Lundy Bancroft
The general public believes that women generally get custody of
their children when parents divorce. In actually this is not true.
The family court system gives 20% of children custody to their
father and over 3 million mothers do not have custody of their
children in the United States.
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BATTERERS
AND CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE PERPETRATORS
by R. Lundy Bancroft
c 1997
Multiple studies have established the high overlap between battering and
incest perpetration (Herman, 1981; McCloskey et. al.; Paveza; Sirles and
Franke; and Truesdell et. al.). These studies, taken together, indicate
that a batterer is about four to six times more likely than a non-batterer to
sexually abuse his children. These statistics are in line with studies of
batterers' risk to physically abuse children; the largest study of this kind
showed batterers seven times more likely than non-batterers to
frequently hit their children (Straus) About half of incest perpetrators also
batter the children's mother (Herman, 1981; Sirles and Franke;
Truesdell). A recent major publication on family violence recommended
that any history of sexual assaults against the mother be treated as a
warning sign of possible sexual or physical abuse of the children
(American Psychological Association).
The overlap between domestic violence and incest is not altogether
surprising to people who work with batterers and incest perpetrators,
because of the similarities between the profiles and tactics used by
members of the two groups. Clinicians specializing in sexual abuser
treatment have often approached me after my presentations on batterers
to comment on how similar my clients sound to their sex offender clients.
Public misconceptions are similar between the two forms of abuse.
Batterers and child molesters are perceived as mentally ill individuals
from particularly disturbing childhoods; the public is always shocked when
a man with a highly positive public image is exposed as a batterer or child
molester. The nature of the abuse itself is similarly misunderstood; a
batteres violence and an incest perpetrators sexual violations are just
one aspect of their behavior problem. The overtly abusive behaviors are
invariably accompanied by patterns of psychological abuse and
manipulation that are often as damaging, or more so, than the overt
physical or sexual abuse. Attempts to teach a batterer to stop hitting, or
to teach proper boundaries to a child sexual abuser, miss the roots of
both problems in a way that can leave victims vulnerable to continued
psychological abuse and cruelty.
This article looks briefly at some of the similarities between batterers and
incest perpetrators, to assist in understanding the nature of both
problems and how they can interact.
Controlling
Both groups are known for exercising a high degree of control over their
victims and other family members, through verbal abuse and other
strategies. They believe in their right to use increasingly coercive tactics
if they are not getting the obedience that they demand. Both batterers
and incest perpetrators tend to alternate between periods of loving
kindness and periods of harsh emotional abusiveness towards their
victims. Incest perpetrators are often harsh and rigid disciplinarians.
Entitlement
Both groups tend to be self-centered in the home and believe that it is
the responsibility of family members to make sure that the man's needs
are met at all times. They may become irate when other family members
insist on not always being the ones to make the sacrifices. They expect
deference to their desires and their opinions. Both types of abusers will
justify their actions if caught, insisting for various reasons that they have
the right to do what they did. Though they may appear remorseful, they
typically have mental systems of seeing their victims as owned objects
with whom they have the right to do as they see fit. Just as batterers may
be angry at an arrest, saying, "What right do they have to tell me what I
can do with my own wife?", the incest perpetrator may take the attitude,
"The way I choose to run my relationship with my own child is nobody
else's business."
Selfishness and self-centeredness towards family members follow from
the abuser's sense of entitlement. With both batterers and incest
perpetrators, these characteristics in the home are products of their
attitudes more than of their psychology, and therefore they will not
necessarily be found to be narcissistic by evaluators (though evaluators
should look carefully for signs of narcissism). People who know either
type of abuser in non-family contexts will not generally experience the
person as self-centered.
Exploitativeness
Closely linked to the entitled attitudes of these abusers is the use of
family members for the abuser's purposes. Exploitation can be thought of
as the fundamental characteristic of both batterers and sexual abusers,
and the problem that most needs to be confronted and changed in the
abuser.
