November 24, 2025 • 53 mins
The statistics related to domestic violence are sobering, but the story behind them is even more complex—and too often misunderstood. In this episode, we dig into how popular frameworks for understanding domestic violence took hold and how survivors play a role in shaping those frameworks - and thereby enhancing our understanding of abuse.
Our guests, Melissa Scaia and Dr. Lisa Young Larance, bring decades of frontline practice, research, and program design to this conversation. Melissa explains how the Duluth Model emerged from listening sessions, and why anger management fails when entitlement—not emotion—is the root of abuse. Lisa introduces the “arrest web,” showing how coercive partners weaponize preferred arrest policies and police interviews, leading to survivors over confessing while abusers stay calm and quiet. We examine plea pressures, court silencing, criminalized survivors and the ripple effects of probation and child protection that can replicate intimate harm. We also discuss how oppression theory and intersectionality help to explain why women of color are arrested more and believed less, regardless of stand-your-ground or duty-to-retreat frameworks. Practical takeaways include better police questioning, expert-informed court processes, and agency support that moves beyond the victim–offender binary to truly increase safety and autonomy.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
The subject matter of this podcast will address
difficult topics, multiple formsof violence, and identity-based
discrimination and harassment.
We acknowledge that this contentmay be difficult and have listed
specific content warnings ineach episode description to help
create a positive, safeexperience for all listeners.
SPEAKER_00 (00:20):
In this country, 31 million crimes.
31 million crimes are reportedevery year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutes,there is a murder.
Every five minutes, there is arape, every two to five minutes,
there is a sexual assault.
Every nine seconds in thiscountry, a woman is assaulted by
someone who told her that heloved her, by someone who told
(00:41):
her it was her fault, by someonewho tries to tell the rest of us
it's none of our business.
And I'm proud to stand heretoday with each of you to call
that perpetrator a liar.
SPEAKER_03 (00:56):
Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women.
I'm Maria McMullen.
Each year in October, weacknowledge Domestic Violence
Awareness Month with criticalconversations that illuminate
abuse in its many forms.
To continue those conversationsand understand why and how
domestic violence happens, todaywe highlight popular models and
frameworks such as the cycle ofviolence, coercive control, and
(01:19):
others and explore theirorigins, application, and
challenges with insights fromexperts Melissa Skaya and Dr.
Lisa Young Lawrence.
Melissa Skaya has worked toaddress gender-based violence
for over 25 years locally inMinnesota as well as nationally
and globally.
She works part-time at DomesticAbuse Project in Minneapolis.
(01:42):
She works with the UN Women toprovide training and technical
assistance globally and providestraining and technical
assistance on working withcriminalized survivors through
domestic violence turningpoints.
In her work, she brings a wealthof experience as the former
director of internationaltraining at global rights for
women, co-founder of Pathways toFamily Peace, and Executive
(02:04):
Director of Domestic AbuseIntervention Programs, also
known as the Duluth Model.
Before working in Duluth, shewas the executive director of
Advocates for Family Peace for17 years, a local domestic
violence advocacy program whereshe advocated for victims of
domestic violence.
She has also led and organizedthree coordinated community
(02:26):
responses to address domesticviolence in Minnesota.
She has been a consultingtrainer for many national
training organizations ondomestic violence and child
abuse, including the Center forCourt Innovation, the Battered
Women's Justice Project, andNational Council of Juvenile and
Family Court judges.
Dr.
Lisa Young Lawrence is aresearcher practitioner with a
(02:50):
wide-ranging clinical communityand prison-based practice
experience.
Her direct service work includesproviding individual
trauma-informed therapy,co-facilitating intervention
groups, and program design andimplementation.
Dr.
Young Lawrence is known globallyas an anti-violence intervention
pioneer who created foundationaland innovative community and
(03:13):
prison-based programming fordiverse women with domestic and
sexual violence survivorshiphistories who are brought to
systems' attention for their useof non-fatal force.
Her consulting work includes theNew Mexico Coalition Against
Domestic Violence, the UnitedStates Air Force's Family
Advocacy Program, and PositiveShift in Victoria, Australia.
(03:36):
Dr.
Young Laurence's scholarshipfocuses primarily on
understanding how systemsinvolved women's institutional
contact can both replicateintimate harm and facilitate
positive change.
Her book, Broken Women's Storiesof Intimate and Institutional
Harm, was published by theUniversity of California Press
(03:56):
in 2024.
She is an assistant professor atBrynmore College's Graduate
School of Social Work and SocialResearch.
Melissa and Lisa, welcome to theshow.
Thank you.
It's good to be with you, and wehave so much to talk about, and
I want to learn everything Ipossibly can from both of you.
So let's get started byunderstanding what each of you
(04:18):
do and the impact of your work.
Melissa, we'll start with you.
What do you do for the DomesticAbuse Project and how is their
work instrumental to the DVmovement?
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
Yeah, so sometimes it gets a little bit confusing
here in Minnesota.
I currently work for DAP, whichis Domestic Abuse Project, but I
also used to be the director ofDAIP, which is Domestic Abuse
Intervention Program in Duluth.
But I'm currently atMinneapolis, and in Minneapolis
right now, I am the CCRcoordinator or the coordinated
(04:52):
for coordinated communityresponse facilitator.
And then I also co-facilitatewhen needed a group for men who
are battering women or usingcoercive control towards women,
and then a group for women whouse force.
So I'm doing that part-time inMinneapolis, and then do
training for lots of otherplaces.
(05:13):
But that's what I'm currentlydoing locally.
SPEAKER_03 (05:15):
That sounds like a lot.
Lisa, you're also doing a lot inthis space.
Tell us what you do holisticallyas a clinician and consultant
and how your work is alsoimpactful in the domestic
violence movement.
SPEAKER_04 (05:31):
I am currently an assistant professor of social
work at the Graduate School ofSocial Work and Social Research
at Bryn Mawr College inPennsylvania.
So I educate masters anddoctoral level social workers
about a range of issues, one ofthem being domestic violence.
I'm a longtime anti-violenceintervention practitioner as
well.
Built some of the firstfoundational programming to
(05:54):
address this complex issue ofwomen with domestic and sexual
violence survivorship historieswho then become systems
identified as offenders.
I continue to do that workthrough a range of research
projects and consultancies.
SPEAKER_03 (06:12):
I know that there's so much that we can learn from
both of you, but for today wechose to focus and explore the
frameworks that are used tounderstand abuse, such as the
cycle of violence.
That's just one that we will betalking about because there are
other models and we'll get tothose too.
But first, Melissa, I wanted tounderstand more about the cycle
(06:34):
of violence model or framework,because it's well known or
believed that abusers tend tobehave in patterns when making
the choice to abuse.
And from observing thosepatterns, the theory emerged for
the cycle of violence.
And that theory was developed byLenore Walker.
Could you give us a traditionalmaybe definition of the cycle of
(06:57):
violence and how it differs fromthe others, like the power and
control wheel, um, and thenmaybe how they intersect as
well.
SPEAKER_01 (07:04):
Sure.
So in the late 1970s, LenoreWalker coined the term which was
uh cycle of violence.
So I want to just say that eventhough it may come off today
that I'm criticizing it, I alsowant to give her credit at that
time because I would saysocially and politically, people
(07:26):
weren't talking about it interms of domestic violence, you
know, or a very different timeframe than the late 70s, early
80s, and all that time frame.
So, you know, I want to just saythat it was an important step in
our movement.
And what I love about thedomestic violence movement is
we've gone out to continuallylearn about things, right?
(07:48):
And how things affect a broadrange.
So here's the easiest way todescribe it is that my uh
description is that firstthere's this tension-building
phase, right?
That survivor would beexperiencing is what the theory
says, maybe seeing some thingsin the abuser.
(08:08):
And then there's what's calledthe violence or the explosion
phase.
Okay, so that's phase two, soit's it's done in a circle.
And then the last phase is thehoneymoon phase.
Okay, so that's what peopleoften uh describe as the cycle
of violence.
I want to say I was trained init when I started in the mid-90s
(08:30):
when I went to Anne-MarieShelter in St.
Cloud, Minnesota.
I went and volunteered, and I Ithink I still even have it, and
it was described to me.
It made sense to me, you know,at that time.
Um, but what we've really cometo understand is a few things.
And one of the big ones, andthis comes from the work in
(08:50):
Duluth, and this was at the timewhen Duluth was trying to figure
out what's happening, is theywere offering education groups
for women all around Duluth.
Okay, and so they would go out,do an education group with
women, and they would teach thisthe cycle of violence.
And women were showing up atthose groups saying, I don't
know that honeymoon phase inparticular.
(09:12):
That's the one phase lots ofwomen were reacting to.
And they said, no, no, no, no.
I mean, and you know, we kind ofjokingly, but also embarrassed
by say, we said, no, no, no,just go home and look for it.
It's there, you know, which isvery oppressive of us.
Yes, yeah, right?
Like, no, no, no.
We haven't come a long way.
Yeah.
Yes, we have.
But this is how people get veryattached to their theories,
(09:35):
right?
And so, I mean, I remember, no,no, no, just you'll you'll find
it.
Just go look for the small thinghe does afterwards, right?
To to apologize or to try andmake it better.
And women kept coming back andsaying, no, uh, I do not have
this.
So finally we realize ouroppressive ways and said, okay,
we're gonna set aside thattheory and others that we sort
(09:59):
of say, and what we're gonna dois we're gonna spend this time.
We wanna hear from you.
So we know about the physicalviolence, right?
And we know we've talked aboutthe sexual violence, but we're
just gonna document all theother things that your partners
do to you.
We want you to tell us aboutthat, and we're gonna write them
down, okay?
(10:20):
And so that's what they did isthey wrote down all the other
things that women experienced,and that's how the power and
control wheel came to be.
And so some choices were made.
It didn't include everycategory, right?
But it included the ones that weheard the most commonly.
(10:40):
So, a way to think about thepower and control wheel is that
the outside ring is reallyimportant because it includes
physical and sexual violence.
Okay, and then of course,there's all the spokes of the
wheel.
And then there's the centerwhich says power and control.
The reason why those three partsare important is because
(11:01):
oftentimes I'll hear people say,Well, Melissa, you know, it says
on there that name-calling isemotional abuse.
And my partner, you know, calledme a name.
You know, are they abusive?
I say, okay, well, I have a fewquestions for you, right?
Are they using physical abuse?
Are they threatening it, right?
Are you living in fear also?
Because it's you can't just takeone of those things out of the
(11:23):
spoke, right?
