Social Ecological Theory of Domestic Violence - Research Paper Example

Social Ecological Theory and Social Learning Theory: Domestic Violence Introduction Violence in the society comes in many forms and each is perpetrated by a person or persons on another or others. The violent acts conducted are meant to make the victim submit to acting in a certain manner and this is by force as the term violence suggests. In this paper the type of violence to be looked into is Domestic Violence and in this regard two theories shall be explored; Social ecological theory and social learning theory. Domestic violence is a common occurrence in many homes the world over, in developing and developed countries (Sykes and David 1957). Domestic violence is taken to be the situation where abuse has resulted into physical attack of one spouse by another in an intimate relationship. It is known to be a type of abuse that is non-discriminatory in that people of all ages, type of relationship (hetero or otherwise), economic statuses and ethnic affiliations are affected alike. It is a vice that runs in the society and in many times undetected as the victims are always unwilling to uncover the various abuses that they undergo in these relationships. Therefore, more often than not the abusers get away with their heinous acts and the victims continue to suffer in silence. The abusers use intimidation to subdue their victims and with this the victims have to be lower than them in some way for example financially, age wise, strength etc. The base line for an abuser is to gain as much control as possible over the abused and to make the dominating situation last for as long as possible. This in many times is what brings forth more and more physical abuse since the abused in many cases tries to bring resistance that is always suppressed by physical violence. Domestic violence Legislation against domestic violence is different from one country to the other and the extent to which it is prevalent also varies and many inherent factors to particular countries are to blame. In United States for example, the rate of domestic violence is at 10 percent of the population despite the long history of legislation against the vice dating back in 1641 in the Massachusetts Bay Body of Liberties for its colonies; which stands to be one of the oldest legal documents from North America (Fiske et al 302-96). The case and statistics in UK and Australia are not any different on comparative basis. This physical abuse in many parts of the word is perpetrated against women and children and more so girls by the husband and their father respectively. Women statistically suffer more and are also vulnerable to this violence due to their relative physical strength and their levels of income, education and health being lower than that of their spouses. Due to this a women’s movement began in 1970s in order to fight for the rights and freedoms of the woman in the society. The same kind of movement was formed in the 1990s but this was to fight for the rights and freedoms of men in the society since it was earlier mentioned that domestic violence is non discriminatory. The current statistics show that in every thousand women and the same number for men, 248 and 76 respectively are physically abused and that in some of these cases, rape occurs. A case to note is that sexual abuse amounts to domestic violence since it is physical in nature. This occurs when the victim is forced to engage in sexual activities without their will including degrading acts. Sexual abusers who also abuse physically stand a higher chance of killing the victims in the long run as studies have revealed. The situation is made worse by the fact that the victims decline to disclose who their abusers are and more so in the case of abused men due to mainly the humiliation associated with it. Domestic violence in Australia in particular is a serious issue that affects the Australian communities a great deal. The Australian government and non governmental organisations alike have been putting in a great deal of effort in responding to issues related to domestic violence. Social ecological theory Each and every society has its uniqueness from the others that surround it in respect to its crime rate and crime levels and the nature of these crimes. Some of these characteristics are inherent to the place or the society itself. The problems associated with crime in society are as a result of the detrimental effects emanating from human activity. This is mainly taken to encompass those activities that humans carry out and which harm the environment in which they live in (Sampson and Groves 774-802). These ecological problems are mostly worse in societies that exercise hierarchical systems politically and socially. This calls for the society to have coherence with the environment and nature at large in order to facilitate cohesion and adaptability modes of coexistence. Social ecological theory emphases that the major ecological problems that the world has been facing especially from the 20th century can only be resolved if the underlying social problems are dealt with. These are the various economic problems that are being faced by countries the world over Australia being among those that were hugely affected by the global economic crisis of 2009. Social learning theory Learning is a life long process as it is said and the process involves assimilation of information from the environment in which one lives through constant interaction with the people around them and the general environment at large. The theory states that learning occurs after one has made observations, imitation and after reinforcement is instilled (Bursik and Harold 107-30). For one to successfully imitate an occurrence, person or event there has to be close contact between them and the aforementioned variables, imitation of superiors, taking keen look into the behaviours of the role models and understanding of concepts (Ptacek 133-57). A great deal of learning is said to take place out of trial and error but a lot still goes on after through watching of others. Therefore, for learning to occur there is need to have an interaction or contact