Domestic violence story relevant to all
The findings of the recent Quincy District Court domestic violence study ("Most men re-offend, says study of battering," Globe South, Nov. 9) has informative and important information that all readers of the Globe should be aware of, not just the readers of Globe South.
While advocates claim that domestic violence affects everyone, the Klein study, as do most, documents that domestic violence abusers are not representative of men or families in general. Most of the men in this study have histories of criminal behavior and/or substance abuse problems. Those behaviors are some of a number of specific risk factors that can place some families at a high risk of victimization. Hence, generalizing the problem as affecting everyone can be both disingenuous and dangerous.
Further, too many programs continue to provide one-solution-fits-all interventions that are based on the 20th-century ideologically held belief that domestic violence is caused by heterosexual men who because of their sexist behavior beat and batter heterosexual women to oppress them. That, as hundreds of studies now document, is a very simplistic answer for a complex and multifaceted problem.
Domestic violence, by Massachusetts statute, is a problem for children, siblings, intimate partners, spouses, and the elderly regardless of gender or sexual orientation. US Representative William Delahunt is correct: It is time to reopen a national discussion concerning the issue of domestic violence.
Richard L. Davis
Plymouth
Vice president
Familynonviolence.org 