So it's that that outside ringplus any combination of those
tactics is what abusers end upwith is power and control,
right?
So that's the representation ofit.
And when it was created at thattime, um, Shirley Olberg and
Coral McDonald, I want to makesure give them credit because
(11:44):
they're the ones, Coral actuallyfrom Duluth is the one who
created that, you know, a timebefore fancy computers and Canva
and all those sorts of thingsmade that.
And even before the internet,and then programs said, Hey,
could you fax me that or mail methat?
And it started getting spreadaround.
And I think it's also a reallygood representation that
(12:06):
globally now survivors haveattached to this, right?
And so I do work globally for UNwomen.
And the reason why the cycle ofviolence, of course, is
problematic for us, is becauseone thing, exactly like you
said, Maria, it it instills thisthing of it's a pattern, right?
You're gonna see these things,and you don't always see those
(12:28):
things.
That's one of the bigfundamental problems with it, of
course, is not just that there'sa honeymoon phase, but also that
uh there's this tension-buildingphase, right?
In fact, I just talked to awoman today and she said, Mosa,
sometimes I had no idea.
Like he would just come and dothings to me, and I had no idea,
(12:50):
right?
Like what I'd done.
And I'm just like, what was thatfor?
And so we want any of ourgraphic representations to
represent the experience of asmany women as possible, as many
diverse, you know, women aspossible.
And so it's really importantthat we sort of think about
(13:13):
this.
And then I would just say theother thing is that it also
started to imply that if youwanted to end the violence, you
have to deal with the tension.
And then people started creatinganger management programs,
right?
And so they said, oh yeah, yeah,you just need to teach them to
breathe, and saying that thatwas the cause.
Now, we even at the verybeginning thought that anger
(13:34):
management would be the thing tosolve it.
And what we realized is that menwere able to control their anger
in lots of other places, butwhen it came to in their home
and with their partners, right,they felt really justified and
entitled to get their way.
And so teaching them how tobreathe, for example, through a
(13:55):
moment wasn't gonna be the thingthat was gonna help.
SPEAKER_03 (13:58):
Yeah, that really isn't the solution in those
particular cases.
Is there anywhere that those twomodels might intersect?
The cycle of violence and thepower and control wheel?
SPEAKER_01 (14:08):
Well, I mean, first I want to say to make sure that
people hear me clearly is thatsome survivors do experience
this cycle.
So I don't want to ever comeacross as saying that some
survivors don't, right?
Because some survivors do.
But in terms of theintersection, and and this would
be the difference.
I think for me, I reallystruggle with the the word
(14:29):
honeymoon also, becauseculturally it means a beautiful
and amazing time.
Where what we're talking abouthere is we're talking about
relationships of dominance,right?
So I'm putting my two hands uphere, uh, where we have the
abuser actually feels entitledto control their partner and
(14:50):
think, okay, if I enter into arelationship, for example, with
a woman, then someone needs tobe in charge, and that's me.
And I think the interestingthing about it too is there's
been some research that recentlycame out from Professor
Catherine Donovan in England,and she works in the LGBTQ
community.
And in that community, there wasa bias for sure, and by the
(15:14):
general public, that well, okay,there may be this dominance
thing happening, you know, andmale-female, but not in, you
know, those real thoserelationships are different,
right?
And her research says that's notthe case.
The thinking was still somebodyneeds to be in charge.
When you have two people in anintimate relationship, somebody
(15:34):
needs to be in charge.
So what I would say to you wherepart of the overlap comes, is
that I do see behaviors byabusers, of course, because you
know I work with them in groupsand such, but during what the
cycle of violence shows as thathoneymoon phase can be for a
couple different intents.
(15:55):
And the my problem with that isthat it gives this perception
that it's it's an amazing timefor a victim or a victim's gonna
accept.
When what we know, one of theways to keep a relationship of
dominance is to give acts ofkindness or acts of care once in
a while.
That will also, you know, keepsurvivors there.
(16:16):
And I'm not saying that someabusers don't do some of that
sometimes in their genuinehearts.
I I actually think that some ofthem do, like they feel bad
about it, and they're like,okay, I want to do something,
but I'm not gonna call that ahoneymoon because, in part,
they're not willing to give upthe relationship of dominance,
(16:39):
right, over their partner.
SPEAKER_03 (16:40):
Yeah, I think you raise uh some really interesting
points.
And uh one of the other things Iwould add to that is what we've
learned over time is even thoughdomestic violence does not
discriminate, it is not the sameexperience for each individual,
and it's going to be verydifferent according to the
person and their circumstancesand lots of other things.
(17:04):
I just want to make mentionquickly about what other types
of abuse there actually are inthat power and control wheel
because it's not always physicalviolence, right?
And so um if you could just giveus an idea of of what else is in
the wheel and what the othertypes of abuse are.
SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
Yeah, yeah.
So one of the things to thinkabout is that a lot of people
often ask me, like, how is thepower and control wheel
different than what Evan Starktermed is coercive control?
And here's the way I woulddescribe it the power and
control wheel literally comesfrom the voices of survivors,
(17:44):
right?
We literally took their wordsand put them within there.
That's their words.
A way to think about coercivecontrol is to think that's how
the abuser thinks, right?
To think, okay, I'm gonna take,you're right, this tactic of
isolation, that's gonna work.
And so what Evan Stark did isreally sort of help us
(18:05):
understand and really elevatedthe idea, there's a whole bunch
of things.
So isolation is a really commonone.
Trying to get her to only beclose to them in today's
technological world, making herfeel guilty if she won't turn on
her location on her cell phone,for example, that's a big one
these days.
Also, having a young daughter, Ilearn about these things.
(18:27):
But in today's community, that'san example of it.
But isolating our partners aswell and trying to trap them in
a certain way and keep them awayfrom others is big.
Using children is another onethat you'll see on there.
It's so in relationships wherethere's children that especially
when you have multiple children,for example, you'll often see
(18:50):
that the abuser will favor onechild over another as really an
extension of themselves to keepthis relationship of dominance
of place like, hey, uh, by theway, you know, why don't you uh
tell me what your mom did, youknow, while I was gone?
And, you know, if if if shetalks to anyone, why don't you
let me know?
(19:11):
Oh, and then by the way, thatbike that you've always wanted,
I'm happy to go get that foryou.
And so that's not physical orsexual violence, right?
But that's a coercive tacticusing children to monitor their
partners and to keep thatrelationship of dominance in
place.
SPEAKER_03 (19:29):
That's so manipulative.
It's a great example, though,because those are definitely
things that uh we've heard fromlots of people, lots of
survivors.
Um, now we touched on coercivecontrol just briefly, and we're
gonna come back to that becauseI want to switch gears for a
minute and talk with Lisa.
And listeners, bear with us.
We're covering a lot of ground,but we're gonna come full circle
(19:52):
here at the end.
So here we go.
Lisa, what is a criminalizedsurvivor?
And how has that term becomemore commonly used?
SPEAKER_04 (20:04):
The term criminalized survivor recognizes
the experiences of women withdomestic and sexual violence
survivorship histories who thenbecome systems involved.
So legal systems involved for itmay be through an inappropriate
or wrongful arrest, it may beharm that they have caused.
It's also uh connected to theharm that they've experienced
(20:25):
from their partner andunresolved uh experiences really
over the course of multiplerelationships.
SPEAKER_03 (20:33):
How do those actions actually cause a survivor to be
criminalized?
SPEAKER_04 (20:38):
I'm going to uh answer your question, but
through the words of the womenthat I've worked with and also
I've done research with.
So the women that I've workedwith and done research uh with
have actually described theirexperience as being or feeling
broken.
And it is because of theirsystem's contact, but also
because of the intimate harmthey've experienced from a
(20:59):
coercively controlling andphysically abusive person.
In my work, I've broughtattention to what I refer to as
the arrest web, and it's a veryintentional form of coercive
control that manipulatesmandatory preferred arrest
procedures, manipulates theinterview, the police
(21:21):
questioning process, and reallytakes advantage of the gendered
phenomenon of women withdomestic violence survivorship
histories disclosing what'shappened at the incident while
the coercively controllingpartner remains very calm, cool,
(21:42):
collected, and quiet when thepolice arrive.
So coercive control can be usedin so many different settings
and manipulated in a way towhere the truly coercively
controlling person uh it's notevident to systems responders of
who's doing what to whom.
SPEAKER_03 (22:02):
Yeah, that's a very interesting article.
I have read that uh articleabout the arrest web.
That was published in theJournal of Interpersonal
Violence, and we'll try to get alink out to people so that they
can access that information.
One of the things I found veryinteresting was how you wrote
about police officers have aprotocol on how and when and why
(22:29):
they would arrest someone.
And that may or may not includehow they evaluate what else is
going on prior to the incident,right?
SPEAKER_04 (22:40):
Absolutely.
And I think it's it's criticallyimportant with when we think of
arrest and situate it within thecontext of the US and that
history of the battered women'smovement and the real push to
criminalize domestic violenceand that has saved countless
(23:01):
lives.
Also, criminalizing domesticviolence, police response has
now been weaponized bycoercively controlling partners
against many women.
And so police themselves, assystems partners, and many, of
course, uh working diligently tokeep people safe and do the best
(23:25):
that they can in those moments,they are also part of this
arrest web.
They become entangled in thecoercively controlling partner's
efforts to have the survivorwrongfully arrested.
I know that that is oftenunrecognized.
Many times the blame is placedon the policy and the first
(23:45):
responders rather than reallyunderstanding the power of the
coercively controlling partnerand the socialized disclosure
for women who get uh involved inthe system and trying to protect
themselves and their families,their children.
And also very afraid of theperson who has that power and
(24:06):
control, who is their abusivepartner, who the police may come
and go, but that person has theprimary power in their
relationship.
SPEAKER_03 (24:15):
Yeah, you're so right about that.
So that that brings us to thepoint where we're gonna talk a
little bit about the laws thatsurround either defending
yourself or not defendingyourself and how how the law
kind of treats people uh likewomen who are experiencing
domestic violence because thereare differences within the
(24:36):
country where some states upholdthe quote unquote stand your
ground law and then other statesuphold the quote unquote retreat
law.
So can you define what theselaws mean as they relate to
domestic violence and theimplications for survivors who
may have fought back?
And I'd love to hear from bothof you on this question.
SPEAKER_01 (24:58):
Yeah, so I think I'll start on this one, just in
terms of, and just say, ofcourse, uh this is not providing
legal advice, and I'm not alawyer in terms of this, but you
know, I I've thought about thisa lot and worked, my best
friend's a defense attorney, andspent quite a bit of time on
this.