It has been common for professionals to assume that the batterer's
problem is his anger, and that the incest perpetrator's problem is his
deviant sexual attraction to children. These are common misconceptions
that lead to the overlooking of the key dynamics, which are that these
abusers choose to take certain kinds of action, and that these choices
are based on deeply-held beliefs and habits that support exploitation.
Denial and Minimization
Both groups are known for their high levels of denial and resistance to
change. When they do admit to their actions, they minimize them greatly
and play down their negative consequences, insisting that no damage
has actually been done. They lie comfortably to cover any actions that
are discovered.
Claimed Loss Of Control
Both groups assert that they lost control when they acted abusively, but
close examination of their actions reveals calculation and forethought.
The batterer may claim to have "a bad temper," just as the incest
perpetrator claims that he just lost control of his sex drive, perhaps
blaming it on his wife by saying that she has not been giving him sex.
Both groups work hard to distract attention from the surrounding pattern
of conscious activity.
Claimed Provocation
Both groups assert that the victim provoked their actions, and therefore
they themselves are not responsible. The sexual abuser will say that a
young child "seduced him" and "really wanted it," just as the batterer
states that his partner "set him off" and "knew that she was going to make
me violent."
Grooming or Seasoning
Both groups work to build trust and closeness during the early part of a
relationship. Batterers are known for being charming, kind, and attentive
during the first months or even years that a couple is together. An incest
perpetrators may lay the groundwork for years as well; he works to build
a special relationship with the intended victim, and strives to gradually
break down her or his boundaries with slowly escalating invasiveness.
The victim is often his "favorite," to whom he gives particular kindness
and attention, but often also particular harshness and control. Batterers
are known for often being unusually appealing superficially, and sexual
abusers are similarly often people who are identified as especially "good
with children." In both cases, the victim is often quite attached to the
abuser, because of the manipulation and the many positive-seeming
periods in the abuser's behavior.
Positive Public Image
Members of both groups are typically well thought of in their communities.
They may be professionally successful or socially popular, and may be
involved in charitable or civic activities that make them appear
outstandingly kind and responsible. Victims of both kinds of abuse face
disbelief because "he's just not the type."
Objectification
Batterers and child sexual abusers tend to have strong capacities for
mentally dehumanizing or depersonalizing their victims. They both use
degrading language aloud and in their own minds, and see their victims
as inferior to them in sensitivity, competence, and humanity. They are
able to shut out any awareness of the victim's feelings, and even to
convince themselves that the victim is happy in the relationship. This is
an important underlying factor in their exploitative behavior.
Sowing Divisions Within the Family
Both groups have a large impact on the overall functioning of their
families, including using many behaviors that turn mothers and children
against each other and that sow other types of divisions among family
members. (For an excellent discussion of how child sexual abusers do
this, see Leberg.) Both types of abusers are frequently effective at
getting the family to focus on the victim, or on some other family member,
as the target of all of their negative attention, thereby distracting the
focus from the abuse.
Confusion of Love and Abuse
Both groups confuse loving and abusive behavior. Batterers may say, "I
hit you because I love you so much," and even use their passion as an
excuse for killing. An incest perpetrator will describe incidents of abuse as
moments of loving intimacy, or refer to "those things that happened
between us," as if they were moments of mutuality. Both groups call the
feeling of possession or domination "love".
Threats and Imposition of Secrecy
Both groups commonly require their victims not to tell other people about
what has occurred, and threaten dire consequences should the secrecy
be broken. Such threats are sometimes carried out in practice when
secrecy is broken. The secrecy itself becomes an important aspect of the
trauma for victims of both kinds of abusers.
Manipulation
Both groups are known for their outstanding manipulative skills, which
contribute to their ability to keep their victims frightened, confused, and
self-blaming. Victims of both types of abuse tend to be manipulated into
feeling responsible to take care of the abuser's feelings and to believe
that his suffering is greater than their own. Both batterers and incest
perpetrators manipulate individuals and systems with whom they come in
contact to escape accountability for their actions and to create negative
impressions of their victims.
