Getting Stark About Domestic Violence
To speak out against domestic violence services and funding is taboo. Shameful. Heretic. Since I’ve already been branded — a nonconformist, an upstart — I file this adversarial brief.
First, let me quantify “domestic violence” in relation to government and society’s structure.
Government Structure
Domestic violence became a structure of government in 1994 with the passage of the Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA). VAWA is administered by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Violence Against Women (OVW). By virtue of placement, domestic violence became a criminal offense, rather than a social condition. The distinction is significant because it impacts processing and treatment.
Criminalized domestic violence is solely a physical act — assault, rape, attempted murder — felonies turn into misdemeanor domestic violence charges. Violent attacks are downplayed because they occur within the context of adult personal relationships.
Civil Protection Orders
Instead of criminal prosecution VAWA instituted Civil Protection and Restraining Orders. Threatened individuals must apply for protection. A family court judge may issue an Emergency Order and hold a hearing for an order to last longer than a few days. Violation of the Order becomes the crime — not the incident or behavior that prompted the request. Police do not investigate. A judge interviews the parties in a courtroom forum. Judges may refer determination to a third party, often a mental health or legal practitioner.
Prosecutors and court employees prefer to bargain down domestic violence; to waive criminal charges if offenders agree to abide by a Protection Order and treatment program completion.
Societal Structure
Structuring domestic violence knowledge and treatment around intimate relationships obfuscates the landscape. Physical assault is merely one facet of maltreatment. Those with violent, anti-social predilections roam the community-at-large. Those who abuse partners have a higher probability of abusing their offspring (termed “co-occurrence”). Several mass murderers have documented domestic violence records. Narrow understanding of cause and effect thrives because of the interests of the original cast.
Top Players Control Policy & Practice
This brief discloses problems built into domestic violence programming. To lay the groundwork, I disclose the actions of three key VAWA originators: Evan Stark, Loretta Frederick, and Barbara Hart. Casey Gwinn is featured because he controls VAWA-funded alternatives to incarceration. Each profit financially and reputationally. Each continue to drive policy, definition, programming and review. Each diligently repress opposing dialogues.
I. Evan Stark
Stark authored “Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Lives” due to his knowledge of VAWA’s policy failures. The books’ introduction and opening chapters contain an indictment of VAWA programming. Stark knew male maltreatment of women extended beyond physical incidents. Stark knew this form of maltreatment existed in the context of dominance and oppression. Stark admits an extremely low number of offenders are actually criminally prosecuted.
Two indictments are alarming because they forecast severe consequences.
Domestic Violence programming purposely omitted women’s autonomy. Instead, programs are paternalistic. Victims are viewed as weak and dependent; in need of rescuing by system employees. Egregious incidents of violence are promoted by staff to gain optimal suppor. Murder advantageously increases funding. The numerous subtle and insidious methods of coercion and control, used by males to entrap women are ignored by VAWA. Women who stand up to, or self-manage abuse are marginalized and hated by staff. A victim’s aggression and self-defense are labeled contributors to the violence, a belief instituted under VAWA-endorsed terms: “situational couples violence,” “bi-lateral violence” and “mutual violence.”
Services are an “Economy of Victimization.” Staff and advocates finances depend on victimization. Rather than address the cause of violence, a profit-generating economy of treatment and management embedded itself. Thirty years of funding created a monstrous, multi-tentacled service network that is highly detrimental to those who take control of their own situation by cutting off all interaction with the abuser. Services built in tandem with Welfare Reform’s fatherhood and marriage funding, not only encourage but insist, that women with minor children permit abusive men access — custody or “parenting” time. Women who fail to comply are punished with loss of custody and jail.
Stark & the Nature of Abuse
Stark admits men use a wide-range of behaviors to manipulate and oppress women. Stark admits abuse is often continuous, has a pattern, and should not be viewed as only incident specific. Stark admits the repetitive, multi-faceted, nature of abuse erodes the victim’s self-esteem, sovereignty and eventually, physical and mental health. Yet, rather than expand this knowledge into a cultural and societal framework, Stark coined the phrase “coercive control.”
Stark and his acolytes zealously promote the narrative of “coercive control.” They apply it to all manner of male control such as: (1) refusing her access to bank accounts; (2) limiting her interactions with family and friends. Stark promotes criminalization of “coercive control.” While his message has been welcomed in the United Kingdom, it’s gained limited hold in the United States.