And here's the reason why it'simportant, and for survivors,
okay, is because when you'reliving under someone who's being
(25:22):
coercive controlling, who'sharming you, you're scared of,
right?
When you're living under that,what is very common to happen,
of course, is that over timethings start to feel justified
to get back at to resist theperson who's caused you harm,
right?
Now, some of those things end upbeing illegal and some of them
(25:45):
are not.
But when you're living under it,what feels justified doesn't
mean it's legal.
And this is what I wantsurvivors to know.
And I also want advocates, thosewho do this work.
I also don't think enoughadvocates understand or partner
with um defense attorneys aboutthis enough.
But here's my layperson'sdescription of the difference,
(26:08):
okay?
Okay.
So, for example, um, behind me,if you were to see me, there is
a wall behind me, okay, and thedoor is in front of me.
Now, if I was in an abusiverelationship with a history of
violence and my partner wasstanding in front of me and is
coming at me or harms me, evenin a retreat state, I have the
(26:30):
right to defend and protectmyself because there's no door
that I can easily go to, right?
Because remember, the door Ihave to go through my partner.
However, let's say I turnedaround, right?
So let's say the door was behindme, for example, my partner's
coming at me, he does somethingto me, turns away and walks
(26:52):
away, for example, and then Icharge Adam, throw something at
him.
If I do that and I don'tretreat, go out the door, right?
Yes.
In many retreat states, that'dbe considered illegal because I
have a legal obligation toretreat when I have that option.
(27:13):
Okay.
Now, the standard ground, thelegal definitions of those are
much more nuanced by state, butmy general understanding is that
regardless if there's a door ornot, you can literally stand
your ground, right?
And like fight back.
Okay.
Now there's a whole bunch ofsort of um things about whether
(27:33):
it's legal in a retreat state orstandard ground.
So for example, there's uhcharacteristics about how much
force you can use.
Uh, so for example, aboutwhether or not someone pushes me
if I can take out a gun.
And you know, my non-lawyerlyopinion is you'd probably get in
trouble, right?
And we've seen that.
And so there's this all thesesorts of things about the nuance
(27:56):
of it that have been tested insome courts.
And what we've seen is that whathappens too often is that women
of color in particular, thatthey end up getting arrested a
lot more, regardless if they'rea standard ground state, and
regardless if it's a retreat,and I don't have a place to go.
But what I've seen in terms ofthe research, in my experience
(28:19):
working with women of color,they're getting arrested a lot
more than women who have anysocial or economic privilege.
And this is a big, big problemthat we've seen.
And we've also seen this instandard ground laws, not just
with domestic violence, butother times, right?
You know, there's like a bigNetflix documentary about one
right now.
So, you know, there's all thesesorts of things, you know, that
(28:41):
happen about standard groundstates are different.
But I what I would say is that Iwant survivors, you know, are
not going to go out like, youknow, it's not their obligation
to go out and like, well, Ithink I should go out and study
the law, you know, before I dothis.
I want them to have a generalknowledge, but I want the system
to change so that that's not athing that they have to worry
(29:05):
about.
In the meantime, because that'sstill the reality, I at least
want advocates or people whowork with survivors to talk to
them about it, right?
And I also completely understandthat when you're experiencing
that, you're trying to protectyourself or your children, why
you will use force back.
(29:26):
And I think it's a mistake forus to over-moralize it and be
like, well, if I I would neverdo that, right?
And you need to make a betterchoice.
It's not helpful.
It is not helpful to survivorswhen we insert that language and
talk about it in that way, whenthey're living under this person
who is really, right, justseeking to dominate them.
(29:50):
And this is just a reallyimportant aspect.
And that the challenge is thatinterveners often too or too
often look at an incident andthey don't look at The history
as well of the relationship.
SPEAKER_03 (30:02):
Yeah, that's that's that is all that is all so
helpful, and all of that contextis very meaningful in this
conversation.
I want to get to Lisa and hearher thoughts on these laws
because she is working withthese criminalized survivors.
SPEAKER_04 (30:15):
I support exactly what Melissa is saying, and I
think that to build on that whena woman is in this situation,
she's thinking of usually firstand foremost the safety of her
children and then her safety.
And she's going to do what sheneeds to do to get out and to
(30:37):
remove herself from thatsituation.
And not decontextualizing herexperiences and removing an
analysis of race, class, andculture in the US is detrimental
to the lives of many women, andthat's what results in them
becoming criminalized.
SPEAKER_03 (30:58):
Now, when we look at these cases where survivors are
being criminalized and they'rebeing brought into uh charges
are brought against them,they're in court, are there
opportunities now or yet forattorneys to talk with them
about their history with theindividual who they may have
used force upon, probably theirabusive partner, and really take
(31:21):
that into consideration?
Or are we still in a space wherethat that's not happening?
You're smiling.
I don't know if that's good orbad.
I I'm not.
SPEAKER_04 (31:29):
I was just talking with someone about this.
Um, it's not good.
With the women that I work with,so if we think about that moment
where the police intervene andI'm speaking along a binary here
in terms of her being harmed byhim, that's my example.
All right.
(31:50):
And she has been abused by himand is closely controlled by
him.
Okay.
And then if we add on layers ofrace, class, culture.
The police intervene, and as Iwas bringing attention to that
arrest web, following protocol,asking questions, she's not
(32:13):
aware of when the questionsstart, how much time she has.
She often, women have told meafter, was just hoping that she
would get to the police cruiserso she would feel safe, not
understanding that she wasarrested if she got to the
police cruiser.
And then this very genderedphenomenon of her detailing
everything that she did wrong,because that's what's on the
surface.
The survivorship is theprotective piece, which is like
(32:36):
I it's not safe for me to talkabout that right now.
They're asking me if I didsomething, and I'm saying yes.
And then the questions stop.
And then the coercivelycontrolled person gets their way
because they've said nothing.
She's done all the work in termsof taking responsibility.
So now we take that dynamic andwe take it to court and we take
(32:56):
it to working with attorneys.
Many women are told, in myexperience, you don't want to
take this to trial.
It's going to cost you money,you don't have, you're going to
have to be away from your kidslonger.
Typically, he then has the kids.
She's out of the house becauseof this victim offender binary
and how we treat people verydifferently according to how the
(33:18):
system has identified them.
And so she's discouraged frommoving forward legally and
encouraged to take a plea.
But women have told me in thisprocess, I didn't get to tell my
story when the police came tothe house.
So I believed I'm just going tobe able to now tell the full
(33:38):
story when I go to court andwhen I get to talk to my
attorney.
They don't realize that they'regoing to likely have moments to
talk to this public defender,and that they're going to be
encouraged to take a pleabargain, which means not telling
your story and being guaranteeda certain outcome.
And even the language of abargain, they think, well, okay,
(34:00):
this is the direction they thinkthis is best for me.
They don't understand how thelegal system works.
And so it's the similar dynamicof what feels like betrayal and
deception when they talk toattorneys, unfortunately, and
when they go through the courtprocess.
And then the court feelshampered as well because women's
saying, Yes, I just did it,let's get it over with.
(34:21):
I just did a training at theAmeric for the American Judges
Association in Vancouver andspoke with over a hundred uh
judges who are very frustratedaround what we can do to support
women when they come and theysay, Yes, this is what happened,
I did it, what do I do next?
And we need to have advocatesand domestic violence experts
(34:44):
who are allowed to interruptthat process, welcomed into that
process for assessment andthorough expert opinion.
Otherwise, the legal system isbetraying them and they feel
deeply betrayed.
SPEAKER_03 (34:59):
Yeah, and you kind of wrote a book about that,
right?
Uh the book Broken Women'sStories of Intimate and
Institutional Harm and Repair.
Tell us a little bit about whatthe book is about and how it
relates to the criminalizedsurvivor and what some key
takeaways might be.
SPEAKER_04 (35:16):
Yes.
The book is based on threeyears, more than three years of
research, ethnographic research,which meant that I spent an
extensive period of time with 33women.
I interviewed them in person,also went to court with them,
child protection hearings, spenttime in their homes, in the
community, learning from theirexperiences of being arrested,
(35:40):
going to court, being onprobation, having interactions
with child protection, and thenbeing court-ordered to
anti-violence intervention.
The book takes a close look atthe layered experience, the
cumulative harm of probation,child protection, and
anti-violence intervention.
(36:01):
It also provides a way forwardto understand that, of course,
there are probation officers andchild protection workers and
anti-violence interventiongroups that provide the
framework and the support aroundhealing and repair.
But the system, thecommunity-based legal system,
(36:24):
oftentimes replicates the harmthat the women have felt and
experienced in their intimaterelationships and early
childhood through childhoodabuse.
So the takeaways from that arefirst of all, a deep analysis
through the women's own words ofwhat it's like to be on
probation, what it's like to gofor a drug test and feel
(36:44):
sexually abused again by theurinalysis test, what it's like
to have interactions with childprotection workers who treated
many of these women as they werefailures as parents, even when
there wasn't a formalinvestigation, and what it's
like to have to go to acourt-ordered group and spend
time they didn't have and moneythey didn't have.
(37:07):
But also what it's like to havethe opportunity to meet
similarly situated women ingroup and then create informal
spaces where they supported eachother.
And in the case of many of thesewomen, in touch with each other
many years later, supportingeach other and helping each
(37:31):
other informally and formally.
Because once the system'scontact is over, the formal
contact, meaning off probation,the child protection
investigation's over, you finishyour anti-violence intervention
program, if you have amisdemeanor domestic violence
conviction on your record, yourability to get a job that you're
(37:53):
going to support you and yourfamily is very, very difficult
if not impossible.
So the system's harms continueand they're continuing to
support each other.
So the takeaways are the finalchapter is a call to action for
people involved in the lives ofwomen who are systems identified
(38:14):
as offenders or criminalizedsurvivors, and how we can assert
our expertise.
And going back to when I wastalking about the court and
attorneys, doing that advocacyand intervention, this is a
pressing social justice issue.
And although we refer to itoften as the criminal justice
(38:35):
system, the women that Melissaand I work with don't get the
justice.
They don't feel the justice partof it, they only feel the legal
part of it.
So I encourage people to learnfrom the women's experiences and
the women's own words and how wecan promote healing and repair
and push back on oppressivesystems.
SPEAKER_03 (38:56):
Yeah, this is such important work that you both are
doing.
Now, Melissa, you've done somewriting as well.
