Anisha Ubbi
Mr. Cormier
CLN4U1-01
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Wife Abuse and the Law Women often stay in abusive relationships as a result of fear; they often feel insecure about themselves which leaves them feeling absolutely worthless. Typically, some women have low self-esteem which causes them to put up with whatever they have too in order to survive and have someone by their side forever, despite the abuse.1 The real question is, is there enough being done by the law to protect all women of all race, nationality, culture and religion from the act of abuse in a home, having enough charges from court systems and the amount of treatment programs to cure an abuser? As a matter of fact, more than 200,000 women have suffered physical and sexual abuse by their husbands or even common law partners within the year.2 Moreover, with the amount of death and abuse rates that occur, courts still seem to easily let go of these criminals.3 Consequently, a quarter of the woman who have lived with violent men say that they have turned to alcohol, drugs, or medication to help them cope with abusive relationships.4 In turn, this harms a woman’s body which could cause death, mental illness and other long term consequences. Unfortunately, the legal system can
Ubbi 2 never put a stop to issues and find it hard to provide a solution.5 Furthermore, if such issues have occurred, the consequences would be nothing more than a lecture from the judge, completing it with a promise that the abuser will not harm his wife in any way ever again.6 Speaking about lectures, if abusers were able to receive just lectures from judges, it would motivate and encourage them to do more crimes, having no consequences for them to face. Indeed, judges allow primary offenders and even those who repeat the same crime to be freed according to a low or no bail at all.7 Likewise, this is why women feel that the Criminal Justice System is not effective in regards to the abuse of women.8 As a matter of fact, 43% of men arrested for domestic violence were released within a day, 43% were released within a week, whereas 14% were released after only more than one week of jail.9 More importantly, the law is in a state where they have fear to take wife abuse in a serious position due to the amount of cases that they would receive on a daily basis.10 Nevertheless, women have been abused for centuries without protection from the courts what so ever.11 Although the process of the court system has improved by just a bit, the laws enforcement on the deduction of abuse is half-hearted and their mind tends to remain misguided, this is because they are not very focused with the effects of wife abuse and are not improving the system.12 Similarly, a quote states, “Powerful social forces permit and even encourage abuse”.13(Bender, p83) This statement clearly shows that the laws are not properly enforced, but now encourage such horrible acts. Not to mention, females who survive violence are usually arrested when they are protecting the abuser from being further prosecuted because they fear their husband and do not want any conflict resulting to revenge.14 Clearly,
Ubbi 3 courts do not understand the aspect of abuse and how women to deal with it because women constantly get beaten up daily, resulting to consequences that would possibly scar a women’s life. Furthermore, a survey that was conducted has been examined and reveals that less than 25% of the Jurisdictions enforce the law of abuse and arrest the abuser.15 A judge who was confused stated, “He had great trouble in understanding why Anne (the victim) would have anything to do with a man that abused her. Why would you spend time with him and get back together with him? It seems to me he would be the last person on earth you would want to spend time with”.16 Clearly, judges do not have knowledge of the outside world and the dynamics of an abusive relationship. Setting a High bail needs to be a requirement as the individual