My Opposition to Stark’s Ideology
I oppose the term “coercive control.” My reasons include:
The definition is vague, inexact. Another term “ambient abuse” more appropriately explains the cultural aspect of all-encompassing abuse. Ambient abuse better describes a household or relationship that boils with abuse. Maltreatment, a term coined by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), more appropriately broadens the definition of abuse as it encompasses physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Maltreatment is scientifically based; the CDC maintains a body of research, including definition and treatment (safety, stability and nurturing).
It is difficult to prove coercive control in a court of law. Motivation is not factored in. Some couples keep separate bank accounts by choice. Mothers may limit familial contact with children due to unsafe or inappropriate behavior (such as drug or alcohol abuse).
Coercive control can be twisted against a resistant victim. Several domestic violence initiatives are currently used by abusers to gain control over victims. Protection Orders are awarded to males for minor, made-up infractions, custody order violation, and as a means to maintain sole custody awards — to cut-off mothers access and force her into supervised visitation. Out of jurisdiction emergency custody orders is another protection used by abusing fathers to gain sole custody. Termed “forum shopping,” the UCCJA is promoted by father’s rights groups as a method to get a favorable judge.
Indeed, the father’s rights community abounds with researchers who publish that failure to co-parent, allegations of abuse, and even filing for a protective order are coercive control. Judicial and appointee trainings abound with the “evidence-based” ideology.
Stark and Control of Research
Stark epitomizes the domestic violence community’s tendency to discard and prohibit outside research. Problematically, domestic violence research does not stem from the CDC or the National Institute of Health (NIH). Instead, research is funded by VAWA transfers to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). This permits a select group to control research output and narrative.
The in-house aspect results in worthy research being disdained. In his book, Stark scorns a valuable contribution. If research published in 1994 had become foundational, society’s understanding, treatment, and especially, victim response, would have developed along more beneficial lines.
True Cause of Violence is Ignored
Typology of Male Batterers is in fact a very informative, objective study of cause. Because the research fails to promote a funding narrative (fatherhood and domestic violence) it is disparaged by both sides. Worthy knowledge got suppressed. Instead, fatherhood money operates batterers intervention. Domestic violence research focuses on females and treatment instead of cause and motivation. Absent is the personal and financial security of women and children.
I summarize Typologies in my second book “Trumpian Abuse: Government & Family Systems that Prop-Up the Male Regime”. Due to Typologies high value, I summarize below. Two facts are relevant: the degree of each variable influences yield; variables have interplay.
3 types of batterers: (1) Family Only directs violence to personal sphere; (2) General Violent/Anti-Social has violent and inappropriate social interactions; and, (3) Dysphoric/Borderline has an underlying psychopathology.
3 causes of violence: (1) Genetic is due to brain construction; (2) Experience/Learned; and (3) Peer Accepted means a social or cultural group approves.
4 risk factors for violence: (1) Attachment/Dependence leads to violence when threatened; (2) Impulsivity means behavior is controlled by the need for reward, punishment of thrill/novelty seeking; (3) Social Skills are underdeveloped; and (4) Attitude belief in the right to subjugate women.
In the late 90’s, batterer expertise was relegated to Lundy Bancroft who profits from training fees and book sales. Bancroft’s work extracts causal attributes such as entitlement and societal norms, while dismissing severe pathological behaviors. Therefore, women and their children are not protected from anti-social, psychopathic men, who express themselves in sinister ways. Indeed, fathers who must win at any cost were permitted to develop and market tactics tha rule family court.
The Greenbook Initiative, a 2001–2007 federal grant meant to resolve co-occurrence, instead embedded fatherhood practices within domestic violence services. VAWA insiders (Bancroft, Ellen Pence) took training and audit awards, without addressing the physiological needs of women and children. Treatment of batterers became the sole result of Greenbook Initiative funding. Treatment is limited to one risk factor — learned behavior. All other types, causes and risk factors are ignored by program administrators.
II. Loretta Frederick
Our second VAWA influencer is Loretta Frederick, who rose out of Minnesota’s domestic violence community, and co-founded the Battered Women’s Justice Project (BWJP) with Barbara Hart, our third influencer. While Stark skulked away to write his book, our two women, both lawyers, played numerous roles in program development. I cannot delineate all their questionable actions, so I attempt to show the magnitude of their misguided decisions.