You co-wrote Turning Points, aneducational curriculum for women
who use both legal and illegalviolence against their partners.
So this is really kind of anextension or just a parallel to
the work that we were justtalking about with Lisa.
So while engaging in thisresearch and speaking to
(39:19):
survivors, what challenges wererevealed and who could utilize
the curriculum?
SPEAKER_01 (39:24):
So what we were seeing when I was working in
Duluth for people who wereworking with men in
anti-violence programs, youknow, with abusers using
coercive control, is that therewas an increase of women who
were getting arrested and theydidn't know what to do with
them.
And what was literally happeningis people were calling Duluth
saying, so I'm trying to useyour men's curriculum with
(39:45):
women, and do you have somethingelse?
And we're like, okay, we can'tkeep getting these calls, right?
So it's a little bit of thisthing of this struggle about we
don't want to create somethingthat'll promote more, you know,
criminalization of survivors,and what we know people are
doing is really problematic,right?
And so what we wanted to do isthat we wanted to start by doing
(40:08):
interviews and focus groups withwomen, just like you know, Lisa
did for a book, but here to say,we need to find out about their
lived experience and what it'slike.
And one of the big things Iwould say, like as a takeaway
about turning points, is that alot of the women come in to
those groups and the initialassessment with the thinking of
(40:31):
the abuser in their head, right?
And they say, I just want you toknow I'm the violent one, or we
both use violence and I gottawork on it.
And and we just saw this overand over.
We said, okay, so what werealize is that the beginning of
turning points needs todifferentiate between these
different types of domesticviolence.
That you have violence that'scoercive and controlling and
(40:54):
entitled, but you're gonna havea number of survivors who are
gonna resist, right?
They're gonna resist that, andthat resistive force, we want to
call it something else.
And those are those withsurvivorship histories.
So, what we wanted to understandthen is that we wanted to really
work with women when they camein, that the what the court told
(41:18):
us about what happened, right,and what survivors were
initially telling us, we needed,as Lisa says, to sift through
the history and the meaning ofall of that.
Because abusers work so hard toput thinking into women's heads
about what they've done and why,and we knew that would take time
to unravel.
And so we said, we're gonnareally work with women at the
(41:42):
very beginning of turningpoints.
We're gonna do thisself-assessment where they sort
of think about what's the intentor motivation of what I've done,
right?
What's been the effect of whatI've done?
We want to understand thosethings and what's the meaning of
what I've done in the wholerelationship.
So that's how we think aboutcontext, right?
Is intent, effect, and meaning.
(42:04):
And that takes time.
And then at the end of ninedifferent segments, we have the
women do a self-assessmentagain.
And what I can tell you, Maria,I've done this, it'll be 20
years in 2026.
I have never had a woman comeinto that group and that first
assessment say the same thing asthe end of those nine sessions.
(42:26):
So, what I mean by that is thatafter that process of being with
other women in this space andbetter understanding why they've
done what they've done and whytheir partner has done what
they've done, they see itcompletely differently, right?
So, to Lisa's point about thevalue of being in community, you
(42:46):
know, with other women also isvery, very helpful.
And it's also another reasonwhy, you know, for me, the cycle
of violence has been problematicbecause it says all domestic
violence is the same.
When what we know with women whouse force is that they're
resisting what they'reexperiencing and they're
(43:07):
protecting themselves.
And we don't want to use thesame language for those who are
using coercive control and thesame theory as those who are
resisting.
And a way to think about this,Maria, is I've often uh said to
people, I've said, okay, if youfor yourself, if you think about
(43:27):
this woman you're working with,if she ends this relationship,
goes into another relationship,are you concerned that she's
gonna be violent, you know, inthat new relationship?
I've asked people who doassessments that I've asked
women that they said, no, I I Iwouldn't do that, right?
That's what survivors say.
And that's what interveners say.
I say, okay, then we can't callit the same thing.
(43:50):
We have to have differentlanguage.
And that's why we feel sopassionate about using words
like women's use of force andresistance as the source for
their violence, because we don'twant to use the same language as
those who are using coercivecontrol.
So when women go through that,they're really understanding it
(44:10):
as something different forthemselves, and that's
liberation, and that's our goalfor women to really be in a
space where they're able to feelmore liberated.
And we don't want to replicatethe abuser and too many
interveners and groups justbecome the next person in her
life telling her what to do.
SPEAKER_03 (44:29):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So we we are finally going tocome full circle here because we
started out talking about modelsand frameworks, and then we
started diving into them,talking about different aspects
within each framework, likecoercive control.
And then we talked about howcoercive control can lead to
criminalization of survivors,right, and some of the
(44:50):
legislation around all of that.
And now we are going to bring itall together.
I'd love if you both could justcomment finally on what models
and theories should beconsidered.
We've touched on them, but weshould give just a little bit
more information.
SPEAKER_01 (45:07):
So, what I would say is that there's there's three
sort of places that we go to,which is oppression theory,
right, to understand the socialfactors, that some women have
different capacities anddifferent lived experience.
So, what that means is that whenwe live in a society, some of us
(45:28):
have more power than others,right?
In terms of in that society andmore access to get help, more
access to leave and move, forexample.
But also that power and controland coercive control, that this
idea that there's a way to thinkabout relationships and a
(45:49):
general sort of way, is that mencan enter into the world and in
intimate partner relationshipswith the thinking of I get to
get my way in this relationshipwith an intimate partner, and
when I need to, I'm gonna useforce to get it, right?
And that is the setup.
It's the thinking and the beliefsystem that says I'm entitled to
(46:13):
it.
And so we have to understandthat that that's culturally
supported, right?
For men to have that thinking,and we don't have enough models
for equality, an equalrelationship, because the other
thing we want is uh theopposite, right?
We want to give examples of theopposite, which is equality or
equal and caring relationships.
(46:33):
And even with the women thatLisa and I have worked with, I
will tell you, Maria, that a lotof them think that equal
relationships are only in themovies.
A lot of them have neverexperienced it.
A lot of them don't know peoplewho are actually in them.
And there's also not in today'sday a lot of cultural examples
of them.
(46:54):
So we have to also work on interms of how we talk about and
think about equal and caringrelationships for what we want
and for men to be driven to wantto give up, you know, some
things in order to want that andthe love and beauty that can
bring for them too.
SPEAKER_03 (47:12):
Totally agree.
That's an excellent point.
SPEAKER_04 (47:14):
Lisa I'd like to add to that, uh, particularly when
we think of that lens ofoppression theory with two
different points.
The first is work that AshleyRoussan and I did when we uh
observed and wrote about womenuh in the Renew Program, a
program in Ann Arbor, Michigan,created years ago.
(47:35):
And we described it as anentitled power.
So the abusive, coercivelycontrolling partner exercising
authority, where the person whois being coercively controlled
and was resisting that asseeking autonomy and a second as
a secondary powerholder.
And I think that that's reallyhelpful for people to consider,
(47:57):
particularly as we pull the lensout and think of all different
identities of someone in acoercively controlling
relationship who is a secondarypowerholder, meaning they have
been born into power andprivilege.
And then adding on to that, justas Melissa so beautifully put
it, is again thinking of legalscholar Kimberly Crenshaw's
(48:21):
terminology of intersectionalitytheory.
So the bodies that we travel inshape how institutions respond
to us.
And so all of this happens froma systems perspective.
And that's how we were talkingabout people who have racialized
identities and how institutionsoften respond to them
(48:42):
differently, meaning they'remore likely to be arrested.
And so really paying attentionthrough that lens of oppression
theory of primary power,secondary power, and what are
the individuals' uhintersectional identities that
shape how they move throughdifferent institutions and
relationships.
SPEAKER_03 (49:02):
Yeah, because none of this happens in a vacuum.
It's all happening at the sametime.
And all those gears are moving,if you will, uh from systems and
the intersections of poverty andrace and domestic violence and
so on.
And once you get wrapped up inthat system, it's very hard to
get out of it.
SPEAKER_04 (49:22):
Yes, it is.
And I think another thing thatwe haven't touched on, and it
could take us in a differentdirection, but I just want to
briefly note is the people whoare intervening in the lives of
survivors, particularlycriminalized survivors, if they
haven't done their own work,they can then continue the harm.
Meaning if they're not checkedinto their own histories and
(49:43):
done some healing, uh, and thishappens in many different
settings.
SPEAKER_03 (49:47):
Yeah, it it's all can be very re-traumatizing for
lots of people involved.
Before I let you go, uh for bothmen and women who don't
necessarily work in the violenceagainst women's space, but who
want to help women who they knowor who are at risk of being in a
violent relationship, whatadvice or resources would you
like to offer?
SPEAKER_01 (50:07):
I would say that, you know, one of the spaces is
the Better Women's JusticeProject has really started to
think about this.
They have a whole center nowthat works on this and provide
plenty of, you know, resourceson it.
So I encourage them.
You can come to us atturningpoints at
dvturningpoints.com.
We try to put a number ofresources to help people
(50:30):
understand this.
Um, you know, domestic violencecoalitions and local agencies, I
would say some are further alongthan others in terms of how they
think about and talk aboutcriminalized survivors.
I'd say we're much better thanwe were even 10 years ago.
Um, but I still hear storiesabout programs that, you know,
if they have an arrest orthey're the arrested person that
(50:54):
their partner ends up comingthere and they can't get help.
But I would say that's gottenbetter for sure.
So yeah, I would say localprograms for sure.
But nationally, I would say, youknow, the Better Women's Justice
Project.
And then of course, there's anumber of pockets across the US.
Of course, there's work beingdone in New York with the
Survivors Justice Act.
There's a big group of peopleworking on women who are in
(51:18):
prison and have been sentencedand trying to prevent that.
There's a number of people whoare working on what I would call
diversion programs andprosecutions.
But generally, I would saythere's not as much as just sort
of regular services for victimsas, you know, criminalized
survivors, there's much lessresource put in for those who
are criminalized survivors orwomen who use force than women
(51:40):
who have not been caught up inwhat Lisa so eloquently calls,
you know, the web of the justiceor the arrest web.
SPEAKER_04 (51:48):
And I I want to add to that as well that I hope that
coalitions and uh countywidesurvivor support agencies can
really broaden their perspectiveand work beyond this victim
offender binary.
Oftentimes I continue to hearover after 20 years that we
(52:10):
don't do that work if a womanbecomes systems involved or is a
criminalized survivor.
And so to think around thatsurvivors survive and that looks
different for different people,and how we can innovate and show
up in people's lives in a waythat uh is truly supportive.
