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Historically, batterers have fallen between the cracks, being neither nuts nor criminals, at least by the standards of the day. "A man beats up his wife because he can," says University of Rhode Island Sociologist Richard Gelles, one of the pioneers in the study of family violence. Indeed, a man usually does not beat up his boss or male acquaintances. The consequences—loss of job, a charge of criminal assault, an old-fashioned black eye—are simply too great. Now the consequences are rising for violence against one's wife. Shelters for abused women have created a safety net for wives who previously would have been afraid to take their husbands to court. Newspapers, judges, hospitals, neighbors, even a growing number of once exasperated police officers, are beginning to understand the dimensions of the problem. More important, states and municipalities are putting laws on the books that give women a realistic chance of getting protection and redress through the courts. As Franci Livingston, an attorney with the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, points out, "Ten years ago there were no real, specific laws providing remedies for women. If a woman wanted protection using the courts, she would have to get it as part of a domestic-relations proceeding—meaning separation or divorce."
At that time, police could not make an arrest without actually witnessing violence or seeing compelling physical evidence of abuse. Nowadays such requirements are being eased. In Michigan, for example, a law allowing police to arrest batterers for misdemeanor assaults on grounds of "probable cause" was passed in 1978 and became a model for other states. In Massachusetts, women can walk into any court and receive an immediate emergency restraining order against an abusive husband.
The Los Angeles city attorney's family-violence program, which began four years ago, was one of the first to recognize that domestic violence is a crime, not a private matter, and should be prosecuted as such. The decision to prosecute is taken out of the victim's hands. Explains Deputy City Attorney Susan Kaplan: "Out of 5,000 domestic-violence cases that cross our desk each year, half of the victims want to drop the charges.
Now the woman is told misdemeanor charges will be pressed anyway. Will she testify? It never even comes to that. Once the husband realizes, 'Hey, this is a crime, this is prosecutable,' he pleads guilty right there."
According to the National Center on Women and Family Law, one-third of the women who come to shelters have also been sexually assaulted by their mates.
Only four years ago, such violations were so accepted that California State Senator Bob Wilson protested a California law allowing prosecution for marital rape by saying, "If you can't rape your wife, who can you rape?" Today, 17 states have abolished laws that excluded husbands from rape prosecution.
The tightening of laws against wife beating has resulted in higher conviction rates. In Duluth, for example, 82% of those arrested for spouse abuse are convicted, up from 20% in 1979. Still, only a fraction of abusive husbands are reported to the authorities, much less arrested and convicted.