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| Photo via Flickr user West Midlands Police |
January 2, 2015
By Kristen Gwynne
Yet despite many-a-tale about the dark side of the celebratory season marking the end of each year, interviews with advocates focused on reducing domestic violence suggest the idea that people are more likely to abuse their loved ones during the holidays is a myth.
Actually,
the opposite may be true.
According
to Norma Mazzei, Operations Director at the National Domestic Violence Hotline
(NDVH), "We have data that supports the opposite. We do not have an increase in
calls during holidays—in fact, sometimes it's a little bit decreased."
Mazzei
and others close to the issue share a general consensus that domestic violence
does not increase nationally over the holidays, even if it might in a handful
of places at specific times.
For
instance, a
2005 study on domestic violence
reported to police in Idaho found 2.7 times more reported incidents of domestic
violence on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day than the normal daily average,
though rises in the summer were also reported. And a
2010 study analyzing calls to law
enforcement "in a large US city" found an increase in domestic violence calls
on some holidays, most notably on New Year's Day, but also on Memorial Day,
Independence Day, and Labor Day.
"It's
kind of all over the place," Kim Pentico of the National Network to End
Domestic Violence told me. "It sort of depends on who you ask, and when."
Pentico
and Mazzei agree that spikes in some localities are likely due to a host of
variables and are an exception rather than a rule.
"Although
there continues to be a common perception that domestic violence increases
during the holidays, available research on such a link is still limited and
inconclusive," a
2014 report from the National Resource
Center on Domestic Violence reads. "Information on the number of calls
received by the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) for the past ten
years indicates that the number of calls drops dramatically during the
holidays, including on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day."
Pentico
said a rise in domestic violence often actually occurs after the holidays,
"when everything's settled down a bit."
Despite
the data, because holiday traditions involve familial gatherings, financial
stress, and alcohol consumption, the idea that domestic violence spikes under
these conditions has a tempting logic to it.
Michelle
Kaminsky, chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau under Brooklyn District
Attorney Ken Thompson, said that her district did not see a rise in
domestic
violence over the holidays from 2011-2013, and offered one possible
factor—"What the holidays are supposed to be about: family,
togetherness, happiness"—to help explain why spikes do not occur, and
violence may even go down.
Kaminsky
said the assumed festive nature of the holidays could play a role in either
discouraging reporting of violent incidents, or encouraging good behavior in
abusive relationships. "I don't know what the numbers mean. It could be that
people aren't reporting, and in fact violence is going on," Kaminsky said,
adding the caveat, "It could be that people are on their best behavior during
the holidays. It's really hard to say."
Pentico
said that reported spikes in domestic violence in some localities may be linked
more to spontaneous acts of familial violence than what she called an
"advocate's definition of intimate partner violence."
Say,
for example, two sisters had been drinking and got into fight, prompting
law enforcement to arrive at their home. "It's considered domestic because [they]
are family," said Pentico, "but not what an advocate would define as domestic
violence within an intimate partner relationship because it is not a pattern of
coercive behavior used to intimidate and threaten another person."
"An
advocate's definition of domestic violence is one person's intimidation
and
threats over another to gain and maintain power and control," she added.
A "domestic" tag on a police report for a violent crime implies a
relationship, but not a pattern.
So
while discordant definitions of domestic violence could help make sense of reported
upticks in some areas, the conflation of risk factors—like alcohol, financial
hard-times, and proximity to potential abusers—with root causes of domestic
violence helps drive the presumption that domestic violence must go up over the
holidays.
"We
want to be careful about leading people down a path that stress or an increase in
drinking causes domestic violence," said Pentico, "Certainly, we know that
stress and alcohol and poverty increase risks [of domestic violence], but they
are not causes."
Pentico
added that the end of an abusive relationship is the most dangerous,
because
when a victim plans to leave, "That power has been threatened." There is
nothing inherent to the holidays that jeopardizes an abuser's grip on
the victim. On the contrary, the nature of the season may actually make
victims less likely to leave or challenge their abusers.
"A
lot of times we hear anecdotally from survivors that they're doing everything
they can to keep the peace [over the holidays]—not to imply they control the
violence by any means," Pentico said. "They're ingratiating as much as
possible, and then once the holidays are over, it all kind of breaks down, and
the violence will erupt again, or at least the fear. Sometimes they'll stay
through the holidays just to give their kids a holiday home."
During
the holidays, when the NDVH reports a drop in calls, Mazzei said it is "common
for people to reach out to us for support to feel like they can make it through the
holiday season without having to return to an abusive relationship."
A
more common experience of a domestic violence survivor over the holidays is not
an increase in abuse but the challenges in leaving, which persist
year-long.
"Love
for someone, even if a person has been abusive to you, does not disappear
overnight," said Mazzei, who adds that the not-necessarily-contradictory
feelings of love and pain are there throughout the year, but may intensify during
holidays. "Now you have children asking for their father or mother, even if
s/he was an abusive partner," she said. Mazzei emphasized that children's
desire to be with their parents is one reason victims consider staying in or
returning to an abusive relationship.
"Anyone
who's left an abusive relationship is struggling to figure out if they made
right decision, especially if they have children, or don't have employment or
[other financial] resources," she said. These are "things that any victim on
any day is going through," but Mazzei notes that the holidays might
heighten the stress "because it is a time when you're focusing on family
traditions" and leaving an abuser might mean the breaking-up of a once
"traditional," or nuclear, family.
Likewise,
"[Access to] financial resources is a problem that intensifies during holidays,
when you want to buy gifts for your children," said Mazzei, adding that, like
most obstacles to ending an abusive relationship, this challenge persists
"throughout the year," including, for example, in September, "when you want to
buy your children school clothes."
Rather
than espouse misguided concern that domestic violence may increase over the
holidays, it's better to consider how to support victims during a trying time
of the year.
Pentico
notes that because one in four women experience intimate
partner violence in their lifetime, it is important to "be careful what you
say" around the holidays, when relatives may be victims
silently struggling with pain and tough decisions. "As women, we say, 'If a man
ever hits me, I'm out of here' as a statement of power. But what it tells women
who have been hurt is,
I'm better than
you... something is flawed with you.
"
"I
think people always say 'Why does she stay?' And we're not asking 'Why does he
hit her? If he dislikes her so much, why doesn't he leave?'"
The
answer, Pentico said, is "[Abuse is] effective... He's gaining something by
staying."
"The
big picture is, you know, patriarchy," said Pentico. Not the holidays.
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