between an individual and the environment whereby the individual becomes a changed person while also doing things that change the environment. Under this concept a reciprocal effect emerges termed as reciprocal determinism. After observation of others and ultimate success of the one imitating, there is a sense of fulfilment and of self confidence that overrides the rest; a situation referred to as self efficacy. Therefore, learning first of all is a process and that which requires an individual to watch, make judgments and lastly try. It is in this respect that learning is first from those that are close to us e.g. parents, later from friends and peers and celebrities and people in positions of authority for example the politicians. The person taking after another must have paid attention to the scenario that predisposed them to certain behaviour, must have also retained that information of the scenario and then there has to have been underlying factors that brought a motivational effect on the part of the learner for them to embrace the behaviour in question (Ptacek 133-57). For an individual to accept or reject certain behaviour there must have been the use of their cognitive ability, interaction with external environment and observation of the said behaviour. Application of Social Ecological Theory and Social Learning Theories in Criminology Domestic violence for example in Australia had been an area of neglect for many years. It is in the 1990s that serious concerns came to the limelight and researches conducted aiming at coming up with statistics that would show the extent to which this societal vice had run deep in Australia. Although in the above analysis of the two theories brief comments have been put across, this part will analyse in details the situation and the various statistics and the relationship that the above theories have. Domestic violence as earlier observed is more dominant in the rural Australia than in the urban settings. The reason for this scenario is the underlying social cultural as well as structural issues in the countryside. Around 29 percent of Australians live away from urban settings, a number that keeps on reducing decade after decade due to the economic and social strains that result in increased poverty and unemployment levels (Braithwaite 35). These two situations combined have resulted in having many people having little or nothing to do. Financial stress is greater on women than men due to the fact that women are more committed in doing home chores and attending to the farms whose returns have dropped in respect to their input (Cote 301-66). This scenario has made most women in the rural Australia to have some kind of dependence on their husbands and the male lot in general. The rural settings are predominantly conservative and this aspect has made domestic violence to have a save haven to thrive in. The rural environment in other words acts as a facilitator to the development of this vice. Gender imbalance and conflict, cultural orientations and perceptions that culture brings and ethnicity among others also contribute to the social and ecological relationships being experienced (Faris 1946). Social ecology is a meta-discipline that derives much of its orientation from applied philosophy (which involves critical thinking and imagination), personal experiences and both contextual and cultural knowledge. Social ecological theory has its emphasis laid on those actions and practices that bring together socio-political concern as well as personal and environmental responsibilities and concerns too. The end goals of social ecology are basic health and wellbeing of individuals, justice in the society and sustainable environment (Reiss 1986). Therefore, social ecology calls for one to have a winder view in approaching issues so as to come up with a bigger picture but in the end develop small and meaningful outcomes. Critical reasoning is therefore of essence in developing a relationship between current trend in the society and the various contributing human factors. Social ecology in summary is a discipline that endeavours to explore the relationship that exists between environmental problems and behaviors exhibited by people in the society (Reiss 1986). When taking a critical look into the theory of social ecology in respect to crime and place and in rather more specific terms, domestic violence, the paper shall look into the various views that have been brought forth by various scholars in order to elaborate on it. It is a known scenario that in many cities or urban dwellings, certain quarters or sections are more crime prone than others. The scenario is also to true although in a relatively lower degree in the countryside. Areas with reputation of being prone to certain criminal activities are more often than not avoided. Although domestic violence occurs across the board, in the rich and poor neighbourhoods alike, more and severe cases are witnessed in poor dwellings (Akers 28-9). As stated by Thomas and Znaniecki in the early years of the 20th century the interaction between a person’s behaviour and their situation contributed hugely to their thinking approaches and attitudes. They further put across that personal attitudes are not inborn but rather acquired through contact with other people and the environment. They stated that situational analysis is of huge importance in coming up with a conclusion as to why a certain behaviour manifestation is predominant in one area and not the other. The case in point to look into here is the Australian case where the rate of domestic violence seems to be more prevalent in the rural areas and decreases as one approach the urban populace. In the rural Australia 95 percent of perpetrators of domestic violence are men and that more than 23 percent of married women in the rural Australia experience domestic violence from their spouses (Daly 769-94). These statistics are quite significant in trying to understand how social ecology comes into play in explaining the phenomenon. In explaining the same theory, Edwin Sutherland in the 1930s claimed that the society is the one that permits the occurrence of certain crimes due to lack