Beyond Punishment: What Really Matters About Chris Brown's Sentence
Today, millions of us will watch R&B star Chris Brown chat up Larry King after he receives his sentence for brutally beating his very famous girlfriend. Smart money says that King will put to him the question that captivated so many of us when his plea deal was announced in June: did the court let him off too easy? Once again, it will be the wrong question.
It's natural to want to see abusers punished. It's certainly preferable to watching them get off scot-free (as do over half those arrested for domestic violence every year, according to the National Institute of Justice). But if there's any silver lining to this whole awful incident, it's the way it's put relationship violence back in our public conversation. Given how infrequently that happens, we should be doing more than just be asking what kind of sentence Chris Brown deserves. We need to ask what kind of sentence will help ensure he -- and men all over the country just like him -- never beats another woman.
Abuser education programs got their start over 30 years ago. In that time, we've learned a lot about the factors that influence whether an abuser will reform or re-offend.
"All the research that's been done points to one consistent finding about batterer intervention, which is that the longer people stay in batterer intervention programs, the better they do," says David Adams, co-founder and Co-Director of Massachusetts-based Emerge, the very first batterer intervention in the country. That's good news for Brown, who was sentenced in California, the strictest state in the nation when it comes to length of mandated abuser education. He'll be required to complete an entire year's worth.
But what really may make the difference for Brown is a factor most programs sorely lack -- accountability. While all eyes will be on Brown as he completes his sentence, that's hardly the case for most abusers. In fact, few jurisdictions in the country have systems in place to enforce their own sentences when it comes to batterer intervention programs, resulting in a national noncompletion rate of about 50%. Given that abusers who fail to complete their court-mandated programs are more than twice as likely to reoffend than those who do, that's a gap which urgently needs addressing.
Why aren't we doing better? "There's a surprising lack of consistency across courts," says Adams, who works with judges and prosecutors to educate them about their key role in these cases. From state to state, jurisdiction to jurisdiction, accountability depends all too often on individual judges "getting it" or not. Some jurisdictions are models of judicial follow-through, carefully tracking each convicted batterer's progress on their sentence -- and those districts have been proven to powerfully reduce rates of new violence by convicted batterers. But other judges don't even get to the point of tracking, declining to comply with their own state laws mandating certified batterer intervention programs for domestic violence offenders, and instead sending abusers to uncertified, shorter (and far, far less effective) anger management programs. Few of these judges ever face consequences, so we can hardly expect the batterers they sentence to be held to account.
There's a solution to this problem that is guaranteed to save the lives of women -- a standardized program in each state that would enforce our already-existing mandatory sentencing laws, track the progress of batterers through their programs, and refer those that drop out back to the courts to face increasing consequences. But none of this is likely to happen if states keep defunding the issue as many have in recent years (and nowhere more egregiously than Brown's home state of California, which just cut a devastating 100% of all state funding to domestic violence prevention and services). If we don't reverse these cuts, not only will we not see programs put in place that can stop batterers from striking again, but the existing shelters and other programs that save the lives of women every day will have to keep scaling back critical services, or close their doors for good.
This may seem like a tough-but-necessary measure in lean times, but it's actually costing us every day in lost wages and productivity, increased need for emergency responders, unpayable medical bills, and more -- in fact, the World Health Organization estimates that intimate partner violence costs the USA economy $12.6 billion every year. And that tally doesn't include the immeasurable cost to all of us when our mothers, sisters, and children -- even sometimes ourselves -- have to choose between living in terror or leaving our homes and communities.
If our collective outrage over Brown's violence toward a woman he claimed to love means anything besides an obsession with celebrity scandal, then we'll refuse to wash our hands of this issue when it leaves the headlines next week. Instead, let's hold our government and our justice system accountable the way we need that very system to hold batterers accountable -- beyond sentencing, until we see results.