SPEAKER_03 (52:30):
That's also helpful.
Thank you both so much fortalking with me for the
important work that you do.
It's very valuable, so thankyou.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 21st Annual Conference onCrimes Against Women will be
held May 18th through the 21st,2026, in Dallas, Texas.
(52:54):
Learn more at conferencecaw.organd be the first to know about
all conference details as wellas the latest on the Institute
for Coordinated CommunityResponse, Annual Conference
Summit, Beyond the Bounds, andthe National Training Center on
Crimes Against Women.
When you follow us on socialmedia at NationalC CAW.
The subject matter of this podcast will address
difficult topics, multiple formsof violence, and identity-based
discrimination and harassment.
We acknowledge that this contentmay be difficult and have listed
specific content warnings ineach episode description to help
create a positive, safeexperience for all listeners.
SPEAKER_00 (00:20):
In this country, 31 million crimes.
31 million crimes are reportedevery year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutes,there is a murder.
Every five minutes, there is arape, every two to five minutes,
there is a sexual assault.
Every nine seconds in thiscountry, a woman is assaulted by
someone who told her that heloved her, by someone who told
(00:41):
her it was her fault, by someonewho tries to tell the rest of us
it's none of our business.
And I'm proud to stand heretoday with each of you to call
that perpetrator a liar.
SPEAKER_03 (00:56):
Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women.
I'm Maria McMullen.
Each year in October, weacknowledge Domestic Violence
Awareness Month with criticalconversations that illuminate
abuse in its many forms.
To continue those conversationsand understand why and how
domestic violence happens, todaywe highlight popular models and
frameworks such as the cycle ofviolence, coercive control, and
(01:19):
others and explore theirorigins, application, and
challenges with insights fromexperts Melissa Skaya and Dr.
Lisa Young Lawrence.
Melissa Skaya has worked toaddress gender-based violence
for over 25 years locally inMinnesota as well as nationally
and globally.
She works part-time at DomesticAbuse Project in Minneapolis.
(01:42):
She works with the UN Women toprovide training and technical
assistance globally and providestraining and technical
assistance on working withcriminalized survivors through
domestic violence turningpoints.
In her work, she brings a wealthof experience as the former
director of internationaltraining at global rights for
women, co-founder of Pathways toFamily Peace, and Executive
(02:04):
Director of Domestic AbuseIntervention Programs, also
known as the Duluth Model.
Before working in Duluth, shewas the executive director of
Advocates for Family Peace for17 years, a local domestic
violence advocacy program whereshe advocated for victims of
domestic violence.
She has also led and organizedthree coordinated community
(02:26):
responses to address domesticviolence in Minnesota.
She has been a consultingtrainer for many national
training organizations ondomestic violence and child
abuse, including the Center forCourt Innovation, the Battered
Women's Justice Project, andNational Council of Juvenile and
Family Court judges.
Dr.
Lisa Young Lawrence is aresearcher practitioner with a
(02:50):
wide-ranging clinical communityand prison-based practice
experience.
Her direct service work includesproviding individual
trauma-informed therapy,co-facilitating intervention
groups, and program design andimplementation.
Dr.
Young Lawrence is known globallyas an anti-violence intervention
pioneer who created foundationaland innovative community and
(03:13):
prison-based programming fordiverse women with domestic and
sexual violence survivorshiphistories who are brought to
systems' attention for their useof non-fatal force.
Her consulting work includes theNew Mexico Coalition Against
Domestic Violence, the UnitedStates Air Force's Family
Advocacy Program, and PositiveShift in Victoria, Australia.
(03:36):
Dr.
Young Laurence's scholarshipfocuses primarily on
understanding how systemsinvolved women's institutional
contact can both replicateintimate harm and facilitate
positive change.
Her book, Broken Women's Storiesof Intimate and Institutional
Harm, was published by theUniversity of California Press
(03:56):
in 2024.
She is an assistant professor atBrynmore College's Graduate
School of Social Work and SocialResearch.
Melissa and Lisa, welcome to theshow.
Thank you.
It's good to be with you, and wehave so much to talk about, and
I want to learn everything Ipossibly can from both of you.
So let's get started byunderstanding what each of you
(04:18):
do and the impact of your work.
Melissa, we'll start with you.
What do you do for the DomesticAbuse Project and how is their
work instrumental to the DVmovement?
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
Yeah, so sometimes it gets a little bit confusing
here in Minnesota.
I currently work for DAP, whichis Domestic Abuse Project, but I
also used to be the director ofDAIP, which is Domestic Abuse
Intervention Program in Duluth.
But I'm currently atMinneapolis, and in Minneapolis
right now, I am the CCRcoordinator or the coordinated
(04:52):
for coordinated communityresponse facilitator.
And then I also co-facilitatewhen needed a group for men who
are battering women or usingcoercive control towards women,
and then a group for women whouse force.
So I'm doing that part-time inMinneapolis, and then do
training for lots of otherplaces.
(05:13):
But that's what I'm currentlydoing locally.
SPEAKER_03 (05:15):
That sounds like a lot.
Lisa, you're also doing a lot inthis space.
Tell us what you do holisticallyas a clinician and consultant
and how your work is alsoimpactful in the domestic
violence movement.
SPEAKER_04 (05:31):
I am currently an assistant professor of social
work at the Graduate School ofSocial Work and Social Research
at Bryn Mawr College inPennsylvania.
So I educate masters anddoctoral level social workers
about a range of issues, one ofthem being domestic violence.
I'm a longtime anti-violenceintervention practitioner as
well.
Built some of the firstfoundational programming to
(05:54):
address this complex issue ofwomen with domestic and sexual
violence survivorship historieswho then become systems
identified as offenders.
I continue to do that workthrough a range of research
projects and consultancies.
SPEAKER_03 (06:12):
I know that there's so much that we can learn from
both of you, but for today wechose to focus and explore the
frameworks that are used tounderstand abuse, such as the
cycle of violence.
That's just one that we will betalking about because there are
other models and we'll get tothose too.
But first, Melissa, I wanted tounderstand more about the cycle
(06:34):
of violence model or framework,because it's well known or
believed that abusers tend tobehave in patterns when making
the choice to abuse.
And from observing thosepatterns, the theory emerged for
the cycle of violence.
And that theory was developed byLenore Walker.
Could you give us a traditionalmaybe definition of the cycle of
(06:57):
violence and how it differs fromthe others, like the power and
control wheel, um, and thenmaybe how they intersect as
well.
SPEAKER_01 (07:04):
Sure.
So in the late 1970s, LenoreWalker coined the term which was
uh cycle of violence.
So I want to just say that eventhough it may come off today
that I'm criticizing it, I alsowant to give her credit at that
time because I would saysocially and politically, people
(07:26):
weren't talking about it interms of domestic violence, you
know, or a very different timeframe than the late 70s, early
80s, and all that time frame.
So, you know, I want to just saythat it was an important step in
our movement.
And what I love about thedomestic violence movement is
we've gone out to continuallylearn about things, right?
(07:48):
And how things affect a broadrange.
So here's the easiest way todescribe it is that my uh
description is that firstthere's this tension-building
phase, right?
That survivor would beexperiencing is what the theory
says, maybe seeing some thingsin the abuser.
(08:08):
And then there's what's calledthe violence or the explosion
phase.
Okay, so that's phase two, soit's it's done in a circle.
And then the last phase is thehoneymoon phase.
Okay, so that's what peopleoften uh describe as the cycle
of violence.
I want to say I was trained init when I started in the mid-90s
(08:30):
when I went to Anne-MarieShelter in St.
Cloud, Minnesota.
I went and volunteered, and I Ithink I still even have it, and
it was described to me.
It made sense to me, you know,at that time.
Um, but what we've really cometo understand is a few things.
And one of the big ones, andthis comes from the work in
(08:50):
Duluth, and this was at the timewhen Duluth was trying to figure
out what's happening, is theywere offering education groups
for women all around Duluth.
Okay, and so they would go out,do an education group with
women, and they would teach thisthe cycle of violence.
And women were showing up atthose groups saying, I don't
know that honeymoon phase inparticular.
(09:12):
That's the one phase lots ofwomen were reacting to.
And they said, no, no, no, no.
I mean, and you know, we kind ofjokingly, but also embarrassed
by say, we said, no, no, no,just go home and look for it.
It's there, you know, which isvery oppressive of us.
Yes, yeah, right?
Like, no, no, no.
We haven't come a long way.
Yeah.
Yes, we have.
But this is how people get veryattached to their theories,
(09:35):
right?
And so, I mean, I remember, no,no, no, just you'll you'll find
it.
Just go look for the small thinghe does afterwards, right?
To to apologize or to try andmake it better.
And women kept coming back andsaying, no, uh, I do not have
this.
So finally we realize ouroppressive ways and said, okay,
we're gonna set aside thattheory and others that we sort
(09:59):
of say, and what we're gonna dois we're gonna spend this time.
We wanna hear from you.
So we know about the physicalviolence, right?
And we know we've talked aboutthe sexual violence, but we're
just gonna document all theother things that your partners
do to you.
We want you to tell us aboutthat, and we're gonna write them
down, okay?
(10:20):
And so that's what they did isthey wrote down all the other
things that women experienced,and that's how the power and
control wheel came to be.
And so some choices were made.
It didn't include everycategory, right?
But it included the ones that weheard the most commonly.
(10:40):
So, a way to think about thepower and control wheel is that
the outside ring is reallyimportant because it includes
physical and sexual violence.
Okay, and then of course,there's all the spokes of the
wheel.
And then there's the centerwhich says power and control.
The reason why those three partsare important is because
(11:01):
oftentimes I'll hear people say,Well, Melissa, you know, it says
on there that name-calling isemotional abuse.
And my partner, you know, calledme a name.
You know, are they abusive?
I say, okay, well, I have a fewquestions for you, right?
Are they using physical abuse?
Are they threatening it, right?
Are you living in fear also?
Because it's you can't just takeone of those things out of the
(11:23):
spoke, right?
So it's that that outside ringplus any combination of those
tactics is what abusers end upwith is power and control,
right?
So that's the representation ofit.
And when it was created at thattime, um, Shirley Olberg and
Coral McDonald, I want to makesure give them credit because
(11:44):
they're the ones, Coral actuallyfrom Duluth is the one who
created that, you know, a timebefore fancy computers and Canva
and all those sorts of thingsmade that.
And even before the internet,and then programs said, Hey,
could you fax me that or mail methat?
And it started getting spreadaround.
And I think it's also a reallygood representation that
(12:06):
globally now survivors haveattached to this, right?
