Family Violence

In the words of O.J. Simpson, wife battering is a “family affair.� In fact, as the roaring headlines and news stories attest, it is a “societal affair� and a crime.

Over the past decade, as a California licensed marriage and family therapist I have worked with several hundred wife batterers utilizing group therapy methods in psychiatric hospitals and a prison. And over the past year I have developed an outline for a demonstration-research project for dealing more effectively with these offenders.

The project, in summary, would involve setting up a male batterer shelter rather than a female battered wife shelter. First offenders who assault their spouses would be placed, by court order, in the live-in facility for a six-month period. They would work their usual job during the day, and attend mandatory group therapy sessions to deal with their deviant behavior every evening and weekends. Their paychecks would, by court order, go to their wife and children. In the first three months of their six-month sentence they would not be allowed to have any contact with their family. In the last three months, their wives, if interested in reconciliation, would attend a weekly session with their husbands. If the husband broke any rules of the program, he would be subject to a six-month to one-year prison sentence.

The project could have the following positive effects: 1) The wife and children would stay in their own home with an income, rather than being punished by being forced to flee to a woman’s shelter; 2) the batterers would be punished by the denial of their full freedom, and being in the company of their peers who come from all socioeconomic strata of society; 3) in the group sessions, the batterer would be forced to deal with his usual problem of “denial,� and they would be forced to confront the emotional context and dire consequences of their criminal behavior; 4) in role-playing sessions they would reverse roles, and feel how painful it is to be in the role of the wife-victim; and 5) they would be forced to confront the impact of their behavior on their children.

LEWIS YABLONSKY Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology and Criminology

Cal State Northridge