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Domestic Violence, by Eeva SodhiSubject: Crime is about people, not stats (Aug. 1, 2004)There is one thing about Stats Can. non-stats that few seem to have paid any attention to. Stats Can. does not report data on crime, only on reports made to police which they then disseminate as if these reports were found facts. True, they do give that caveat in the each of their releases, but then go on to call a complainer a “victim” and an accused an “offender” or a “perpetrator”. A bit of data comparison shopping: Statistics Canada. “Family Violence in Canada 2004”. Highlights [p.1]: According to a subset of 94 police departments representing 56% of the national volume of crime, in 2002, approximately one-quarter (27%) of all victims of violent crimes were victims of family violence. Among all family violence victims, 6-in-10 (62%) were victims of violence at the hands of their spouse. • In 2002, females accounted for 8-in-10 (85%) of all victims of spousal violence reported to the subset of police departments. Young females aged 25-to-34 experienced the highest rates of spousal violence. • The most commonly reported spousal violence offence for both female and male victims was common assault (64% and 60%). • About eighty percent of spousal violence incidents resulted in a charge being laid by police. Incidents involving female victims (82%) were more likely to result in a charge being laid than those involving male victims (70%). • According to a subset of 78 police departments who have consistently reported to the Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR2) Survey since 1998, rates of police-reported spousal assault have steadily increased for both females and males between 1998 and 2000, but have shown slight decreases in 2001 and 2002. Annual rates were on average, over five times lower for males than for females, however, trend patterns for spousal assault against males were similar to those of females. • In 2002, according to a subset of 94 police departments, about 8-in-10 victims of criminal harassment had some form of relationship with their stalkers, either as partners, friends/acquaintances or other family members. Females were most likely to be criminally harassed by a partner, while males were more likely to be harassed by an acquaintance. Note how Stats Can. is silent about the rate of convictions. Furthermore, the phrase “females accounted …. of all victims of spousal violence reported to the police” is misleading as it presupposes that an act of violence had actually occurred. A report does not make a finding of fact, therefore the correct phrase simply is “females made … of calls received by the police”. That is especially true as the police dismiss most of the calls outright. Toronto Police Services report 2002: · Sexual assault: reports received: 2,226; cleared: 1,728 (rate 77.6%); persons charged: 880. · “Other” assault: reports received 27,477; cleared 22,484 (rate 81.8%); persons charged: 13,459. Note: “wife assault” is a subgroup of “other” assaults. The police no longer give separate data for males and females. In spite of several requests, the police refuse to tell how many of the reports were made by men or women and how many were about intimate partner violence. Yet, Stats Can. will disseminate the above as: there were 2,226 assault victims …. That, of course is not true, especially considering that they do not tell us how many of the calls were repeat calls by the same person, how many of the calls were dismissed without charges being laid, etc. Ottawa Police Services: The City of Ottawa Chief of Police, Vince Bevan, in his paper called “The Partner Assault Program: a risk management approach by the Ottawa Police Service to reduce domestic violence” (presented at the Canadian Police College Symposium on investigative excellence and innovation, October 2002. The Canadian Police College is described as being “a centre for professional education for members of the Canadian and international policing community”) claimed that the “partner assault unit” handled 4,152 calls to alleged incidents and laid 2,407 charges (each incident may have more than one charge and calls can either be repeat reports by the same complainer or a first complaint, thus it is highly doubtful that even one half of the original complaints were credible, nor can we equate the number of complaints to be indicative of the number of potential perpetrators and victims) of intimate partner violence in 2001. Thus, in spite of the stringent “zero tolerance” directives, the majority of the reports were so unbelievable that the police, who have to justify in writing why they failed to lay a charge and make an arrest, were not able to justify even one charge. Yet, Stats Can. counts the number of reports as findings of fact. Now, let’s look at the Ottawa Police Service “Annual Statistics, Violent Offences” for that year. These data, which one assumes to be reliable, indicate that there were a total of 4,485 calls to all alleged assault related incidents (again, let’s stress not individuals who were the alleged perpetrators or victims) in Ottawa and three homicides. If we go by the chief’s statistics, practically all assault related calls in the city of Ottawa were by females who claimed that they had been victimized by their intimate male partners. Yet, data from across the world, including Canada, show that most true assault victims are male. It is of further interest that charges and convictions no longer need not be based on “reasonable and probable grounds”, “reasonable” is enough. See the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services. “Policing Standards Manual” Section 0217.01, 0217.04 (1994): “Mandatory Arrest/Charging policy refers to guidelines that require police officers to lay criminal charges against the abusive partner in all cases of wife assault where there are "reasonable grounds"” Judge Lyn Ratushny, in the “Self-Defence Review” that she was commissioned to conduct by the Department of Justice Canada, claims that a woman’s allegation is to be accepted as long as it “has an air of reality" and/or “is supported by evidence reasonably capable of belief”. She herself admitted that these standards are questionable. Her definition of “reasonable” is anything but reasonable. [source: Department of Justice. The Backgrounder, September 1997. The Self-Defence Review: Overview and Next Steps] The Hon. Dianne Cunnigham, Ontario Women’s Directorate said in her speech during the opening of the North York Domestic Violence Court Pilot Project: “...The offender must plead guilty and is required to participate in a ‘male batterer’s program’. [Note that Ms. Cunningham assumes that “accused” and “offender” are synonyms and that the accused, whom she refers to as “offender”, is always a male. Furthermore, if a guilty verdict is obtained by coercion, it is hardly an indication of guilt] Below is some sage advice from the law firm Birenbaum, Steinberg, Landau, Savin & Colraine, LLP. Family Law Toronto. Information Resource. http://www.familylawtoronto.ca/ This further proves that men who are caught off guard when they find themselves arrested and hauled to places like the Don Jail, are easily tricked into pleading guilty to something that they did not do: “Findings of abuse can have a number of consequences in a family law case.
• A court will
make a non-harassment order directing the abusive spouse not to contact the
victim, and may provide particular restrictions regarding the type of activity
that is forbidden. If the abuser breaches that order, he or she may be found
guilty of contempt. Also, the Ontario Provincial Police can arrest without
warrant, anyone whom they reasonably believe is breaching such an order. · Just the allegation of abuse opens the door to the possibility of such consequences at least on a temporary basis. Judges will often err on the side of caution and even though abuse has not been proven, will not want to run any risks. Consequently, people accused of abuse may be ordered out of the house on the basis of allegations or a temporary restraining order may be made on the basis of allegations alone. · The potential impact of abuse or allegations of abuse can, therefore, be quite significant to the party who is accused. The consequences to a spouse who has falsely alleged abuse are not so dramatically or frequently applied. · The police will often attempt to trick a suspect into speaking to them. Common tricks are for a police officer to say something like, "Look, if nothing happened, just tell us and you’ll be okay," or, "It’s your right not to say anything, but I know if I was accused of beating my child and I hadn’t done it, I’d sure want my version on the record," or, "Let’s go outside for a walk in the hall, just the two of us, no notebooks," or, "If you talk to us now, things will be a lot easier on you later." · Do not agree to any plea without asking to speak to duty counsel. The police or even Crown Attorneys may tell you that all you have to do to get out of this situation is agree to a several month long anger management course and it will be over. What they do not tell you is that you have to plead guilty before you can take the course [end quotes] If men who have been falsely accused refuse to plead guilty they will face prolonged litigations and often will end up waiting for a long time to have their cases heard. By that we can deduce that there are an awful number of men sitting in jails while waiting to be found innocent. At an awful cost to the accused, their families and the society. Not to mention the numbers to be added to the false data that are churned out from Stats Can. In spite of the evidence, Stats Can. refuses to do a survey on false allegations. The following suggested directive may be of interest as it now is a standard practice by many police forces: · Test not met: Where there are no reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed, but police nonetheless believe that the victim’s safety may be at risk, police should consider the availability of other responses, including