Attitudes Toward Wife Abuse & Other Forms of Violence

 The experiences of "Lois," described by Gelles and Strauss (1988, p. 52) as a 35-year-old mother of three, are not atypical. Just as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart claimed that, although he could not define pornography, "I know it when I see it," at all levels, from victim and perpetrator to police, prosecutors, and judges, accurately defining the concept of severe violence or abuse is elusive.

One thing is clear, however. As researchers first began serious inquiry into the topic of family violence--child abuse and wife abuse in particular--in the early 1970s, it became at once apparent that there had been precious little done before then: "At first we were frustrated. So little had been written on child abuse and wife abuse that the entire literature could be read at one sitting. Worse, much of what we read was flawed, biased, and unsound" (Gelles & Strauss, 1988, p. 11). It was almost serendipitous that, in 1971, "15 percent of the women interviewed in divorce actions spontaneously menti

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the police for help was delayed some 20 minutes because the officer "went to the station 'to relieve himself'" (Halsted, 1992, p. 158). Upon the officer's arrival, Buck Thurman was in the process of stabbing Tracey. Although the officer asked for, and received, the knife from Buck, he did not arrest or handcuff him. Buck then stomped on his wife's face, fled into the house, and returned with his young son whereupon he kicked Tracey in the head, leaving her partially paralyzed. Despite the fact that six additional officers arrived at the scene, Buck Thurman was not taken into custody until after he made one last attempt to attack Tracey while she was immobilized on the ambulance gurney. Thurman sued the Torrington Police Department and 24 individual officers. She was awarded $2.3 million in compensatory damages and later settled for $1.9 million (Gelles, 1993, p. 577). Although the city's insurance company paid the settlement, it stated that it might refuse to pay future claims against police departments that failed to train their officers about intervention in domestic violence cases (Halsted, 1992, p. 159). However, in the aftermath of Thurman and subsequent to the (now questionable) findings in Sherman and Berk's experim
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Approximate Word count = 3028
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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