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There are a couple of things that need to be done to stop abusive relationships
1. Have swift and sure criminal punishment for men who beat up women - not those stupid "anger management" classes that go in one ear and out the other, but serious prison time.
2. Teach Martial Arts to all middle school and high school girls, so they can survive and even win a physical fight with a larger male opponent (I'd recommend Krav Maga - it's an Israeli martial art that is light on the pacifist nonsense that distorts a lot of the East Asian martial arts and it's heavy on the crippling and/or killing the person who is trying to harm you skills, and not feeling bad about doing what you had to do to survive)
3. Teach high school girls and college women the importance of economic independence, having your own job, your own bank account and your own money - because female economic dependence on men breeds male contempt for women and male contempt for women breeds domestic violence
i dated a woman for 4 yrs. found out she was cheating one me, confronted her one night, and wound up 'tuning up' the guy she was cheating with. long story short, wound up getting arrested, $4800.00 in court costs, and an 18 week, once a week program for anger management, at $50.00 per week out of my pocket. at the end of the 18 weeks, the two counselors and the class voted to see if i passed the class, if not either take the class again or off to jail. that was eight yrs. ago. learned alot about myself. most anger comes from a control issue, wanting to control the other person.
you can't change something until you understand what you are changing, and what causes your behavior in the first place. most people don't want to go there, and even less, have to fortitude to make those tough changes. easy to talk about, very, very hard to do. do i still get upset at times, yep, but now i understand why, and am able to diffuse the situation before it gets out of hand.
You can't force someone to get help. Whether an alcoholic or drug addict or physical abuser, that person has to want to get the help they need. Brown will tell the court what he thinks they want to hear and then be back in the headlines again eventually after beating or killing a woman.
Actually, you can. It doesn't work every time, but you absolutely can. Otherwise, we wouldn't waste the money on involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations. The reality is that not everything is within a person's rational control, so the extent to which they want help may or may not be a significant factor in seeking it, receiving it, or benefiting from it.
Let us get some perspective here:
When are women going to learn that the Spanish Inquisition should not be a part of their relationship with a man?
When are women going to admit that at least 50% of this debacle was caused by Rhianna, the WOMAN?
When are these so "EQUAL" women going to realize that if youkeep battering verbally at someone, hurling accusations and generally making life a CHORE and a misery, that the childish or uncontrolled man may just HIT BACK?
I am tired of this hypocrisy. Women slap men all the time and get away with it. Nag them to death and get away with it. Accuse them of every crime under the sun and get away with it. Rhianna pushed the envelope. Many women do. The MEN ARE WRONG TO HIT THEM, I agree- BUT why do women think they have the right to do ANYTHING to ANYONE and get away with it.
She was abusive, scornful, and just plain nasty. He hit her. He was wrong. So was she.
WOMEN, stop ABUSING your men.
If a man is being abused he should leave. Same for women. "You made me do it" is not taking responsibility for what they did. If you think you are going to hit someone then it means the relationship is not working out SO LEAVE.
"why do women think they have the right to do ANYTHING to ANYONE and get away with it."
Who said women think this? And what is 'get[ting] away with it'? If it's not getting beaten by your partner, I'd have to say, yes, I do think you should be able to say almost anything without fear of physical violence. Gender has nothing to do with my feelings about the evil of domestic violence. If the Chris Brown-Rihanna situation were the other way around, I'd still be angry. I think that no matter what gender you are, and no matter what you say (possibly excluding immediate and direct threats), you should never have to fear violence from your partner. B*tching at someone does not necessarily qualify as abuse, and there is a huge gap between physical and psychological abuse.
The sad truth is if Rihanna wasn't a star this wouldn't be a story.
Well if she didn't look the way she did, she wouldn't be a star or story.
"Today, millions of us will watch..."
Today, millions of you will purchase tragedy as an entertainment product, and vicariously pant your way through someone else's nightmare. "He _brutally_ beat her? Isn't it horrible?" "He said he _loved_ her! It's unbelievable?"
