R0bert,

The type of violence you point to is prevalent across all stratum's pf society. Although many will not resort to physical violence they will use physiological violence to abuse and attack. I believe an acceptance of violence has grown within society, in the last 20 years I have come across a growing number of people who use verbal abuse in the first instance, often over the most travel of matters. People you would expect to be calm and reasonable, but they are selfish, and self centered. I see so many young children abusive to their parents, often over the demand for material things. Is this an early grounding for future abuse?

A report today highlights six Western Sydney suburbs as 'hot spots' for domestic violence Bankstown, Campbelltown, Mt Druitt, Parramatta, Blacktown and Penrith. These same burbs could also be hot spots for unemployment and all the other kinds of social problems.

Paul I don't want to get tied up in diverting the discussion too much into the broader political issues around DV. I do though think that the push to portray DV as a gender issue and the misrepresentation of it as prevelant across all spectrum of society have both done a lot of harm to any efforts to reduce its prevelance. Its true that it occurs in all types of households but in the same way that lung cancer can strike anybody but some factors make it a much higher risk. Factors typically identified with disadvantage are the big factors far outweighing gender, privilege or any out the other usual subjects of the narrative.

Hi Paul,

Thomas may be right, that DV is common across all sections of Australian society: go down any street in Mosman or Toorak or Springfield on a Friday night and you'll hear the screams and thumps and women getting thrown against a wall or down stairs, or belted with bricks or star-pickets, just like on any un-named remote 'community'. Mosman is brutal on a Friday night.

Now let's get real: do your own maths: 60,000 cases in three years in the NT involved Aboriginal people, overwhelmingly women, averaging 20,000 per year. [Sorry, I broke your rule: "Hopefully the rabid right will not turn this into an opportunity to do some “Abbo Bashing” and will offer some constructive suggestions as how to deal with the problem."] How many women of that un-named ethnic group are there in the NT ? Total un-named population: about 70,000. Female: say 36,000. Adult female: about 20,000. Likelihood of every single one being bashed: about once each year, every year, year after year. i.e. hospitalised. Two or three times as likely in remote 'communities'.

And by the way, the likelihood of a non-un-named woman in the NT of being bashed: about once every eight to ten years.

You set a very difficult bench-mark, Paul: so what steps would YOU take to reduce the bashing of un-named-group women by un-named-group men ? Hopefully you will not turn this into an opportunity to do some “Abbo Bashing” and will offer some constructive suggestions as how to deal with the problem - i.e. you can't mention the A word. Employment, yes, of course - but in 'communities' ? Not likely.

The floor is yours :)

Joe

Paul, Thomas,

http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/conferences/outlook99/stewart.pdf

I think this study puts the subject into perspective. The salient points are:
-For those at high risk of offending with habitually violent tendencies and those already exposed to the criminal justice system, short prison sentences make little to no difference to the likelihood of re offending.
-For those at lower risk, the threat of criminal punishment and community awareness was a significant deterrent.

Given that the major risk of someone becoming a DV offender is growing up in a household where DV occurred regularly. AVOs do help to keep offenders away and prison kept them away from their families for longer.

Gee Paul, it sounds like you are mixing with the wrong type of people, but then they do say birds of a feather & all that.

As for domestic violence in lower socioeconomic areas, it is to be expected for a number of reasons. Most of these people are where they are due to character failings. These failings that make them perform poorly in the work day world, also make them less able to deal with problems in their private lives, giving the, less avenues of response to problems.

At the same time many of them are on welfare, & spend much more time together than those in the workforce. If they had to spend 8 to 12 hours a day working for their tucker, they would have less time or energy to be aggressive to their partners.

Then again even someone as kind & gentle as I am, would quite possibly become aggressive if they had to deal with some of the slobs, male & female, I see around the Centrelink office I pass when I go into Beenleigh.

[Deleted for abuse. Poster suspended.]