The Model Code
Concurrent to VAWA’s passage, Frederick and Hart wrote The Model Code. I assess the Code and its impact in my third book AFCC net: People, Policy, Practices that Intrude in Child Custody Determinations. Working with the National Coalition of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) Frederick and Hart wrote legislation that they believed would be enacted at the state level. Police were to arrest violent men. Mothers and children would remain together in the home. Fathers would pay child support and be kept from causing future harm. Domestic violence groups would receive fees for training and consulting.
The idealized legal response never materialized. However, Hart and Frederick became enormously rich off training and consulting fees. While Hart commands domestic violence organizations, Frederick found dominance within judicial organizations. Working with Model Code collaborators, Frederick has spent the last 30 years filtering OVW training and technical assistance grants thru her alliances, including:
— BWJP;
— NCJFCJ;
— Praxis International, the group Ellen Pence used to promote her graphic The Duluth Model;
— National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence (NJIDV) a collaboration of San Francisco associates Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF), renamed Futures Without Violence.
It is important to know FVPF/Futures participates in numerous efforts that reward males while punishing women and children.
(1) the Greenbook Initiative’s San Francisco grantee;
(2) OVW’s Engaging Men, uses children to reform offenders; and
(3) Fathering After Violence a supervised visit reform program.
Hart and Frederick’s group BWJP is awarded millions in OVW grants. The Child Custody Differentiation Project grant report admits that mothers and children are seriously harmed by the current appointee system which is ripe with due process violations (pg. 5–10). Yet, ten years of continuous funding have done nothing to reverse the damage. Instead, the grant funded collusion amongst actors. The three groups (AFCC, NCJFCJ, BWJP) are primary conspirators of custody litigation malfeasance, where primary caregiving women are forced to coparent regardless of child maltreatment, pay exorbitant management fees, and/or be punished for non-compliance with jail and supervised visits.
Frederick collaborates with NCJFCJ to author training protocols, funded with private and public money.
Frederick presents at AFCC trade association conferences, working with high level practitioners who develop processes for use against women and children. For example: a 2007 AFCC conference featured Frederick and Janet Johnson giving an all-day Judicial Officers Institute training on “Domestic Violence and Differentiation.” Johnson, a sociologist, reformulated Parental Alienation theory using a Family Systems Dynamic. Johnson’s model forces fatherhood while dismissing child maltreatment. Johnson originated the “differentiation” classification system of domestic violence. Cause is downplayed and violence is labeled “situational couples violence.” Johnson believes “conflict” causes the violent episode. Even though Johnson is not a mental health practitioner, she developed punitive, psychological methods of treatment and management that are detrimental to maltreated women and children.
The National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women (NCDBW) is historically tied to core practitioners Barbara Hart, Loretta Frederick and Evan Stark. This original cast defended battered women accused of crimes. Stark acted as expert witness while Hart and Frederick provided legal counsel. Originally an arm of BWJP, renamed NCDBW is funded by HHS and OVW. NCDBW promotes alternatives to criminalization, such as restorative justice, another treatment/management method known to be detrimental to maltreated women and children.
Frederick’s silence (or outlandish change of viewpoint) coincides with increased fatherhood funding. Her duplicity is exposed by examining Restorative Justice.
Restorative Justice
A therapeutic alternative to criminalization that can be coupled within fatherhood, anger management, and domestic violence treatment programs. A counselor holds a conference with the victim and perpetrator and their respective “supporters.” The goal for the victim is forgiveness. Perpetrators are encouraged to apologize thus regaining the victim’s trust. The facilitator script discloses an amazing callousness. Victims are not permitted to speak of the violent incident, only their emotions. Supporters of the perpetrator add an additional, often subtle layer of intimidation. Victims are pressured to redeem perpetrators and continue their relationship. An agreement may include a “Safety Plan” which requires the victim to assume responsibility to stop future harm. The victim is forced to sign this contract and be held liable for failure to abide by its authority. Counselors happily write-up formal agreements while the parties share refreshments.
Enfolded into 2021’s VAWA refunding bill, Restorative Justice is packaged as a Restorative Practice, even though the practice is known to be coercive and dismissive of past harm and future danger.