And so I do work globally for UNwomen.
And the reason why the cycle ofviolence, of course, is
problematic for us, is becauseone thing, exactly like you
said, Maria, it it instills thisthing of it's a pattern, right?
You're gonna see these things,and you don't always see those
(12:28):
things.
That's one of the bigfundamental problems with it, of
course, is not just that there'sa honeymoon phase, but also that
uh there's this tension-buildingphase, right?
In fact, I just talked to awoman today and she said, Mosa,
sometimes I had no idea.
Like he would just come and dothings to me, and I had no idea,
(12:50):
right?
Like what I'd done.
And I'm just like, what was thatfor?
And so we want any of ourgraphic representations to
represent the experience of asmany women as possible, as many
diverse, you know, women aspossible.
And so it's really importantthat we sort of think about
(13:13):
this.
And then I would just say theother thing is that it also
started to imply that if youwanted to end the violence, you
have to deal with the tension.
And then people started creatinganger management programs,
right?
And so they said, oh yeah, yeah,you just need to teach them to
breathe, and saying that thatwas the cause.
Now, we even at the verybeginning thought that anger
(13:34):
management would be the thing tosolve it.
And what we realized is that menwere able to control their anger
in lots of other places, butwhen it came to in their home
and with their partners, right,they felt really justified and
entitled to get their way.
And so teaching them how tobreathe, for example, through a
(13:55):
moment wasn't gonna be the thingthat was gonna help.
SPEAKER_03 (13:58):
Yeah, that really isn't the solution in those
particular cases.
Is there anywhere that those twomodels might intersect?
The cycle of violence and thepower and control wheel?
SPEAKER_01 (14:08):
Well, I mean, first I want to say to make sure that
people hear me clearly is thatsome survivors do experience
this cycle.
So I don't want to ever comeacross as saying that some
survivors don't, right?
Because some survivors do.
But in terms of theintersection, and and this would
be the difference.
I think for me, I reallystruggle with the the word
(14:29):
honeymoon also, becauseculturally it means a beautiful
and amazing time.
Where what we're talking abouthere is we're talking about
relationships of dominance,right?
So I'm putting my two hands uphere, uh, where we have the
abuser actually feels entitledto control their partner and
(14:50):
think, okay, if I enter into arelationship, for example, with
a woman, then someone needs tobe in charge, and that's me.
And I think the interestingthing about it too is there's
been some research that recentlycame out from Professor
Catherine Donovan in England,and she works in the LGBTQ
community.
And in that community, there wasa bias for sure, and by the
(15:14):
general public, that well, okay,there may be this dominance
thing happening, you know, andmale-female, but not in, you
know, those real thoserelationships are different,
right?
And her research says that's notthe case.
The thinking was still somebodyneeds to be in charge.
When you have two people in anintimate relationship, somebody
(15:34):
needs to be in charge.
So what I would say to you wherepart of the overlap comes, is
that I do see behaviors byabusers, of course, because you
know I work with them in groupsand such, but during what the
cycle of violence shows as thathoneymoon phase can be for a
couple different intents.
(15:55):
And the my problem with that isthat it gives this perception
that it's it's an amazing timefor a victim or a victim's gonna
accept.
When what we know, one of theways to keep a relationship of
dominance is to give acts ofkindness or acts of care once in
a while.
That will also, you know, keepsurvivors there.
(16:16):
And I'm not saying that someabusers don't do some of that
sometimes in their genuinehearts.
I I actually think that some ofthem do, like they feel bad
about it, and they're like,okay, I want to do something,
but I'm not gonna call that ahoneymoon because, in part,
they're not willing to give upthe relationship of dominance,
(16:39):
right, over their partner.
SPEAKER_03 (16:40):
Yeah, I think you raise uh some really interesting
points.
And uh one of the other things Iwould add to that is what we've
learned over time is even thoughdomestic violence does not
discriminate, it is not the sameexperience for each individual,
and it's going to be verydifferent according to the
person and their circumstancesand lots of other things.
(17:04):
I just want to make mentionquickly about what other types
of abuse there actually are inthat power and control wheel
because it's not always physicalviolence, right?
And so um if you could just giveus an idea of of what else is in
the wheel and what the othertypes of abuse are.
SPEAKER_01 (17:24):
Yeah, yeah.
So one of the things to thinkabout is that a lot of people
often ask me, like, how is thepower and control wheel
different than what Evan Starktermed is coercive control?
And here's the way I woulddescribe it the power and
control wheel literally comesfrom the voices of survivors,
(17:44):
right?
We literally took their wordsand put them within there.
That's their words.
A way to think about coercivecontrol is to think that's how
the abuser thinks, right?
To think, okay, I'm gonna take,you're right, this tactic of
isolation, that's gonna work.
And so what Evan Stark did isreally sort of help us
(18:05):
understand and really elevatedthe idea, there's a whole bunch
of things.
So isolation is a really commonone.
Trying to get her to only beclose to them in today's
technological world, making herfeel guilty if she won't turn on
her location on her cell phone,for example, that's a big one
these days.
Also, having a young daughter, Ilearn about these things.
(18:27):
But in today's community, that'san example of it.
But isolating our partners aswell and trying to trap them in
a certain way and keep them awayfrom others is big.
Using children is another onethat you'll see on there.
It's so in relationships wherethere's children that especially
when you have multiple children,for example, you'll often see
(18:50):
that the abuser will favor onechild over another as really an
extension of themselves to keepthis relationship of dominance
of place like, hey, uh, by theway, you know, why don't you uh
tell me what your mom did, youknow, while I was gone?
And, you know, if if if shetalks to anyone, why don't you
let me know?
(19:11):
Oh, and then by the way, thatbike that you've always wanted,
I'm happy to go get that foryou.
And so that's not physical orsexual violence, right?
But that's a coercive tacticusing children to monitor their
partners and to keep thatrelationship of dominance in
place.
SPEAKER_03 (19:29):
That's so manipulative.
It's a great example, though,because those are definitely
things that uh we've heard fromlots of people, lots of
survivors.
Um, now we touched on coercivecontrol just briefly, and we're
gonna come back to that becauseI want to switch gears for a
minute and talk with Lisa.
And listeners, bear with us.
We're covering a lot of ground,but we're gonna come full circle
(19:52):
here at the end.
So here we go.
Lisa, what is a criminalizedsurvivor?
And how has that term becomemore commonly used?
SPEAKER_04 (20:04):
The term criminalized survivor recognizes
the experiences of women withdomestic and sexual violence
survivorship histories who thenbecome systems involved.
So legal systems involved for itmay be through an inappropriate
or wrongful arrest, it may beharm that they have caused.
It's also uh connected to theharm that they've experienced
(20:25):
from their partner andunresolved uh experiences really
over the course of multiplerelationships.
SPEAKER_03 (20:33):
How do those actions actually cause a survivor to be
criminalized?
SPEAKER_04 (20:38):
I'm going to uh answer your question, but
through the words of the womenthat I've worked with and also
I've done research with.
So the women that I've workedwith and done research uh with
have actually described theirexperience as being or feeling
broken.
And it is because of theirsystem's contact, but also
because of the intimate harmthey've experienced from a
(20:59):
coercively controlling andphysically abusive person.
In my work, I've broughtattention to what I refer to as
the arrest web, and it's a veryintentional form of coercive
control that manipulatesmandatory preferred arrest
procedures, manipulates theinterview, the police
(21:21):
questioning process, and reallytakes advantage of the gendered
phenomenon of women withdomestic violence survivorship
histories disclosing what'shappened at the incident while
the coercively controllingpartner remains very calm, cool,
(21:42):
collected, and quiet when thepolice arrive.
So coercive control can be usedin so many different settings
and manipulated in a way towhere the truly coercively
controlling person uh it's notevident to systems responders of
who's doing what to whom.
SPEAKER_03 (22:02):
Yeah, that's a very interesting article.
I have read that uh articleabout the arrest web.
That was published in theJournal of Interpersonal
Violence, and we'll try to get alink out to people so that they
can access that information.
One of the things I found veryinteresting was how you wrote
about police officers have aprotocol on how and when and why
(22:29):
they would arrest someone.
And that may or may not includehow they evaluate what else is
going on prior to the incident,right?
SPEAKER_04 (22:40):
Absolutely.
And I think it's it's criticallyimportant with when we think of
arrest and situate it within thecontext of the US and that
history of the battered women'smovement and the real push to
criminalize domestic violenceand that has saved countless
(23:01):
lives.
Also, criminalizing domesticviolence, police response has
now been weaponized bycoercively controlling partners
against many women.
And so police themselves, assystems partners, and many, of
course, uh working diligently tokeep people safe and do the best
(23:25):
that they can in those moments,they are also part of this
arrest web.
They become entangled in thecoercively controlling partner's
efforts to have the survivorwrongfully arrested.
I know that that is oftenunrecognized.
Many times the blame is placedon the policy and the first
(23:45):
responders rather than reallyunderstanding the power of the
coercively controlling partnerand the socialized disclosure
for women who get uh involved inthe system and trying to protect
themselves and their families,their children.
And also very afraid of theperson who has that power and
(24:06):
control, who is their abusivepartner, who the police may come
and go, but that person has theprimary power in their
relationship.
SPEAKER_03 (24:15):
Yeah, you're so right about that.
So that that brings us to thepoint where we're gonna talk a
little bit about the laws thatsurround either defending
yourself or not defendingyourself and how how the law
kind of treats people uh likewomen who are experiencing
domestic violence because thereare differences within the
(24:36):
country where some states upholdthe quote unquote stand your
ground law and then other statesuphold the quote unquote retreat
law.
So can you define what theselaws mean as they relate to
domestic violence and theimplications for survivors who
may have fought back?
And I'd love to hear from bothof you on this question.
SPEAKER_01 (24:58):
Yeah, so I think I'll start on this one, just in
terms of, and just say, ofcourse, uh this is not providing
legal advice, and I'm not alawyer in terms of this, but you
know, I I've thought about thisa lot and worked, my best
friend's a defense attorney, andspent quite a bit of time on
this.
And here's the reason why it'simportant, and for survivors,
okay, is because when you'reliving under someone who's being
(25:22):
coercive controlling, who'sharming you, you're scared of,
right?
When you're living under that,what is very common to happen,
of course, is that over timethings start to feel justified
to get back at to resist theperson who's caused you harm,
right?
Now, some of those things end upbeing illegal and some of them
(25:45):
are not.
But when you're living under it,what feels justified doesn't
mean it's legal.