Promises to the victim, or to others, that he will stop the abuse is
frequently reported in both groups of abusers. They can often sound
sincerely remorseful and serious about changing, but it is highly unusual
for these promises to lead to anything other than a brief respite from the
abuse. Only profound acceptance of responsibility for past actions leads
to significant change in either group, as is mentioned repeatedly in the
literature on offender and batterer treatment.
Under confrontation, both groups of abusers switch erratically back and
forth between appearing remorseful and sounding highly justified and
victim-blaming. The underlying attitudes that drive both forms of abuse
take a long time and hard work to change.
Discrediting of Disclosures
Both groups characterize their victims as dishonest, as hysterical, and as
vindictive when disclosures do get made. The incest perpetrator says,
"She was angry at me because I wouldn't by her a Nintendo, and she told
me she's get me back for it." The batterer says, "She is getting me back
because I won't always give her every dime of my money." Both groups
make the victim sound like a troubled, unstable individual (which at times
may have some truth to it, largely because of the abuse itself).
Lack of Mental Health Diagnosis
Most batterers and most child sexual offenders show normal results on
psychological testing. Mental health evaluations provide very little
information about likelihood to reoffend. Both problems can therefore be
concluded to have their roots primarily in attitudes and belief systems,
reinforced by peers and by cultural messages, and cannot be defined as
psychological or sexual illness or "deviance." Even clinicians who
specialize in offender evaluation have limited ability to assess accurately
who is an incest perpetrator and who is not. Evaluations thus have to
include the element of investigation, as with domestic violence.
Some of the confusion in this area comes from mixing different types of
problems together. The generally violent man, who is largely involved in
male-on-male violence, does often have psychological problems, unlike
the batterer. Similarly, the so-called predatory child molester, who offends
against large numbers of children and often prefers boys, often has
mental health issues; the incest perpetrator, who generally offends
against children with whom he has a trusted or care taking relationship -
often his own child or step-child - and tends to prefer female children,
usually will not have any clear mental health problem.
High Recidivism and Resistance to Change
Both groups are highly resistant to change and are difficult clients in
counseling programs that demand change. They may be quite
comfortable in supportive therapeutic relationships that do not require
change, however, and receive glowing reports in these cases about their
progress. Professionals in both areas believe that stricter criminal and
civil sanctions are necessary, and that change cannot come without full
disclosure and acceptance of responsibility, through a mixture of
education, confrontation, consequences, and accountability.
Because of the high statistical overlap between domestic violence and
incest, and the similarity of the profiles and tactics of the perpetrators,
service providers and court officials should assess carefully for the
possibility that children of batterers are being sexually abused.
Such an assessment is necessary even if the batterer does not use high
levels of physical violence; in fact, two studies (Truesdell et. al., 1986,
and Herman, 1981) mention the tendency of batterers who perpetrate
incest to use low levels of physical violence towards the mother. The
literature on incest perpetrators indicates that the best predictors of
which batterers will sexually offend against their children are the
batterer's level of manipulativeness, entitlement, or self-centeredness; his
history of expecting and requiring that the child meet his needs; and past
behaviors of his that introduce a sexual or romantic element to his
relationship with the child (Bancroft, 1996, and the various sources listed
below on sexual offenders). Substance abuse is also positively correlated
with sexual abuse.
Children of batterers should be monitored for symptoms of sexual abuse
or any indications that they are being required or manipulated to keep
secrets. Preventive education on sexual abuse should be done with
abused women and their children, whether or not the batterer is still in the
home. Although female children appear to be at a greater risk statistically
for incest, the danger to male children is substantial. The rate of
confirmed allegations of sexual abuse during custody and visitation
disputes stays at roughly the same level as those arising at other times
(Thoennes and Tjaden, 1990), contrary to widespread beliefs; court
personnel in particular need to be aware of this reality.
Finally, professionals working in any capacity with domestic violence
should seek training on the warning signs of child sexual abuse and the
profile and tactics of the incest perpetrator, in order to increase the level
of support and assistance available to victims of any type of abuse within
the home.
their children when parents divorce. In actually this is not true.