of definite organisation and norms that go against such offences. He further argued that if the society follows the laws put in place then incidences such as those of domestic violence would not occur. He also stipulated that the capitalistic ideologies in the society are to blame to a huge extent since they create an individualistic approach to life rather than promoting collectivism where dominance will be unnecessary. For this he said that it is capitalism that causes disintegration of social institutions for example a family or a homogenous community that in other instances would act as the agents of bringing social order and control. With such agents’ power to control tendencies of crime being cut short or being non existent altogether, the society is left to the forces of good and evil (Sampson and Groves 774-802). In this case it is the vulnerable members of the society that are left to suffer and in this case women and children when taking the context of domestic violence in the rural Australia. Robert Ezna Park and Ernest Burgess in 1925 came up with a study that focused more on the urban environment and the rate of crime. They found out that in the urban areas crime is mostly brought about by the fact that the level of competition for resources is higher than that of the rural areas. However, as earlier stated in the Australian rural setting domestic violence as a crime is more prevalent than in urban areas. Therefore, domestic violence as a crime has its uniqueness that makes it go against this theory especially in Australia and in particular for the purposes of this paper (Braithwaite 35). One of these factors unique to this crime is that women in the rural Australia live in isolation due to the geographical remoteness which makes it even more difficult to seek for help from the police, relatives or even friends. The other scholars were Henry McKay and Clifford Shaw whose works dates back in the 1920s to 1940s. They took the city of Chicago as a research centre whereby they studied why certain areas of the city were more crime prone than others and why boys who grew up in these areas stood a huge chance of becoming crime perpetrators. Their theory therefore brought to light that the kind of place that one grows in has a lot in defining ones mannerisms and attitudes. In this respect the rural setting in Australia has its inherent conditions that predisposes ‘to be’ abusers to situations where they find it being allowed or in other words not restricted by societal forces. A good example of this situation is where a young boy grows up in an abusive relationship (Sampson and Groves 774-802). If this boy’s social ecology does not change, his likelihood to do the same at the abuser will be quite high. Therefore, it is the environment that at many times makes the individual and not the other way round. They also found out that crime rates are considerably higher in areas exhibiting economic instability or a state of decline. They also put forward that social delinquency as well as crime has a mode of geographical distribution that results from these areas having certain tolerance to crime or a delinquency of a certain kind. Social learning in summary underlies the sense of trying to analyse the external environment in coming up with a conclusion as to why certain behaviours are manifested in one individuals and not the other. This theory on the other hand gives emphasis to the human cognitive abilities where an individual is supposed to think and come up with a judgment from the said cognitive process (Ptacek 133-57). The other aspect whose emphasis is laid by this theory is the capacity for knowing where one is conscious of the past, present and the future according to Miller and Donald’s work of 1941. With this it is hereby clear that the capacity to have foresight and as well as insight is stressed. Reward and punishment are the other pillars of this theory in that a certain reaction must have a positive or negative consequence or both at varying degrees. As stated by Rotter, motivation of one engaging in certain behaviour or tendency in many cases depends on the effects or the predicted outcomes. It is in this respect that the positive effects are desired while discarding those behaviours with negative ones. The behaviours that have positive effects are mostly engaged in than those with negative. When after the adoption of the positive behaviour is positively reinforced by its outcomes the behaviour is often repeated. Therefore, it is the combination of environmental stimuli and psychological factors that influences behaviour (Einstadter & Henry 321-422). As argued by Albert Bandura (1977), ones surroundings result in an individual acting in certain ways. He goes ahead to state that cognitive ability of an individual influences how one behaves and that this ability has to be in line with the environmental or social factors surrounding them. He asserts that social learning requires the following three elements for it to be effective; ability to remember i.e. retention, reproduction of the observed behaviour and lastly motivation. It is after the incorporation of the three elements mentioned above that behaviour will have been adopted. The theory was developed further by Akers and Burgees who brought it in the limelight of criminology to explain the various deviant tendencies that are portrayed by those that are exposed to delinquent behaviours (Akers & Jensen 312-16). They put forward that these behaviours are learnt from peers and from the various social pressures that bombard those who are in these environments. They further argued that it is the consequences of these deviant tendencies that result in these social deviants repeating or discontinuing from their engagement for example a punishment from a parent after detection of such bad behaviours. Young people and especially the youth exhibit deviant tendencies that they mostly learn from their peers and parents. In the event of domestic violence the young boys in the family tend to learn from their fathers (Bursik and Harold 107-30). When their time of marriage or cohabitation comes they will most likely act in the same manner towards