fatvegan

I was chatting with my house the other night, and for some random reason I brought up domestic violence. I was suggesting that maybe calling the police to deal with violent men was like putting old people in retirement homes. I thought maybe the outcome was better, because both are like "specialised help", and so the outcomes are less ad hoc. But maybe it's a copout that we're happy with because it outsources the more difficult aspects of living with other humans. Maybe they aren't the same at all, and retirement villages aren't great, but domestic violence police are great. I have to say, I think police are tops. Or at least the ones I've dealt with. I've blogged before about how good at social work the police in Kings Cross are. It's not that I think police do a bad job. It's more that maybe it isn't their job, or shouldn't be if we were doing ours.

One argument is that police know how to respond, are trained, and have authority. I'm sure having some sort of authority makes life easier in some situations. If a violent husband (or wife) is being difficult, it's easy for police to arrest them. If a posse of concerned citizens showed up during a physical argument between a couple, they don't have some of the options that police do. There is also the issue of consistency that police can provide, being trained, and attempting to apply the law impartially. I think impartial, consistent laws are a good thing. So perhaps from the perspective of the abused, their immediate welfare is furthered by police involvement. But it feels like a betrayal of the abuser, who is still one of "us", and not one of "them". In the current context, police involvement is certainly better than a whole street quietly sitting in their homes listening to someone being beaten, hoping it will it will stop so they can get some sleep. We do do that. I did it in Peru. In those cases police are better than nothing.

But maybe a better solution is for men to go and talk to the man. And for women to go and talk to the woman. Or men and women all going to talk to the same-sex couple. And engage them somehow (and I don't know how) in the context of the community, rather than temporarily asking external authorities to remove someone from the community. I don't think that having your neighbours "dob" on you to the police, builds relationships in the long run, however necessary it is in the immediate term.

I wonder what Jesus would do. He'd probably knock on the door and say something wise and tension-defusing. Maybe our lack of wise and tension-defusing sound-bites disqualifies us from knocking on the door at all. Maybe we need to relate and share small wisdoms more, so we can see and soften conflict before it gets to the point where we need majestic Christ-like wisdoms. Maybe there isn't enough wisdom, small or grand, and sometimes an AVO is inevitable.

I guess I'm wondering if our solutions to domestic violence are a failure of community, or the only practial solutions for large societies like ours. Is treating this sort of violence like any other crime desperately missing the point? The response to that will probably be that sometimes you don't have the luxury of sophisticated responses, and just need handcuffs. But I reckon that's only because we squandered the times when that luxury did still exist.

If domestic violence is about feeling powerless, does having a policeman come to your door and arrest you do anything to solve the problem? What greater betrayal and humiliation is there than being taken away by police while the neighbours who said nothing, but called the police look on? With great power comes great responsibility, and surely perpetrators have abused the power they hold over their victims. How is it different to any other abuse of power? Perhaps the difference is that this sort of abuse is so systemic, and occurs between people who've attempted to love each other but have failed to do it well. Perhaps I think it's important not to abandon the relationships that exist there. The relationships between man and wife. And the relationships between families in a street.

Maybe no one wants to deal with other people's shit anymore, because our own lives are too messy and important. Maybe it's because we've actually managed to create neat and tidy lives for ourselves, and they are too important to risking messing up again. And maybe we should just help the government to do a difficult job as best it can.

I'd originally wanted to write about how I wonder if we spend so much effort trying to not screw things up, that we've stopped relating to each other as people. Best-practice social organisations have constructed a swathe of boundaries between helpers and helpees to protect them both. And it certainly does work. But I'm not convinced that eradicating the risk of harm is more important than the need to relate to each other honestly and sincerely. Risk-minimisation sounds like a reasonable aim, certainly compared to the naive utopian idea of risk-elimination. But you can never say that risk has been truly minimised. You can always find another avenue for relationship and for harm that can be removed, that will unambiguously take you a little closer to minimising risk. So I am quite opposed to any idea of risk-minimisation, unless it is minimisation thoroughly conditional on everyone living full and satisfying lives. And I hate to imagine being responsible for that organisational policy.