The family court system gives 20% of children custody to their
father and over 3 million mothers do not have custody of their
children in the United States.
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BATTERERS
AND CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE PERPETRATORS
by R. Lundy Bancroft
c 1997
Multiple studies have established the high overlap between battering and
incest perpetration (Herman, 1981; McCloskey et. al.; Paveza; Sirles and
Franke; and Truesdell et. al.). These studies, taken together, indicate
that a batterer is about four to six times more likely than a non-batterer to
sexually abuse his children. These statistics are in line with studies of
batterers' risk to physically abuse children; the largest study of this kind
showed batterers seven times more likely than non-batterers to
frequently hit their children (Straus) About half of incest perpetrators also
batter the children's mother (Herman, 1981; Sirles and Franke;
Truesdell). A recent major publication on family violence recommended
that any history of sexual assaults against the mother be treated as a
warning sign of possible sexual or physical abuse of the children
(American Psychological Association).
The overlap between domestic violence and incest is not altogether
surprising to people who work with batterers and incest perpetrators,
because of the similarities between the profiles and tactics used by
members of the two groups. Clinicians specializing in sexual abuser
treatment have often approached me after my presentations on batterers
to comment on how similar my clients sound to their sex offender clients.
Public misconceptions are similar between the two forms of abuse.
Batterers and child molesters are perceived as mentally ill individuals
from particularly disturbing childhoods; the public is always shocked when
a man with a highly positive public image is exposed as a batterer or child
molester. The nature of the abuse itself is similarly misunderstood; a
batteres violence and an incest perpetrators sexual violations are just
one aspect of their behavior problem. The overtly abusive behaviors are
invariably accompanied by patterns of psychological abuse and
manipulation that are often as damaging, or more so, than the overt
physical or sexual abuse. Attempts to teach a batterer to stop hitting, or
to teach proper boundaries to a child sexual abuser, miss the roots of
both problems in a way that can leave victims vulnerable to continued
psychological abuse and cruelty.
This article looks briefly at some of the similarities between batterers and
incest perpetrators, to assist in understanding the nature of both
problems and how they can interact.
Controlling
Both groups are known for exercising a high degree of control over their
victims and other family members, through verbal abuse and other
strategies. They believe in their right to use increasingly coercive tactics
if they are not getting the obedience that they demand. Both batterers
and incest perpetrators tend to alternate between periods of loving
kindness and periods of harsh emotional abusiveness towards their
victims. Incest perpetrators are often harsh and rigid disciplinarians.
Entitlement
Both groups tend to be self-centered in the home and believe that it is
the responsibility of family members to make sure that the man's needs
are met at all times. They may become irate when other family members
insist on not always being the ones to make the sacrifices. They expect
deference to their desires and their opinions. Both types of abusers will
justify their actions if caught, insisting for various reasons that they have
the right to do what they did. Though they may appear remorseful, they
typically have mental systems of seeing their victims as owned objects
with whom they have the right to do as they see fit. Just as batterers may
be angry at an arrest, saying, "What right do they have to tell me what I
can do with my own wife?", the incest perpetrator may take the attitude,
"The way I choose to run my relationship with my own child is nobody
else's business."
Selfishness and self-centeredness towards family members follow from
the abuser's sense of entitlement. With both batterers and incest
perpetrators, these characteristics in the home are products of their
attitudes more than of their psychology, and therefore they will not
necessarily be found to be narcissistic by evaluators (though evaluators
should look carefully for signs of narcissism). People who know either
type of abuser in non-family contexts will not generally experience the
person as self-centered.
Exploitativeness
Closely linked to the entitled attitudes of these abusers is the use of
family members for the abuser's purposes. Exploitation can be thought of
as the fundamental characteristic of both batterers and sexual abusers,
and the problem that most needs to be confronted and changed in the
abuser.
