationship.

So we all have to work constantly on being aware of inevitable power differences (especially if children are involved) and how to counter them, and to make efforts to share domestic duties.

Jeez, I should talk :(

Regards,

joe