And this is what I wantsurvivors to know.
And I also want advocates, thosewho do this work.
I also don't think enoughadvocates understand or partner
with um defense attorneys aboutthis enough.
But here's my layperson'sdescription of the difference,
(26:08):
okay?
Okay.
So, for example, um, behind me,if you were to see me, there is
a wall behind me, okay, and thedoor is in front of me.
Now, if I was in an abusiverelationship with a history of
violence and my partner wasstanding in front of me and is
coming at me or harms me, evenin a retreat state, I have the
(26:30):
right to defend and protectmyself because there's no door
that I can easily go to, right?
Because remember, the door Ihave to go through my partner.
However, let's say I turnedaround, right?
So let's say the door was behindme, for example, my partner's
coming at me, he does somethingto me, turns away and walks
(26:52):
away, for example, and then Icharge Adam, throw something at
him.
If I do that and I don'tretreat, go out the door, right?
Yes.
In many retreat states, that'dbe considered illegal because I
have a legal obligation toretreat when I have that option.
(27:13):
Okay.
Now, the standard ground, thelegal definitions of those are
much more nuanced by state, butmy general understanding is that
regardless if there's a door ornot, you can literally stand
your ground, right?
And like fight back.
Okay.
Now there's a whole bunch ofsort of um things about whether
(27:33):
it's legal in a retreat state orstandard ground.
So for example, there's uhcharacteristics about how much
force you can use.
Uh, so for example, aboutwhether or not someone pushes me
if I can take out a gun.
And you know, my non-lawyerlyopinion is you'd probably get in
trouble, right?
And we've seen that.
And so there's this all thesesorts of things about the nuance
(27:56):
of it that have been tested insome courts.
And what we've seen is that whathappens too often is that women
of color in particular, thatthey end up getting arrested a
lot more, regardless if they'rea standard ground state, and
regardless if it's a retreat,and I don't have a place to go.
But what I've seen in terms ofthe research, in my experience
(28:19):
working with women of color,they're getting arrested a lot
more than women who have anysocial or economic privilege.
And this is a big, big problemthat we've seen.
And we've also seen this instandard ground laws, not just
with domestic violence, butother times, right?
You know, there's like a bigNetflix documentary about one
right now.
So, you know, there's all thesesorts of things, you know, that
(28:41):
happen about standard groundstates are different.
But I what I would say is that Iwant survivors, you know, are
not going to go out like, youknow, it's not their obligation
to go out and like, well, Ithink I should go out and study
the law, you know, before I dothis.
I want them to have a generalknowledge, but I want the system
to change so that that's not athing that they have to worry
(29:05):
about.
In the meantime, because that'sstill the reality, I at least
want advocates or people whowork with survivors to talk to
them about it, right?
And I also completely understandthat when you're experiencing
that, you're trying to protectyourself or your children, why
you will use force back.
(29:26):
And I think it's a mistake forus to over-moralize it and be
like, well, if I I would neverdo that, right?
And you need to make a betterchoice.
It's not helpful.
It is not helpful to survivorswhen we insert that language and
talk about it in that way, whenthey're living under this person
who is really, right, justseeking to dominate them.
(29:50):
And this is just a reallyimportant aspect.
And that the challenge is thatinterveners often too or too
often look at an incident andthey don't look at The history
as well of the relationship.
SPEAKER_03 (30:02):
Yeah, that's that's that is all that is all so
helpful, and all of that contextis very meaningful in this
conversation.
I want to get to Lisa and hearher thoughts on these laws
because she is working withthese criminalized survivors.
SPEAKER_04 (30:15):
I support exactly what Melissa is saying, and I
think that to build on that whena woman is in this situation,
she's thinking of usually firstand foremost the safety of her
children and then her safety.
And she's going to do what sheneeds to do to get out and to
(30:37):
remove herself from thatsituation.
And not decontextualizing herexperiences and removing an
analysis of race, class, andculture in the US is detrimental
to the lives of many women, andthat's what results in them
becoming criminalized.
SPEAKER_03 (30:58):
Now, when we look at these cases where survivors are
being criminalized and they'rebeing brought into uh charges
are brought against them,they're in court, are there
opportunities now or yet forattorneys to talk with them
about their history with theindividual who they may have
used force upon, probably theirabusive partner, and really take
(31:21):
that into consideration?
Or are we still in a space wherethat that's not happening?
You're smiling.
I don't know if that's good orbad.
I I'm not.
SPEAKER_04 (31:29):
I was just talking with someone about this.
Um, it's not good.
With the women that I work with,so if we think about that moment
where the police intervene andI'm speaking along a binary here
in terms of her being harmed byhim, that's my example.
All right.
(31:50):
And she has been abused by himand is closely controlled by
him.
Okay.
And then if we add on layers ofrace, class, culture.
The police intervene, and as Iwas bringing attention to that
arrest web, following protocol,asking questions, she's not
(32:13):
aware of when the questionsstart, how much time she has.
She often, women have told meafter, was just hoping that she
would get to the police cruiserso she would feel safe, not
understanding that she wasarrested if she got to the
police cruiser.
And then this very genderedphenomenon of her detailing
everything that she did wrong,because that's what's on the
surface.
The survivorship is theprotective piece, which is like
(32:36):
I it's not safe for me to talkabout that right now.
They're asking me if I didsomething, and I'm saying yes.
And then the questions stop.
And then the coercivelycontrolled person gets their way
because they've said nothing.
She's done all the work in termsof taking responsibility.
So now we take that dynamic andwe take it to court and we take
(32:56):
it to working with attorneys.
Many women are told, in myexperience, you don't want to
take this to trial.
It's going to cost you money,you don't have, you're going to
have to be away from your kidslonger.
Typically, he then has the kids.
She's out of the house becauseof this victim offender binary
and how we treat people verydifferently according to how the
(33:18):
system has identified them.
And so she's discouraged frommoving forward legally and
encouraged to take a plea.
But women have told me in thisprocess, I didn't get to tell my
story when the police came tothe house.
So I believed I'm just going tobe able to now tell the full
(33:38):
story when I go to court andwhen I get to talk to my
attorney.
They don't realize that they'regoing to likely have moments to
talk to this public defender,and that they're going to be
encouraged to take a pleabargain, which means not telling
your story and being guaranteeda certain outcome.
And even the language of abargain, they think, well, okay,
(34:00):
this is the direction they thinkthis is best for me.
They don't understand how thelegal system works.
And so it's the similar dynamicof what feels like betrayal and
deception when they talk toattorneys, unfortunately, and
when they go through the courtprocess.
And then the court feelshampered as well because women's
saying, Yes, I just did it,let's get it over with.
(34:21):
I just did a training at theAmeric for the American Judges
Association in Vancouver andspoke with over a hundred uh
judges who are very frustratedaround what we can do to support
women when they come and theysay, Yes, this is what happened,
I did it, what do I do next?
And we need to have advocatesand domestic violence experts
(34:44):
who are allowed to interruptthat process, welcomed into that
process for assessment andthorough expert opinion.
Otherwise, the legal system isbetraying them and they feel
deeply betrayed.
SPEAKER_03 (34:59):
Yeah, and you kind of wrote a book about that,
right?
Uh the book Broken Women'sStories of Intimate and
Institutional Harm and Repair.
Tell us a little bit about whatthe book is about and how it
relates to the criminalizedsurvivor and what some key
takeaways might be.
SPEAKER_04 (35:16):
Yes.
The book is based on threeyears, more than three years of
research, ethnographic research,which meant that I spent an
extensive period of time with 33women.
I interviewed them in person,also went to court with them,
child protection hearings, spenttime in their homes, in the
community, learning from theirexperiences of being arrested,
(35:40):
going to court, being onprobation, having interactions
with child protection, and thenbeing court-ordered to
anti-violence intervention.
The book takes a close look atthe layered experience, the
cumulative harm of probation,child protection, and
anti-violence intervention.
(36:01):
It also provides a way forwardto understand that, of course,
there are probation officers andchild protection workers and
anti-violence interventiongroups that provide the
framework and the support aroundhealing and repair.
But the system, thecommunity-based legal system,
(36:24):
oftentimes replicates the harmthat the women have felt and
experienced in their intimaterelationships and early
childhood through childhoodabuse.
So the takeaways from that arefirst of all, a deep analysis
through the women's own words ofwhat it's like to be on
probation, what it's like to gofor a drug test and feel
(36:44):
sexually abused again by theurinalysis test, what it's like
to have interactions with childprotection workers who treated
many of these women as they werefailures as parents, even when
there wasn't a formalinvestigation, and what it's
like to have to go to acourt-ordered group and spend
time they didn't have and moneythey didn't have.
(37:07):
But also what it's like to havethe opportunity to meet
similarly situated women ingroup and then create informal
spaces where they supported eachother.
And in the case of many of thesewomen, in touch with each other
many years later, supportingeach other and helping each
(37:31):
other informally and formally.
Because once the system'scontact is over, the formal
contact, meaning off probation,the child protection
investigation's over, you finishyour anti-violence intervention
program, if you have amisdemeanor domestic violence
conviction on your record, yourability to get a job that you're
(37:53):
going to support you and yourfamily is very, very difficult
if not impossible.
So the system's harms continueand they're continuing to
support each other.
So the takeaways are the finalchapter is a call to action for
people involved in the lives ofwomen who are systems identified
(38:14):
as offenders or criminalizedsurvivors, and how we can assert
our expertise.
And going back to when I wastalking about the court and
attorneys, doing that advocacyand intervention, this is a
pressing social justice issue.
And although we refer to itoften as the criminal justice
(38:35):
system, the women that Melissaand I work with don't get the
justice.
They don't feel the justice partof it, they only feel the legal
part of it.
So I encourage people to learnfrom the women's experiences and
the women's own words and how wecan promote healing and repair
and push back on oppressivesystems.
SPEAKER_03 (38:56):
Yeah, this is such important work that you both are
doing.
Now, Melissa, you've done somewriting as well.
You co-wrote Turning Points, aneducational curriculum for women
who use both legal and illegalviolence against their partners.
So this is really kind of anextension or just a parallel to
the work that we were justtalking about with Lisa.
So while engaging in thisresearch and speaking to
(39:19):
survivors, what challenges wererevealed and who could utilize
the curriculum?
SPEAKER_01 (39:24):
So what we were seeing when I was working in
Duluth for people who wereworking with men in
anti-violence programs, youknow, with abusers using
coercive control, is that therewas an increase of women who
were getting arrested and theydidn't know what to do with
them.
