A Case Study About The King Family: Domestic Violence

Introduction

The King family has been dealing with domestic violence which is influenced by many factors. The lack of stable income is one of the main reasons triggering violence at home. Additionally, Marty King does not seem to want his wife to work which is ironical considering their financial instability. As such, many interventions may be useful in helping the family and especially the children.

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First, Child Protective Services must take away the children from home. The action of taking the children away from them is because Amy has been a victim of abuse but has opted to remain silent and even failed to turn up in court for the hearing. The silence has left the children vulnerable to psychological damage. Therefore, putting the Children in protective custody can help ensure that they get the necessary help before the loss becomes permanent. Later, the court may decide whether the children will go back to living with their parents depending on other interventions.

The second intervention is that of getting Army help. When her children are taken away from home, it is likely that she will see the severity of the situation and gain the courage to report her husband and even push through with her claims in a court of law. However, she needs to have an assurance of protection for her to feel safe enough to report him. This is because research such as that by Root and Brown (2014) has shown that most victims are afraid of their aggressors and will, therefore, choose to live in misery and pain as opposed to reporting what they are going through.

Once Amy reports her husband and the authorities report him, her therapists should then introduce a program to help her recover psychologically as she finds work and gains financial stability. When she is ready to take care of her children, the relevant authorities should consider returning the children home as long as the atmosphere is peaceful. It is likely that at this time, Marty King would be facing time in jail for violating his family.

The two methods described are the best possible intervention options for the King Family to guarantee a better future for the members of the family.

Domestic violence is not only a problem at home, but it is also a shared social and public health concern across the world. In the United States, those arrested for domestic violence often undergo the Batterer Intervention Program course of between 16-52 weeks (Green, 2016). Mental health professionals are in charge of the program to aid the aggressors to understand the cause of their aggression and the possible intervention for change. Research suggests that aggressors often suffer mentally due to one reason or the other (Root & Brown, 2014). As in the case of most children who act out aggressively, aggression has been associated with the environment in which they grew up. Studies have related violence at home during a child's early years with his or her abuse as a teenager or as an adult (Green, 2016). During Aaron's first years at school, he would act out aggressively against his peers just because he had picked the behavior from home.

In cases involving domestic violence, help has always been given to the victims with the society judging the perpetrators instead of trying to rehabilitate them into being better members of the community. However, researchers have begun identifying ways of helping perpetrators as well as victims to restore them (Berns, 2017). In most cases, aggressors have o undergo mandated group therapy that takes the role of a sociological intervention. The purpose is to change the attitude of the perpetrator, which has worked in most cases. However, some aggressors will only go through the program to stay out of trouble. At the same time, some of the aggressors are also substance abusers, which makes it hard to help them change their attitudes and behavior. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence aggression is key to implementing the appropriate intervention.

Before aggressors cause physiological or psychological damage, they are often experiencing feelings or emotions that force them to act out. After causing harm to the partner or children, an individual is likely to suffer guilt and shame from harming them. Therefore, this is likely to create an opportunity to change behavior. Some aggressors may desire to change behavior to avoid hurting their partners. However, the root of the problem has to be identified before any help can be offered. Once such individuals seek help, counselors can help them determine positive ways to express themselves instead of using violence.

For change to happen, the batterer must be willing to take control of his emotions as well as responsibility for his actions. However, most aggressors find it hard to maintain the control hence recidivism. This is where the perpetrators end up committing the same offense again even after conviction (Wijenayake, Graham & Christen, 2018). This puts the domestic partners and children at risk once their partners are allowed back to the community. To reduce cases of recidivism, the society must address the issue of domestic abuse in all aspects of life, including at work.

Although some aggressors may change after therapy, it is not guaranteed (Green, 2016). Some of the perpetrators may also pretend to change as long as it means that they do not serve time in jail, after which they return to their violent nature. It is worth noting that most perpetrators are manipulative especially since they manage to manipulate their partners into feeling guilty for being violated. The superficial transition should therefore not be considered an actual change. By allowing aggressors to go back to their families immediately they show a shift in attitude, one would be putting the children at risk of further abuse.

In the case of Aaron, being raised in a violent home is an obvious factor that influenced his aggression. Additionally, his mother would fail to report his father for the violence hence subjecting the children to a life of psychological torture. To end the cycle of violence, Child Protective Services should act in the best interest of the children as adults find the help they need. When there is a violent member in the society, the members of the community cannot feel safe and are less likely to accept that the person is expected to be rehabilitated. For seven years, Aaron has been having a lot of trouble with the law. This could be his way of acting out and expressing his anger that he may have accumulated as a child living in a violent home.

Aaron has been abusing his son, Josiah. This could create a chain of reaction after which Josiah may adopt the same violent tendencies unless social workers determine the best environment for him to grow up in. Since Josiah is already in protective custody organized by the Child Protective Services, it is likely that he will not be exposed to further violence at home as long as he does not go back to living with his father. The fact that Kelly, Aaron's girlfriend, also had healing bruises is an indication that she was also being abused but opted to stay silent for one reason or the other. In case Aaron gets help and shows signs of changing, Child Protective Services may decide to organize supervised visits between the father and child. However, he must undergo intensive counseling and perpetrator treatment programs before being allowed back in the community.

Conclusion

While aggressors of domestic abuse are always on the wrong, it does not necessarily mean that they can never change (Llor-Esteban et al., 2016). However, change must be defined before allowing them to continue living around their partners and children. One of the best interventions has to do with compartmentalization whereby every member of the community plays a role in determining if the individual has changed. Through the coordinated community response, members of the community including the victims, law enforcement officers, religious leaders and those offering treatment get to give their answer regarding whether the aggressor has changed. Notably, change in domestic violence cases is gradual but it is not certain.

References

Berns, N. S. (2017). Framing the victim: Domestic violence, media, and social problems. Routledge.

Green, E. C. (2016). The Role of Batterers' Treatment in Recidivism by Domestic Violence Offenders (Doctoral dissertation, Humboldt State University).

Llor-Esteban, B., Garcia-Jimenez, J. J., Ruiz-Hernandez, J. A., & Godoy-Fernandez, C. (2016). Profile of partner aggressors as a function of risk of recidivism. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 16(1), 39-46.

Root, M. P., & Brown, L. (2014). An analysis of domestic violence in Asian American communities: A multicultural approach to counseling. In Diversity and complexity in feminist therapy (pp. 143-164). Routledge.

Wijenayake, S., Graham, T., & Christen, P. (2018). A Decision Tree Approach to Predicting Recidivism in Domestic Violence. arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.09862.\