OVW funds Restorative Justice’s implantation through The Center for Court Innovation, a group that works to find alternatives to criminal conviction.
Frederick & Restorative Justice
Frederick acknowledges the shortfalls of applying Restorative Justice to maltreated women and children in a 2009 paper written with sociologist James Ptacek.
Frederick identifies herself as a “feminist antiviolence activist” alleging that she cares about women’s equality and rights, yet her ideology is paternalistic at best.
Restorative Justice was first used in faceless crimes such as theft, or property defacement committed by juvenile offenders. The idea being: perpetrators would see the person and harm caused. Empathy would change behavior.
Restorative Justice practitioners are offender oriented (used to working with offenders — not victims). This skews the practice to favor offenders. Victims lose safety, are made responsible, are pressured and coerced into agreements. Mothers are discouraged from leaving violent relationships.
Casey Gwinn
Restorative Justice was embedded into domestic violence processing by Casey Gwinn, a prosecutor from San Diego, California. Gwinn marketed his big idea “Hope” with a book and non-profit, the National Family Justice Center Alliance, now called Alliance for Hope International. Perpetrators of domestic violence and child abuse are processed, treated and managed at one location. Instead of criminal prosecution, offenders receive to fatherhood classes. Victims receive Restorative Justice. Custody orders are written on-site. Programs operate nation-wide. Domestic violence courts use a similar, multi-service structure..
Gwinn presented “The Transformation and Healing Power of Hope” at NCJFCJ’s 2021 conference held in St. Louis, Missouri — a jurisdiction operated by men’s/father’s rights judges, lawyers, and court appointees. Hope is the victim’s only defense.
III. BARBARA HART
Our last influencer, Barbara Hart, is perhaps the most cunning. A George Washington University educated attorney, Hart took refuge at the University of Southern Maine where she acts as Director of Law and Policy of Domestic Violence, in the Muskie School of Public Service.
Hart influenced the original version of VAWA which included a provision that a victim of domestic violence crime could file a tort action (financial award). The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the tort provision in 2000.
During VAWA’s glory years, Hart founded multiple organizations that would filter funding and operate programming. For example:
— BWJP;
— Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV), state umbrella group;
— Berks Women in Crisis, a local service group;
— National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV);
— National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women;
— National Center on Protection Orders and Full Faith and Credit (currently housed at BWJP);
— Batterers Intervention Services Network of PA (currently inoperable);
Today, Hart’s groups command community services and policy. They command grants that they filter through their groups — purchasing research, giving and receiving training and technical assistance; attending group conferences. They control domestic violence services and narrative. They claim to “speak for victims” yet they ostracize those who have opposing research, viewpoints and service models. Directors and staff of Hart’s groups work in collaboration with father’s rights and fatherhood practitioners. They work diligently to hide malfeasance of internal players.
These programs and their operators do not give victims opportunity — housing, education, skills training, self-management. Operators work diligently to hide the self-enrichment of punitive practices.
VAWA HAS NO INDEPENDENT REVIEW
Barbara Hart set-up another organization to review VAWA grants. VAWA MEI (Measuring Effectiveness Initiative) is housed within the Justice Policy Program at the Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy, Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine.
Let’s be clear about this huge problem:
A program originator, tied to multiple grant recipients, commands program review. The originator tells us if the money does what it is supposed to do — assist victims of domestic violence. This maneuver hides program malfeasance. I have documented that the model of enactors controlling review is standard practice in programs that directly impact women and children’s living conditions. Fatherhood programs are reviewed by Jessica Pearson who is aligned with fathers’ rights groups. Child Welfare is reviewed by groups funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a 30 year plus funder of fatherhood research, public relations and programs. Casey funds Child Welfare through numerous subsidiaries. This model girds up a predatory social service network, reconstructed in the 1990’s. This model takes money from the most disenfranchised and gives it to program operators.
IN CONCLUSION
Domestic violence programming is rotten because of its core. A select group created legislation, programming and ideology. While programming fails to address the most basic physiological needs of the actual victims (permanent housing, continuation of primary caregiving) it swathes an elite core in royal opulence.
Actors ostracize opposition and differing views. Victims are told what to say, the terms to use, statistics and research to cite. Victims who fall in line are used to promote legislative goals that create even more training and research grants, while keeping the status quo firmly in place.
If that’s not coercion and control what is?