It has been common for professionals to assume that the batterer's
problem is his anger, and that the incest perpetrator's problem is his
deviant sexual attraction to children. These are common misconceptions
that lead to the overlooking of the key dynamics, which are that these
abusers choose to take certain kinds of action, and that these choices
are based on deeply-held beliefs and habits that support exploitation.
Denial and Minimization
Both groups are known for their high levels of denial and resistance to
change. When they do admit to their actions, they minimize them greatly
and play down their negative consequences, insisting that no damage
has actually been done. They lie comfortably to cover any actions that
are discovered.
Claimed Loss Of Control
Both groups assert that they lost control when they acted abusively, but
close examination of their actions reveals calculation and forethought.
The batterer may claim to have "a bad temper," just as the incest
perpetrator claims that he just lost control of his sex drive, perhaps
blaming it on his wife by saying that she has not been giving him sex.
Both groups work hard to distract attention from the surrounding pattern
of conscious activity.
Claimed Provocation
Both groups assert that the victim provoked their actions, and therefore
they themselves are not responsible. The sexual abuser will say that a
young child "seduced him" and "really wanted it," just as the batterer
states that his partner "set him off" and "knew that she was going to make
me violent."
Grooming or Seasoning
Both groups work to build trust and closeness during the early part of a
relationship. Batterers are known for being charming, kind, and attentive
during the first months or even years that a couple is together. An incest
perpetrators may lay the groundwork for years as well; he works to build
a special relationship with the intended victim, and strives to gradually
break down her or his boundaries with slowly escalating invasiveness.
The victim is often his "favorite," to whom he gives particular kindness
and attention, but often also particular harshness and control. Batterers
are known for often being unusually appealing superficially, and sexual
abusers are similarly often people who are identified as especially "good
with children." In both cases, the victim is often quite attached to the
abuser, because of the manipulation and the many positive-seeming
periods in the abuser's behavior.
Positive Public Image
Members of both groups are typically well thought of in their communities.
They may be professionally successful or socially popular, and may be
involved in charitable or civic activities that make them appear
outstandingly kind and responsible. Victims of both kinds of abuse face
disbelief because "he's just not the type."
Objectification
Batterers and child sexual abusers tend to have strong capacities for
mentally dehumanizing or depersonalizing their victims. They both use
degrading language aloud and in their own minds, and see their victims
as inferior to them in sensitivity, competence, and humanity. They are
able to shut out any awareness of the victim's feelings, and even to
convince themselves that the victim is happy in the relationship. This is
an important underlying factor in their exploitative behavior.
Sowing Divisions Within the Family
Both groups have a large impact on the overall functioning of their
families, including using many behaviors that turn mothers and children
against each other and that sow other types of divisions among family
members. (For an excellent discussion of how child sexual abusers do
this, see Leberg.) Both types of abusers are frequently effective at
getting the family to focus on the victim, or on some other family member,
as the target of all of their negative attention, thereby distracting the
focus from the abuse.
Confusion of Love and Abuse
Both groups confuse loving and abusive behavior. Batterers may say, "I
hit you because I love you so much," and even use their passion as an
excuse for killing. An incest perpetrator will describe incidents of abuse as
moments of loving intimacy, or refer to "those things that happened
between us," as if they were moments of mutuality. Both groups call the
feeling of possession or domination "love".
Threats and Imposition of Secrecy
Both groups commonly require their victims not to tell other people about
what has occurred, and threaten dire consequences should the secrecy
be broken. Such threats are sometimes carried out in practice when
secrecy is broken. The secrecy itself becomes an important aspect of the
trauma for victims of both kinds of abusers.
Manipulation
Both groups are known for their outstanding manipulative skills, which
contribute to their ability to keep their victims frightened, confused, and
self-blaming. Victims of both types of abuse tend to be manipulated into
feeling responsible to take care of the abuser's feelings and to believe
that his suffering is greater than their own. Both batterers and incest
perpetrators manipulate individuals and systems with whom they come in
contact to escape accountability for their actions and to create negative
impressions of their victims.
