Battered Woman Syndrome: The Iceberg of Domestic Violence Flashcards
learned helplessness
The learned helplessness is a theory which suggests that the randomness and apparent unavoidability of a woman’s
beatings led her to accept it is “reasonable” and she develops number of common characteristics, such as low self-esteem, self-blame for the violence, anxiety, fear, depression, general suspiciousness and the belief that only she can change
her predicament.
Major obstacle with definition of battery
The law also defines that “battery is any contact by which person A, intentionally or recklessly, inflicts unlawful personal violence upon person B.
The major obstacle with this definition is used word unlawful
giving a room for an existence of the lawful violence? Thus, the law accepts that cannot draw line between different degrees of the violence, and therefore prohibits that first and lowest stage of it; every man’s person is sacred, and no other has a right to meddle with it, in any the slightest manner.
In some respects, the problems faced by battered woman are wider problems within the principles of the criminal law in general (criminal defences in particular), and society in gen-
eral (such as gender, culture, race, politics, social structure, etc.).
vulnerable self-structure of severely traumatised individuals is evident in the following ways:
1) Difficulties in self-regulation, such as self-maintenance, affect tolerance, and the sense of self-continuity, or sense of one’s personal agency. Such difficulties with self-regulation are the “developmental arrest” and can result in addictive behaviour or compulsive activity;
2) The appearance of trauma symptoms, such as frequent upsurges of anxiety, fears, depression, or irritability; and specific fears or phobias regarding the external world or one’s own bodily and physical integrity; and
3) The reliance on primitive or less-developed forms of self-subject relatedness with attachment figures.
Walker (2017) recognised that the BWS is identified with seven factors:
1) re-experiencing the trauma events intrusively;
2) high levels of arousal and anxiety;
3) high levels of avoidance and numbing of the emotions;
4) cognitive difficulties;
5) disruption in interpersonal relationships;
6) physical health and body image problems: and
7) sexual and intimacy issues.
Why was Ahluwalia’s case important
The Ahluwalia decision was important for recognition of the court’s admission of the “reasonableness” requirement (immediate loss of self-control) and “immediacy” of provocation.
Granting these requirements, the court upheld that the psychological characteristics of a battered woman in the form of expert testimony of the BWS could be useful in court proceedings considering the requirements of self-defence
and provocation.
Thus, the court was now given to consider the effects of long-term abuse as it is applied to the reasonable person standard.
Another effect of the Ahluwalia case was that the defence on self-defence and provocation could be used instead of diminished responsibility which had not previously been employed as the requirement of the defence. The decision indi-
cates that within the judiciary there is sympathy for, although perhaps not complete understanding of, the abused woman who faces trial, having reached the situation where is no longer acceptable to hold the judge to face with a dilemma
about the abused woman who is on trial.
The court realizes that there is little point in sentencing the abused woman to imprisonment for a long period, or
perhaps at all. Sentencing the abused woman for killing or manslaughter upon her abuser is powerful conflicting consideration.
dilemma
In many court cases, the judges faced with dilemma of what is appropriate as a punishment for the killing or manslaughter for the abused woman. On the other, the court should not be seen as condoning violence, when the passions have exploded and a person acting without self-control, as a solution and
the court must be seen to uphold the sanctity of human life.
Galbraith case:
In the courts of English Law, it is broadly accepted reformulated plea of the diminished responsibility delivered in the Galbraith case:
1) the plea must be based on a condition of the accused at the time of the offence;
2) the condition must be an abnormality of mind which had to the effect that the accused’s ability to determine or control his/her conduct was substantially impaired;
3) the condition need not to be one “bordering” on insanity; and
4) the condition must be one which can be spoken to by expert in the appropriate science.
The criteria established in the Galbraith case received positive response from medicine with a notion that mental abnormalities and dissociative state could well impair an ac-
cused’s ability to determine or control his/her acts and omissions.