It's business as usual. Take the celebrities out of it and It's ordinary, statistically common, and utterly unremarkable. Put the celebrities back in and it's ordinary, common, unremarkable, and a product the media can sell for millions.
"It's natural to want to see abusers punished..."
Like many of our biological drives, it's both natural and stupid. Punishment is an ineffective deterrent, and therefore just one more perpetuation of the abuse. We indulge in it because we enjoy hurting each other. When we institutionalize it, all we do is create an endless cycle of punishers and punished, thereby adding to the total misery. None of it helps, but all of its is wonderfully lucrative, which is after all the point. We're monkeys, we love violence, and in a corporate media culture, violence is profitable.
By the time a Chris Brown exists, it's too late to do anything about him except perhaps not allow our children to watch the media masturbate over the victim's bruises. Sociopaths are created in childhood, perhaps by nature, perhaps by nurture, but we have no demonstrated ability to heal such adults. And so long as we're obsessed with condemning, hurting, celebrating, buying, selling, and killing them (and profiting off them), we never will.
Punishment is not always an ineffective deterrent. In some situations, it is better than the alternatives; In others' it's not.
Very good article!
Tough sentencing, alone, will not make any difference. When men (and women) become violent towards their spouse they are not thinking rationally. They are not thinking "if I beat her, I will go to jail". In fact, when angry the only thought is the will to act on that anger. That anger is based on a perceived injustice and it doesn't matter if the perception is correct or not. "Anger management", while laudible, is also insufficient. The idea of justice, its meaning and ramifications, must be taught and trained early and often.
That isn't to say people cannot be held accountable, just that throwing people in jail for longer periods of time will not cause people to second guess themselves when they get angry.
Using violence to solve difficult problems runs very deep in American culture. Our entire relations with the rest of the world are similar to the collective attitudes of men toward women in this society. So, Americans usually resort to intimidating the weak around the world and bullying those that back down.
Nothing will change, until we begin changing our entire TV-driven culture and self-images. So, all these other points, such as picking a black couple to make public points, may be valid. But they are mostly irrelvant. Our entire culture is based upon muscle, power, and intimidattion. Why else would anyone watch Donald Trump bully a batch of much-poorer, aspiring assistants?
BTW, Chris Brown and Rhianna are entitled to have their case handled as an individual incident, not an example for others. That's what everyone would want for their own legal problems. But I suppose that no one cares, when people can be used to make politically popular points!
You know what will stop men from beating up women? Women fighting back. Same goes for gay bashing.
I advocate for women's self defense but that alone will not change the rate of attempted and realized assault. The heart that rages must change, in my very humble opinion. In fact there is a story about a woman who was trained in the martial arts doing major damage to an assailant, but because he was so big, he was able to do damage as well. Only a change of the assailant's heart could have determined no damage to either party. It is in the heart where crime begins. Change the heart and change the instances of crime. I know, that is just too hard.
"Only a change of the assailant's heart could have determined no damage to either party. "
...that or a more devastating application of the princples and theories of pain. The aforementioned story goes, the woman was a black belt in her respective art. Which is why she was able to inflict damage (training did pay off). Any response to a bully must be quick and devastating not allowing for response. This has nothing to do with physical size and everything to do with the transfer of energy. As stated, I advocate for women's self defense no matter age or size. It is a good thing for general health as well as preparedness for a hostile situation. Seek out a qualified teacher. Research the subject. Be the change.
No. It won't. What will 'stop men from beating up women' is a culture that sees domestic violence as unacceptable in all cases. What will end gay bashing is an improvement of the status of women, and thereby those associated with them.
i.e., love.
Batterers and victims of battery are both victims of a lousy system. A system often learned in a lousy family of origin. Violence seems to be woven into the fabric of the human existence, but that doesn't mean we can't stand together against it. I tell my daughter not to hit, and I tell the teens I work with to "respect each others' bubble" when the so-called "playing around" seems to get invasive.
