Domestic Violence Case Study

Describe the Issue and its Affects on Service Member & Families According to the NCADV (the National Coalition against Domestic Violence), domestic violence (DV) is “willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another.” Domestic violence is also known as intimate partner violence (IPV). All of this includes physical, sexual, and psychological violence as well as emotional abuse. Domestic violence is one that does not specifically effect one kind of person. Any person regardless of their gender, age, sexual orientation, race, religion, or socioeconomic status can fall victim to this. Every case

An occurrence of violence is typically companied with controlling and emotionally abusive behavior which makes up a small amount of the pattern that is part of the dominance and control of the partner inflicting the abuse. Some effects of intimate partner violence include physical injury, trauma psychologically, and even death in extreme cases. The occurrence of domestic violence can go one for someone’s entire life and it can even be passed down to future generations. This happens when the abuse is not reported or dealt with and the children begin to see it on a regular basis making it something that they know as a second nature thing that happens. In occurrences of domestic violence, violence is not equal which means that even if victim their abuser back or initiates more violence to diffuse a situation, the violence is not the same. Whenever abuse occurs there is always one person who is the “primary, constant, source of power, control, and abuse in the relationship” (NCADV,

The feelings of shame, isolation, fear, and other common feelings are the same no matter who the person is. With that said, there are still some differences that make the barriers of reporting evident for military families. A major barrier that may be the cause of underreporting is the lack of confidentiality of domestic violence reports (Samm, 2009). Another thing that can be the cause of underreporting is fear of damaging the abuser’s career. A lot of survivors refuse to report because they believe that their report will affect the abuser’s chance for promotion or pay increases. There is also a fear that they will lose their job or get docked in their pay. If one loses their job, there is a lot of other drawbacks that come with this change is job status. Some examples include family losing their main source of income or the military member losing their sense of identity because a lot of the time a service member’s role is more than just their job, it is considered to be part of their identity. Losing income and feeling like identity has been lost can cause more violence to occur. One last barrier to reporting is the fear of having the community shun them for reporting the