Promises to the victim, or to others, that he will stop the abuse is
frequently reported in both groups of abusers. They can often sound
sincerely remorseful and serious about changing, but it is highly unusual
for these promises to lead to anything other than a brief respite from the
abuse. Only profound acceptance of responsibility for past actions leads
to significant change in either group, as is mentioned repeatedly in the
literature on offender and batterer treatment.
Under confrontation, both groups of abusers switch erratically back and
forth between appearing remorseful and sounding highly justified and
victim-blaming. The underlying attitudes that drive both forms of abuse
take a long time and hard work to change.
Discrediting of Disclosures
Both groups characterize their victims as dishonest, as hysterical, and as
vindictive when disclosures do get made. The incest perpetrator says,
"She was angry at me because I wouldn't by her a Nintendo, and she told
me she's get me back for it." The batterer says, "She is getting me back
because I won't always give her every dime of my money." Both groups
make the victim sound like a troubled, unstable individual (which at times
may have some truth to it, largely because of the abuse itself).
Lack of Mental Health Diagnosis
Most batterers and most child sexual offenders show normal results on
psychological testing. Mental health evaluations provide very little
information about likelihood to reoffend. Both problems can therefore be
concluded to have their roots primarily in attitudes and belief systems,
reinforced by peers and by cultural messages, and cannot be defined as
psychological or sexual illness or "deviance." Even clinicians who
specialize in offender evaluation have limited ability to assess accurately
who is an incest perpetrator and who is not. Evaluations thus have to
include the element of investigation, as with domestic violence.
Some of the confusion in this area comes from mixing different types of
problems together. The generally violent man, who is largely involved in
male-on-male violence, does often have psychological problems, unlike
the batterer. Similarly, the so-called predatory child molester, who offends
against large numbers of children and often prefers boys, often has
mental health issues; the incest perpetrator, who generally offends
against children with whom he has a trusted or care taking relationship -
often his own child or step-child - and tends to prefer female children,
usually will not have any clear mental health problem.
High Recidivism and Resistance to Change
Both groups are highly resistant to change and are difficult clients in
counseling programs that demand change. They may be quite
comfortable in supportive therapeutic relationships that do not require
change, however, and receive glowing reports in these cases about their
progress. Professionals in both areas believe that stricter criminal and
civil sanctions are necessary, and that change cannot come without full
disclosure and acceptance of responsibility, through a mixture of
education, confrontation, consequences, and accountability.
Because of the high statistical overlap between domestic violence and
incest, and the similarity of the profiles and tactics of the perpetrators,
service providers and court officials should assess carefully for the
possibility that children of batterers are being sexually abused.
Such an assessment is necessary even if the batterer does not use high
levels of physical violence; in fact, two studies (Truesdell et. al., 1986,
and Herman, 1981) mention the tendency of batterers who perpetrate
incest to use low levels of physical violence towards the mother. The
literature on incest perpetrators indicates that the best predictors of
which batterers will sexually offend against their children are the
batterer's level of manipulativeness, entitlement, or self-centeredness; his
history of expecting and requiring that the child meet his needs; and past
behaviors of his that introduce a sexual or romantic element to his
relationship with the child (Bancroft, 1996, and the various sources listed
below on sexual offenders). Substance abuse is also positively correlated
with sexual abuse.
Children of batterers should be monitored for symptoms of sexual abuse
or any indications that they are being required or manipulated to keep
secrets. Preventive education on sexual abuse should be done with
abused women and their children, whether or not the batterer is still in the
home. Although female children appear to be at a greater risk statistically
for incest, the danger to male children is substantial. The rate of
confirmed allegations of sexual abuse during custody and visitation
disputes stays at roughly the same level as those arising at other times
(Thoennes and Tjaden, 1990), contrary to widespread beliefs; court
personnel in particular need to be aware of this reality.
Finally, professionals working in any capacity with domestic violence
should seek training on the warning signs of child sexual abuse and the
profile and tactics of the incest perpetrator, in order to increase the level
of support and assistance available to victims of any type of abuse within
the home.
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