Victim Blaming Deborah

There are many women who are being abused and battered in the United States today. Many crimes go unknown and unreported due to fear of being killed or being beaten. “Domestic violence can be deadly, each year approximately 1,500 women are killed by their male partners and appromixately 860 men are killed by their female partners (Osthoff) I will be discussing about victim blaming, how victims are blamed for their abuse by not leaving. I will also be discussing about the legal system and how they abused Deborah as well as discussing the primary and secondary victimization.
Victim Blaming
Many women are always blamed for their victimization, if a woman is in a domestic violent relationship and she is getting battered she is blamed for not leaving.

It is easy to blame the victim as mentioned, if she is getting abused it is her fault for not leaving her abuser. In Deborah’s situation she could not leave because every time she tried to escape, her abuser Oliver would bring her back in force and he would threaten her, telling her that he would kill her if she leaves him. Deborah experienced fear, she feared for her life, and the life of her daughters. For instances, Oliver would beat Deborah with a bullwhip, his abuse towards her was significant and severe. Victim blaming is often the main focus of victim logical research. Victim precipitation “is defined as the extent to which a victim is responsible for his or her own victimization” (Daigle, Muftic 2016, pg. 2). The concept of victim precipitation is that not all victims are responsible for their victimization but other victims are responsible. “Victim precipitation acknowledges that crime victimizations involves at least two people an offender, a victim and that both parties are acting and often reacting before, during and after the incident” (Daigle, Muftic 2016, pg. 2). Victim facilitation blames the victim for their unconscious or irresponsible

She is not given a fair trial, the evidence that she was being battered by Oliver did not help her, and also finding out that Oliver would molest her oldest daughter was not taken into court. Later on, it is found that there was a lot of false testimonies. The D.A. accused Deborah of killing Oliver for the life insurance money. As stated in the article, Osthoff, “When battered woman kills her abuser, many people continue to believe that the women gets up on the stand and tells the jurors she’s been beaten and cries a few tears and is acquitted however, vast majority of battered women who kill their abusers are convicted or take a plea” In this case Deborah was convicted unfairly for this crime, unfortunately she is given a sentenced that is only supposed to be a 6 years max in which she served 21 years more than she had to. “Studies indicate that 70 to 80 percent of battered women charged with killing their abusers are found guilty or plead guilty to some charge; meaning only 20 to 30 percent are not found guilty” (Osthoof). During the legal process it is found that one of the people that testified against Deborah was a man named Tony who lied due to revenge because Deborah would not be with him. The D.A. takes his testimony and when is later revealed that is a death penalty case, Tony admits to lying but the D.A. does allowed Tony to retract, they force him to keep on lying.