People want power. Some people use physical force to feel it, and women certainly feel the brunt on the physical plane. However, the emotional, psychological and spiritual wounds are equal on all fronts. When a household gets out of hand, and law enforcement is called, both parties must be mandated to get help. Everyone is a victim. Let's leave the blame game and whether or not the punishment fits the crime alone, and change the way we treat this. I vote for batterers groups, battered groups, and then having both groups mix 6 months down the line. It takes courage, but what choice do we have to change the relational skills?
My father beat my mother up for 40 years. When he finally died, one of my brothers stood up in front of a congregation of hypocrites and described him as a "great man."
Like your post, that was 100 percent horseshat. The man got off easy, had none of the "emotional, psychological and spiritual wounds" that my mother carried, but would have cottoned up to your apology nicely.
"However, the emotional, psychological and spiritual wounds are equal on all fronts. "
Maybe on your planet, but here on earth, hitting your partner is not emotionally equivalent to getting the sh*t beaten out of you. Victims of domestic violence live in fear that at any moment, something they do or say will set off the abuser.
"When a household gets out of hand, and law enforcement is called, both parties must be mandated to get help."
No. Sorry, but you do not heal people who have lived in fear, with a sense that their situation is completely out of their control, by taking control away. Moreover, whatever someone does, they did not deserve to be hit. Period. The abuser is not damaged in the same way the victim is by abuse.
Let me Understand This said : "Men are physically reactionary so our natural reaction will be to strike back but (some) woman want it only "I can hit you, but you can't hit me".
Are you kidding me? Men are physically reactionary? And that is why you want to strike back? Jeeeezzzzzzzzzz.
PatA - Answer the following question please.
I would like to say hitting anybody because you are angry is never a reason, but I want to ask woman to answer this question. "If you hit a man first do you expect to get hit back?"
Sorry. Most victims do not hit their partners first. And, even if they did, the person with greater physical strength has a greater responsibility for restraint, because of the level of potential damage.
PatA - You also choose not to include the rest of my statement, so i take you agree with the first part?
Jacklyn what is not in the research is how many woman initiated the violence by physically attacking the man first. I know 90% of woman will say "a man should never hit a woman no matter what" this is a double standard and BS. Men are physically reactionary so our natural reaction will be to strike back but (some) woman want it only "I can hit you, but you can't hit me".
I'm familiar with that research, and you're leaving out a couple of little details. One, of course, is that a woman who initiates a physical confrontation is every bit as subject to arrest as a man who does so - in fact, in a large number of states, domestic violence statutes have been rewritten and are not only gender neutral, but require that the aggressor be arrested on the spot.
And the second thing you're leaving out is the disproportionate level of violence. Overwhelmingly, that "physically attacking the man first" consists of something like a slap, a push, or throwing something, and does little or no physical damage. The male response, on the other hand, is NOT at a level of self-defense, but involves repeated blows, causing injuries ranging from bruises and black eyes to broken bones, often requiring medical intervention and even hospitalization.
Are you crazy? Yes, women initiate. So what. A woman, on average is shorter, weighs less, and has less physical muscle. In other words it doesn't actually hurt. If a child punched you would you kick the crap out of him? No, Men are not physically reactionary. We're adults we need to act like it. Keep your hands to yourself, argue with words. Walk away. basic rules for functioning as an adult.
Start from scratch, the foundation is shaky on so many fronts. You want to eradicate a mentality that pervades and that has a manifestation spectrum that ranges from annoyance to murder? Start from scratch, for hypocrisy is all throughout the democracy, the family, and the individual. It could well be the dawn of the age of hypocrisy come home to roost.
A new society, from the ground up, that is the prescription, where old stereotypes, illusions, delusions, confusions, excuses, abuses, doubts, fears, perversions, and distortions are shed like old skin. We need more than surface modifications to change the sickness that undermines, that undergirds, that unmistakably harms a nation from within.