civil protection orders under provincial and territorial legislation on domestic violence, where applicable (see below), and recognizance orders under section 810 of the Criminal Code. However, these alternative responses should not be used in place of charges where the test has been met. [Source: Spousal Abuse Policies and Legislation. Final Report of the Ad Hoc Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group Reviewing Spousal Abuse Policies and Legislation. Prepared for Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/fm/reports/spousal.html ] In short, if there are no grounds to believe the complainer, police will issue a restraining order if the accused is a male and thus save themselves the trouble of having to justify in writing why they did not lay a charge and make an arrest. These orders then are disseminated by Stats. Can. as if they were based on valid grounds. The same report tells us that though the other favourite Stats Can. “finding” is that “Violence against Women” costs the Canadian taxpayers more than $4 billion a year it is actually the creation of the myth that costs us that much: · In 1995, a study of selected economic costs of three forms of violence—sexual assault, woman abuse in intimate partnerships and incest or child sexual abuse—estimated the partial annual costs of violence against women in four policy areas as follows:
According to Health Canada’s Population and Public Health Branch (PPHB) Facts on Injury http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/pphb-dgspsp/injury-bles/facts_e.html · the economic burden of unintentional and intentional injuries combined is estimated to be greater than $12.7 billion per year or 8% of the total direct and indirect costs of illness, ranking 4th after cardiovascular disease, musculo-skeletal conditions and cancer. (The economic burden of illness in Canada, 1998. Health Canada, 2002) · Another economic study estimated that unintentional injuries alone cost Canada more than $8.7 billion annually. (Angus D et al. The economic burden of unintentional injury in Canada, SMARTRISK, 1998) An example of the myth making is a program that is delivered to school children, beginning in kindergarten, called the “Black Eyed Susan” http://www.bconnex.net/~dsneyd/index.htm The program directs teachers to ask primary grade students to “draw pictures of their impressions of the film and then describe them to the rest of the class and to make construction paper flowers and paper bag puppets of each of the main characters, collect the flowers and arrange them in a vase. Encourage students to playact their puppets through different roles from various parts of the film.” The brainwashing becomes more intensive when children reach the junior grades. Teachers are instructed to divide classes “into 2 or 3 drama clubs and help them produce all or part of The Disclosure, a three-act play taken from the Black-eyed Susan script.” Let us not forget that these same children have already been subjected to the same propaganda in their primary level. The instructions to the teachers are to proceed with the following methodology: · After viewing the video, here are some questions for discussion [see http://www.bconnex.net/~dsneyd/question.htm ] Considering the time and effort that is used for this, it is small wonder that our children finish their education without the essential academic skills but fully cognisant of the false data that are presented by Stats Can. [see http://www.bconnex.net/~dsneyd/stats.htm ] National Judicial Institute (Canada):
According to Juristat, the yearly average number of women killed by their current or former intimate male partners during the ten year period between 1992 and 2001 was 65. Based on that number, the weekly average is 1.25 women. It is noteworthy that many of these cases were murder-suicides. It still more noteworthy that even these numbers are inflated as many men, who were initially found guilt, have been exonerated later though the statistics have not been corrected. The National Judicial Institute is responsible for judicial education in Canada. The preferred method by Stats Can. and other propagandists is to disseminate statistics in percentages only. Thus one Department of Justice Canada document admits that their 100% recidivism rate was based on two case, another report indicates that the final estimate was arrived at by using an original sample of “10 or less” reports. Tammy Landau in her “Synthesis of Department of Justice Canada Research Findings on Spousal Assault” tells that the “Manitoba Tracking Study” by Jane Ursel indicated that only 21% of all cases dispatched resulted in charges, and only 12% resulted in convictions. A Justice Canada document called A REVIEW OF SECTION 264 (CRIMINAL HARASSMENT) OF THE CRIMINAL CODE ... is an excellent example of the above baffle gap (note how “80%” turns out to be eight of ten cases in Halifax. Hardly an epidemic):
Sincerely, Eeva Sodhi RR 1 McDonald’s Corners, Ontario, K0G 1M0 |
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