Abused Swan 

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 batterer's 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 caretaking 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.

On July 4^th Deanna picked up her children for her weekly summer visitation.  Once she arrived home her daughter became upset and started screaming at Deanna and refused to talk calmly.  Deanna was accused by her daughter of no liking her, not loving her, and not caring about her. Her daughter threw shoes, beat on doors, and screamed at the top of her lungs. For 45 minutes this continued and she refused to talk with her mother.

Deanna took her daughter to Forest View Hospital. Their phone recording states they offer services with compassion and respect. At Forest View Hospital Deanna was told that because her daughter did not need psychological help they could not help. The intake specialist did admit Deanna's daughter needs help with several issues and needs to talk with someone. Deanna was also told by the intake specialist that Forest View was not her saving grace in her custody case. It was suggested that Deanna go to Community Mental Health (CMH) and have her daughter evaluated. CMH is now Network 180. Network 180 told Deanna that because her daughter had health insurance and because of custody issues, they would not help. Deanna left Network 180 and went to Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services. Deanna was told that her daughter would not receive inpatient help, but could obtain partial inpatient help. After talking with the intake specialist and deciding Deanna's daughter would not need medications, Deanna was told that the health insurance (Blue Cross and Blue Shied) would not pay for services. Deanna was then told that they would give her phone numbers for counseling services that on Monday she could call.

Around 5PM Deanna took her daughter to the park where she stated Deanna was fat and kicked her. Deanna took her daughter home and at dinner she refused to eat and threw her fork and food on the floor. Deanna decided that her daughter would not be going to see the fire works because of her behavior. When Deanna's daughter found this out she started screaming and crying. She took off out the door after her brothers. She spit her candy on Deanna's car and started to run down the street. When Deanna started calling the police Deanna's daughter started screaming, jumped on her back and kicked the cell phone out of her hand. In the struggle to retrieve the cell phone it got turned off. This happened twice before Deanna could get her daughter in her apartment and get her bedroom door closed and make a phone call with out interruptions. (Deanna's daughter is nine.) The police refused to come out to Deanna's home. Deanna called Forest View Hospital and was telling an intake specialist that four times her daughter has threatened to run away today and once to jump out of the car when Deanna was driving. Deanna's daughter over heard this cell phone conversation and stated, “I will tell my dad about that too.” Deanna was told that because her daughter was not harming herself they would not help.

Deanna has also had her children’s school not want to get involved in certain issues because they don't want to deal with custody.  If you spank your child for acting this way Child Protective Services (CPS) will come into your home and take your child away. If you seek help for your child from other organizations you are refused help. My question in all of this is if mental institutions and schools do not want to get involved in custody issues, then who will? To have children denied services or a school not want to get involved because of custody issues is failing to not help children who need services the most. This is also an ethical issue.

Deanna would love to sit down and talk with her daughter in regards as to why she does not live with mommy. To do this Deanna would have to be able to answer her questions honestly. To answer her daughter’s questions honestly would then create the issue that Deanna is alienating her daughter against her father. This would then be used against Deanna in court and she would lose all custody rights to her children. Who is going to explain to Deanna's daughter that she lives with her father because our family court system fails to understand how abusive parents work.

Deanna has talked with several mothers who have been beaten up by her children’s father. The judge sends him to jail for domestic violence. When the father gets out of jail, the same judge ends up giving the father custody of the children. The National Organization for Women (NOW) in Michigan is picking up non custodial mothers issues because several mothers have contacted them in regards to judges giving abusive fathers custody of their children. Who will protect our children, when the organizations and government institutions set up to protect them fail?

I am a non custodial mother. What this means is that my former spouse has custody of my children. When parents who pay child support are not working they are entered into the Non Custodial Parent Program (NCPP) by the Friend of the Court (FOC) for non payment of child support. If the parent does not attend the program and are not paying their child support they can be put in jail. The NCPP is a $400,000 a year program.

        In May I applied to Kent County

for the Case Worker I position for the NCPP, it pays $19.95 an hour. On May 29^th I started the NCPP program. On Friday June 27^th I applied and took the testing for the Case Worker Assistant position with the Prosecuting Office of Kent County and was told I passed all their testing. I have also applied for another position with Kent County since. The NCPP is run through Hope Network. I have applied to six positions with Hope and no luck, not even an interview. I have now been in the program for six weeks and have not had one interview. 

        This is six weeks of child support I could have paid if hired by Kent County  or Hope Network. If the FOC has a program to help parents get a job so they can pay their child support, how come they do not hire participants of the program who qualify for position and are in the NCPP? If the program is run through Hope Network then how come Hope does not take participants in the NCPP who qualify to fill their positions first? Today I spoke with a case manager at Hope Network who stated he was mad that the program does not hire more of the participants to fill open positions within the organization. The case worker is hoping to one day talk with a CEO and discuss his frustrations. 

                                                        Written by Catch 22

 A classaction law suit is formaing against Deanna's Judge. Find out more!     

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