Hitting a woman is a non-option in a scenario forever relegated to nonexistent impossibility -- it simply cannot and will not happen. But what of the non-physical (yet no less devastating) way in which women hit men. That is part of the sickness that exists. Women exist who assault men via their heart to get to their wallet and then those same women complain if somehow love as money pursuit is less than bliss. They really complain if they look up and see the rent is paid (“ain’t nothing going on but”...the woman said) but the monster who paid it is kicking down the door. Janet Jackson asked, what have you done for me lately. Was her message valid? Is a love relationship a business arrangement, a game where we keep score of favor, or is it a journey where we travel and struggle together to be together and realize the joy of that fact? Priorities are screwed up, time to reset. Start over.
"Women exist who assault men via their heart to get to their wallet and then those same women complain if somehow love as money pursuit is less than bliss."
Do not compare gold-digging to abuse. Not only is it disingenuous, it is disgusting. No man has ever died because a woman wanted him for his money.
Chris Brown did wrong .................. No question about that................... But why is it ALWAYS the case to single out black celebrities (sports and entertainment) as the poster goons of female abuse?
According to Catherine Sheehan's civil complaint, Jack Nicholson used both hands to beat her about the face; dragged her by her hair, and slammed her head on the floor; pushed her down a flight of stairs; hurled her with such force that she practically cleared a hedge. Her injuries included nervous system damage, unrelenting pain, vertigo, migraines, and periodic blindness.
A police report described Christian Slater as knocking his girlfriend to the floor, at a party hosted by her friends, beating her about the head with his closed fists, causing lumps and other injuries for which she received emergency treatment.
Charlie Sheen pleaded no contest, after his former girlfriend, Brittany Ashland, complained that he flung her onto a marble floor, knocking her unconscious, opening a gash on her lip that required stitches.
And the list of white male celebrities, who have been cited for domestic infractions, goes on: Evel Knievel; David Hasselhoff; Billy Bob Thorton; Richard Hatch; Ozzy Osbourne; Sean Penn;Yanni; Bary Busey; James Caan; Glen Campbell; Eric Roberts; Axl Rose; Mickey Rourke; Steven Seagal ; Paul Gascoigne; Larry Fitzgerald; Santonio Holmes; Tommy Lee; Chris Noth; Vanilla Ice; Rob Lowe and there are more.
You know what's up?
So sorry -- that was meant to be an exclamation as in --
You know what's up!
(-: | :-)
We don't need to ask "what kind of sentence will help ensure he -- and men all over the country just like him -- never beats another woman." There's no such sentence. People will always be beaten, just because it's possible to beat them. Vengeance hasn't changed the range of human behavior yet. Do you figure that'll change? More laws simply expand our police state. Gandhi said, "You must be the change you want to see in the world." Try that, and staying out of other folks' business.
You are right, there is no law that will eradicate all violence in our society. However, your gratuitous comment at the end is BS. Your "own business" ends the moment your business becomes about enacting physical violence against another human being, whether that be in the context of a domestic relationship or not. You are free to go about your merry way until you infringe on someone else's bodily integrity or property. Once you cross that line, you forfeit your right to be left alone.
If people want the state, their neighbors, their friends, their bosses, etc. to stay out of "their business," then their business best be about "checking themselves before they wreck themselves." Millions of years of evolution have created a magnificient cerebal cortex to wrap around the primitive reptilian lower brain. Whether people choose to use that cerebal cortex or not before acting is a choice. And all choices have consequences. That's life.
Well said. Right on. We all sign on to the "social contract" when we get here, whether we like it or not. I once heard that we are in fact here to "midwife one another's souls..." All things considered, I'm pretty secular; but I like spirit of that statement.
"Try that, and staying out of other folks' business."
When someone is beaten by their partner, their interactions become society's business.
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