And what was literally happeningis people were calling Duluth
saying, so I'm trying to useyour men's curriculum with
(39:45):
women, and do you have somethingelse?
And we're like, okay, we can'tkeep getting these calls, right?
So it's a little bit of thisthing of this struggle about we
don't want to create somethingthat'll promote more, you know,
criminalization of survivors,and what we know people are
doing is really problematic,right?
And so what we wanted to do isthat we wanted to start by doing
(40:08):
interviews and focus groups withwomen, just like you know, Lisa
did for a book, but here to say,we need to find out about their
lived experience and what it'slike.
And one of the big things Iwould say, like as a takeaway
about turning points, is that alot of the women come in to
those groups and the initialassessment with the thinking of
(40:31):
the abuser in their head, right?
And they say, I just want you toknow I'm the violent one, or we
both use violence and I gottawork on it.
And and we just saw this overand over.
We said, okay, so what werealize is that the beginning of
turning points needs todifferentiate between these
different types of domesticviolence.
That you have violence that'scoercive and controlling and
(40:54):
entitled, but you're gonna havea number of survivors who are
gonna resist, right?
They're gonna resist that, andthat resistive force, we want to
call it something else.
And those are those withsurvivorship histories.
So, what we wanted to understandthen is that we wanted to really
work with women when they camein, that the what the court told
(41:18):
us about what happened, right,and what survivors were
initially telling us, we needed,as Lisa says, to sift through
the history and the meaning ofall of that.
Because abusers work so hard toput thinking into women's heads
about what they've done and why,and we knew that would take time
to unravel.
And so we said, we're gonnareally work with women at the
(41:42):
very beginning of turningpoints.
We're gonna do thisself-assessment where they sort
of think about what's the intentor motivation of what I've done,
right?
What's been the effect of whatI've done?
We want to understand thosethings and what's the meaning of
what I've done in the wholerelationship.
So that's how we think aboutcontext, right?
Is intent, effect, and meaning.
(42:04):
And that takes time.
And then at the end of ninedifferent segments, we have the
women do a self-assessmentagain.
And what I can tell you, Maria,I've done this, it'll be 20
years in 2026.
I have never had a woman comeinto that group and that first
assessment say the same thing asthe end of those nine sessions.
(42:26):
So, what I mean by that is thatafter that process of being with
other women in this space andbetter understanding why they've
done what they've done and whytheir partner has done what
they've done, they see itcompletely differently, right?
So, to Lisa's point about thevalue of being in community, you
(42:46):
know, with other women also isvery, very helpful.
And it's also another reasonwhy, you know, for me, the cycle
of violence has been problematicbecause it says all domestic
violence is the same.
When what we know with women whouse force is that they're
resisting what they'reexperiencing and they're
(43:07):
protecting themselves.
And we don't want to use thesame language for those who are
using coercive control and thesame theory as those who are
resisting.
And a way to think about this,Maria, is I've often uh said to
people, I've said, okay, if youfor yourself, if you think about
(43:27):
this woman you're working with,if she ends this relationship,
goes into another relationship,are you concerned that she's
gonna be violent, you know, inthat new relationship?
I've asked people who doassessments that I've asked
women that they said, no, I I Iwouldn't do that, right?
That's what survivors say.
And that's what interveners say.
I say, okay, then we can't callit the same thing.
(43:50):
We have to have differentlanguage.
And that's why we feel sopassionate about using words
like women's use of force andresistance as the source for
their violence, because we don'twant to use the same language as
those who are using coercivecontrol.
So when women go through that,they're really understanding it
(44:10):
as something different forthemselves, and that's
liberation, and that's our goalfor women to really be in a
space where they're able to feelmore liberated.
And we don't want to replicatethe abuser and too many
interveners and groups justbecome the next person in her
life telling her what to do.
SPEAKER_03 (44:29):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So we we are finally going tocome full circle here because we
started out talking about modelsand frameworks, and then we
started diving into them,talking about different aspects
within each framework, likecoercive control.
And then we talked about howcoercive control can lead to
criminalization of survivors,right, and some of the
(44:50):
legislation around all of that.
And now we are going to bring itall together.
I'd love if you both could justcomment finally on what models
and theories should beconsidered.
We've touched on them, but weshould give just a little bit
more information.
SPEAKER_01 (45:07):
So, what I would say is that there's there's three
sort of places that we go to,which is oppression theory,
right, to understand the socialfactors, that some women have
different capacities anddifferent lived experience.
So, what that means is that whenwe live in a society, some of us
(45:28):
have more power than others,right?
In terms of in that society andmore access to get help, more
access to leave and move, forexample.
But also that power and controland coercive control, that this
idea that there's a way to thinkabout relationships and a
(45:49):
general sort of way, is that mencan enter into the world and in
intimate partner relationshipswith the thinking of I get to
get my way in this relationshipwith an intimate partner, and
when I need to, I'm gonna useforce to get it, right?
And that is the setup.
It's the thinking and the beliefsystem that says I'm entitled to
(46:13):
it.
And so we have to understandthat that that's culturally
supported, right?
For men to have that thinking,and we don't have enough models
for equality, an equalrelationship, because the other
thing we want is uh theopposite, right?
We want to give examples of theopposite, which is equality or
equal and caring relationships.
(46:33):
And even with the women thatLisa and I have worked with, I
will tell you, Maria, that a lotof them think that equal
relationships are only in themovies.
A lot of them have neverexperienced it.
A lot of them don't know peoplewho are actually in them.
And there's also not in today'sday a lot of cultural examples
of them.
(46:54):
So we have to also work on interms of how we talk about and
think about equal and caringrelationships for what we want
and for men to be driven to wantto give up, you know, some
things in order to want that andthe love and beauty that can
bring for them too.
SPEAKER_03 (47:12):
Totally agree.
That's an excellent point.
SPEAKER_04 (47:14):
Lisa I'd like to add to that, uh, particularly when
we think of that lens ofoppression theory with two
different points.
The first is work that AshleyRoussan and I did when we uh
observed and wrote about womenuh in the Renew Program, a
program in Ann Arbor, Michigan,created years ago.
(47:35):
And we described it as anentitled power.
So the abusive, coercivelycontrolling partner exercising
authority, where the person whois being coercively controlled
and was resisting that asseeking autonomy and a second as
a secondary powerholder.
And I think that that's reallyhelpful for people to consider,
(47:57):
particularly as we pull the lensout and think of all different
identities of someone in acoercively controlling
relationship who is a secondarypowerholder, meaning they have
been born into power andprivilege.
And then adding on to that, justas Melissa so beautifully put
it, is again thinking of legalscholar Kimberly Crenshaw's
(48:21):
terminology of intersectionalitytheory.
So the bodies that we travel inshape how institutions respond
to us.
And so all of this happens froma systems perspective.
And that's how we were talkingabout people who have racialized
identities and how institutionsoften respond to them
(48:42):
differently, meaning they'remore likely to be arrested.
And so really paying attentionthrough that lens of oppression
theory of primary power,secondary power, and what are
the individuals' uhintersectional identities that
shape how they move throughdifferent institutions and
relationships.
SPEAKER_03 (49:02):
Yeah, because none of this happens in a vacuum.
It's all happening at the sametime.
And all those gears are moving,if you will, uh from systems and
the intersections of poverty andrace and domestic violence and
so on.
And once you get wrapped up inthat system, it's very hard to
get out of it.
SPEAKER_04 (49:22):
Yes, it is.
And I think another thing thatwe haven't touched on, and it
could take us in a differentdirection, but I just want to
briefly note is the people whoare intervening in the lives of
survivors, particularlycriminalized survivors, if they
haven't done their own work,they can then continue the harm.
Meaning if they're not checkedinto their own histories and
(49:43):
done some healing, uh, and thishappens in many different
settings.
SPEAKER_03 (49:47):
Yeah, it it's all can be very re-traumatizing for
lots of people involved.
Before I let you go, uh for bothmen and women who don't
necessarily work in the violenceagainst women's space, but who
want to help women who they knowor who are at risk of being in a
violent relationship, whatadvice or resources would you
like to offer?
SPEAKER_01 (50:07):
I would say that, you know, one of the spaces is
the Better Women's JusticeProject has really started to
think about this.
They have a whole center nowthat works on this and provide
plenty of, you know, resourceson it.
So I encourage them.
You can come to us atturningpoints at
dvturningpoints.com.
We try to put a number ofresources to help people
(50:30):
understand this.
Um, you know, domestic violencecoalitions and local agencies, I
would say some are further alongthan others in terms of how they
think about and talk aboutcriminalized survivors.
I'd say we're much better thanwe were even 10 years ago.
Um, but I still hear storiesabout programs that, you know,
if they have an arrest orthey're the arrested person that
(50:54):
their partner ends up comingthere and they can't get help.
But I would say that's gottenbetter for sure.
So yeah, I would say localprograms for sure.
But nationally, I would say, youknow, the Better Women's Justice
Project.
And then of course, there's anumber of pockets across the US.
Of course, there's work beingdone in New York with the
Survivors Justice Act.
There's a big group of peopleworking on women who are in
(51:18):
prison and have been sentencedand trying to prevent that.
There's a number of people whoare working on what I would call
diversion programs andprosecutions.
But generally, I would saythere's not as much as just sort
of regular services for victimsas, you know, criminalized
survivors, there's much lessresource put in for those who
are criminalized survivors orwomen who use force than women
(51:40):
who have not been caught up inwhat Lisa so eloquently calls,
you know, the web of the justiceor the arrest web.
SPEAKER_04 (51:48):
And I I want to add to that as well that I hope that
coalitions and uh countywidesurvivor support agencies can
really broaden their perspectiveand work beyond this victim
offender binary.
Oftentimes I continue to hearover after 20 years that we
(52:10):
don't do that work if a womanbecomes systems involved or is a
criminalized survivor.
And so to think around thatsurvivors survive and that looks
different for different people,and how we can innovate and show
up in people's lives in a waythat uh is truly supportive.
SPEAKER_03 (52:30):
That's also helpful.
Thank you both so much fortalking with me for the
important work that you do.
It's very valuable, so thankyou.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 21st Annual Conference onCrimes Against Women will be
held May 18th through the 21st,2026, in Dallas, Texas.
(52:54):
Learn more at conferencecaw.organd be the first to know about
all conference details as wellas the latest on the Institute
for Coordinated CommunityResponse, Annual Conference
Summit, Beyond the Bounds, andthe National Training Center on
Crimes Against Women.
When you follow us on socialmedia at NationalC CAW.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.