their spouses and in other cases towards their children. In other words what Akers and Burgees propose is that as much as behaviour can be learnt, it can also be deterred. Differential association is another theory developed by Edwin Sutherland whereby he explored criminal offences committed by juveniles. He also in a rather unique sense to his work, further explored the area of lawbreaking in respect to people in the society who are regarded as respectable or who hold high social status. In the latter analysis he developed the term ‘White Collar Crime’ that later became a subject of controversy and debate in the field of criminology (Daly 769-94). The term referred to the criminal acts that are conducted in the workplaces and those that at times are not regarded to be criminal and at times goes unnoticed and if noticed, unreported. The white collar group also referred to as The Elites usually undertakes its criminal acts in an organisational setting (Rotter 136-74). Here, there may be incidences of sexual harassment to women, corruption and many others. If an organisation has a tendency to have morally incorrect leaders, then the ones watching as these acts are perpetrated take after them after attaining the same positions of leadership (Bursik and Harold 107-30). When this is narrowed down to our subject of domestic violence, the juniors in a family tend to act as the seniors i.e. the parents or guardians when they become of age and have their own families. It still narrows down to learning through observation followed by retention and then acting as previously observed i.e. reproduction. Sutherland stated that criminal tendencies are actually learnt through interaction with others in the course of day to day communication. Also according to him criminal behaviour is more likely to manifest itself within intimate relationships therefore channels of communication like the media are not as influential in regards to development of criminal behaviours particularly in juveniles (Siegel 53-170). Factors increasing perpetuation of domestic violence As seen above in the detailed analysis of the theories, there also a number of factors that make the above trends more common in some geographic areas and to a particular demographic segment. Financial instability or dependence is one such factor whereby one spouse depends on the other for financial support and in most cases women depend on men. Therefore, the man is the one who controls the woman’s spending and other assets owned by the family. This renders the woman vulnerable to abuse since the man will at times give that which is not sufficient or may not be happy with the way the woman or wife is spending that money. This leads to quarrels which culminate into this man abusing this woman physically. The other factor has to do with inadequacy of services that address cases of domestic violence in the society (Fiske et al 302-96). This is a problem mostly affecting the women fork living in the rural areas as opposed to their counterparts in the urban setting. These facilities assist in trying to educate and create awareness on the negativity of domestic violence. Therefore, lack of these facilities or having them too far creates an ignorant atmosphere to the populace in regards to domestic violence. Fear is the other factor to be considered since the abused lot think that with airing their grievances to the society, they will only be calling for more abuse and in some cases death (NLA 1993). The main options that they have are to get out of the relationship or report the case to the relevant authorities. The two options seem to be exposing the perpetrator leading to social humiliation and it is their reaction after this that the victims fear. The response that the authorities give in relation to this kind of violence is the other factor to consider. At times the law enforcement authorities react too slowly in solving cases of domestic violence which leaves the victims undergoing more abuse from their spouse (ANZSC 1986). These are some general factors but it is important to appreciate that each society has its own unique settings that may crop up many other factors apart from the few mentioned above. Conclusion Domestic violence in a society is a vice that needs to be taken seriously by the community and the authorities in particular. Many women and children and in some cases, men, are undergoing unimaginable abuse and assault in the name of domestic violence. The two theories i.e. social ecological theory and the social learning theory have been used for the purposes of this paper to clarify the various causes of domestic violence and the likely backgrounds that the perpetrators may have had while growing up and the associations they engage in (Moss & Stephens 46-9). In explaining crime and place the social ecological theory has stated that the environment together with the societal norms and traditions play a key role in dictating the type of crimes manifested by its inhabitants. It is also clear that learning has a great deal to do with how people act. They learn from their peers, superiors and the society in general for example domestic violence is likely to be perpetuated by those brought up in abusive relationships as earlier mentioned. With considering the various cases mentioned, and for the purposes of this paper from Australia as an example, it is important to look into domestic violence with a wider scope and in greater detail so as to uncover the causes and to come up with the necessary remedies. Governments and members of the public need to collaborate in stemming this issue completely. Works Cited Akers, Ronald L. and Jensen, Gary F. Social Learning Theory and the Explanation of Crime. Transaction Publishers, 2007. 312-16. Akers, Ronald L. Criminological Theories. Taylor & Francis, 1999. 28-9. Akers, Ronald L. Social Learning and Social Structure: A General Theory of Crime and Deviance. Transaction Publishers, 2009. 116-248. 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Cengage Learning, 2008. 53-170. Sykes, Gresham M. and David Matza. “Techniques of Neutralisation: A Theory of Delinquency”. American Sociological Review. 22, 1957. Read More