Judges soft on wife-beaters, say researchers

Alt Tv/Fleet FM Breakfast News Comment
Judges soft on wife-beaters, say researchers
A hardline review of domestic violence has slammed judges who try to reform rather than punish violent men, saying there is no evidence that children need to see their fathers if they are violent. The two-year study by Waikato University academics Ruth Busch and Neville Robertson says men who are violent to their partners are still getting off with much lesser punishments than they would get if they did the same things to strangers. They urge automatic arrests for breaches of protection orders and effective punishments for men who fail to complete anti-violence programmes. They also warn the Government against creating any more specialist Domestic Violence Courts which try to keep families together by convicting and discharging many offenders if they "voluntarily" complete anti-violence courses. "We still see this old idea that one might be a lousy partner but still bea good dad," said Dr Robertson, a psychologist. "That flies in the face of what is known to be needed to support children in response to violence. "I would have thought that the evidence of being a good dad is how you treat the children's mother. All of that is being set aside on the basis that children need their dads."

Interesting isn’t it – I think that boys DESPERATLY need good fathers – boys learn how to treat women and how to interact with other men from the watched day to day behaviour of their fathers, so while I agree fatherhood is incredibly important, it has to be good fatherhood, if Dad belts Mum because the dinner is cold, he is no longer a positive influence on the son standing at the doorway watching, the issue I sense from the Judicial masters is that they are conning themselves into the ‘son needs dad’ thing even when dad is a violent prick because if we packed all these domestic violence cases off to prison the prison population would skyrocket, hence the Judicial masters (being prodded by the Treasury eggheads) con themselves into this position. If we had prisons that rehabilitated rather than mangle prisoners we may well have a solution, but we don’t so the woman folk will have to take the strain once more by taking a couple of punches to face cause dinner is cold.