A Discussion on How Social Work Helps the Victims of Domestic Violence

With my major being criminal justice, I‘m very interested with understanding more of the social work part of domestic Violence and how they help the victims and the situations. Domestic violence does not discriminate at all, it doesn‘t matter what race, class, or even gender you are; it could always occur at anytime in any relationship, I know from just watching shows and videos about domestic violence, it seems crazy how a woman would stay in a relationship if she was getting abused the whole time.

But what we don’t know from the outside looking in is that she could be held captive to stay in the relationship and if she was to leave she would be found and hurt worse than she already was. It might not seem like a big deal to some, but for other it ruins their life and any other relationship that they could ever have, The field of social work is trying to fix this problem by screening the victim and providing a plan to protect them for when they do leave the relationship to insure their safety Most of the Lime, the abuser is abusing drugs or alcohol when the domestic violence occurs because substance abuse leads to aggression, Domestic violence is a significant risk factor for depression, PTSD, anxiety, and substance abuse in mostly women (Buzawa, 2003) Going back to the history of it all, in the Code of Hammurabi it states that a wife was a servant to her husband and that he could inflict pain or punishment at any time As time passed on from that, more “codes” came into the picture stating that if the wife was to commit adultery the husband could put her to death Others talked about shamefully punishing the wife out in public and not allowing her to go out in public alone.

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I feel like some men in todays time still try and go by these codes because it makes them feel masculine maybe; either way it shouldn‘t ever occuri The US, courts continued to uphold a man’s right to punish with violence until 1871. But even with today’s laws, if a woman wants to charge her husband with assault and battery, she must have more injuries than needed for a battery charge. It is still a huge issue todayi

The way social workers help the victims of domestic violence can vary from state to state There are direct services for the victims and they even provide services to the abusers though court mandated batterer intervention programs to help them get into a better mind set For the victims they have a direct service which is a women‘s advocate or shelter program that gives them advice and security. Even though this job isn’t an easy one, I’m sure it’s very worth it in the end In some cases the social worker will try and change the abusers‘ behavior by bringing in other ways to carry out their anger (Fields, 2013). But in other cases, the abuser has had a full life of either getting abused or being the abuser and that‘s all that they are really used to in life and they don‘t know anything better, When dealing with a victim, the social worker has to be patient and understanding because they’re trying to talk someone out of a relationship with someone that they love but really won‘t live much longer if they stay with them, The statistics of women who die from domestic violence is the highest in New York City, In 2012 68% of all murders of women were related to domestic violence (Fields, 2013) I feel like that is so high because people who see the violence happening, just turn a blind eye because they might be afraid that the abuser might come after them next if they turn them in. this subject hits me hard because I want to work with the SVU (special victims unit) department and they mostly deal with domestic violence and sexual assault with women and kids [just don‘t think it’s right for someone to do something so bad that they die from it, because most of the time the wife or Victim never even did anything wrong; they were just in the wrong relationship and couldn’t help with the situation Just to give some statistics from around the US.; 3 women everyday are killed from a current or former partner, 38,028,000 experienced partner violence in their lifetimes, and 1 in 4 women will be victims of serve violence by a partner in their lifetimes (Vagianos, 2015). Almost 65% of the time, the woman is too afraid to admit of knowing their rapist or abuser,

Social workers are doing everything they can to stop the rising rate of women getting severely abused in domestic violence relationships. They assess the safety of the victim; if they are around the abuser or if it has just happened Next they find out about the history of the abuse and what actually goes on and for what reason, like is the abuser drinking too much, taking some type of drug, orjust have raging anger. After all that is figured out they normally would try and get the victim out of the house and to a safe place, and notify police to assess the damage and the abuser. After the abuser was sentenced and placed in jail, the victim would try and move out; I feel like the main problem here is that I know that abusers don’t go to jail long unless they rape or murder their victim, but what happens when they get out? They could just find the victim or a new one and go right back at it, how can we stop this? Social workers could work on moving the victim out of state and making sure that they have a job and a roof over their head to ensure their safety, Being a social worker and dealing with domestic violence could really take a toll on their health and mind; they could see so many bad relationships to where they don’t trust anyone to ever be in a serious non-abusive relationship. In order to be a social worker in this type of situation, you really need to have a strong mind with that this isn‘t how every relationship is. In the past couple years, different groups have been trying to set up funding for women in domestic violence relationships, in December 2014 the federal funding act was finally passed, VAWA (violence against women act), FVPSA (family violence prevention and services act), and VOCA (victims of crime act) created the funding system that will respond to the needs of victims of domestic violence. That includes domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking; this funding gives victims emergency shelter and services for free (Nicholls, 2007). This funding came in at a great time because 80% of states reported that their programs were receiving cuts and 90% of states reported that they weren’t receiving many donations anymore.

In 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed an outlined grant that provided programs to prevent Violence against women and they also established a domestic hotline, VAWA also helped out rape victims by providing full funding for rape kits and court fees if the victim wanted to file a protection ordert With this Act in place, a convicted offender may not follow the victim into another state or force the victim to stay. Forty-seven states have passed this bill, in the act to try and reduce the rate of women getting murdered by domestic violence This Act doesn’tjust include domestic violence, but any type of stalking; like stalking a former boss that fired you, or catching a husband cheating because you followed them Under this Act, police must arrest the abuser/stalker if caught; with that in place it has had a great effect on state laws controlling domestic violence/partner abusei Asocial worker has some big shoes to fill if they want to work as a domestic violence caseworker because you are pretty much holding someone’s life in your hands, You have to be the one to tell them “look the relationship is not good for you, and if you do stay, you might not make it out next time“, I feel like sometimes the victims need to hear the truth even if it might hurt them because nothing is worse than being abused by someone you thought “loved" you so very much, they don’t deserve you or the time of day and they need to be put away and maybe once they get out they will realize that what they were doing was crazy stupid and that they want to better themselves now. I don’t know the statistics of abusers who go to prison and get released and recommit but I feel like its probably a 50-50 shot because like I said before, some people are just brought up that way and don’t know any other life style but that one and they aren‘t willing to change.