Domestic Violence

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

Page 504

Any abusive, violent, coercive, forceful, or threatening act or word inflicted by one member of a family or household on another can constitute domestic violence.

Domestic violence, once considered one of the most underreported crimes, became more widely recognized during the 1980s and 1990s.

Various individuals and groups have defined domestic violence to include everything from saying unkind or demeaning words, to grabbing a person's arm, to hitting, kicking, choking, or even murdering. Domestic violence most often refers to violence between married or cohabiting couples, although it sometimes refers to violence against other members of a household, such as children or elderly relatives. It occurs in every racial, socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious group, although conditions such as poverty, drug or alcohol abuse, and mental illness increase its likelihood. Studies indicate that the incidence of domestic violence among homosexual couples is approximately equivalent to that found among heterosexual couples.

Domestic violence involving married or cohabiting couples received vast media attention during the 1990s. The highly publicized 1995 trial of former professional football player and movie actor O.J. (Orenthal James) Simpson for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman thrust it onto the front pages of newspapers for many months. Simpson was acquitted of the murder charges, but evidence produced at his trial showed that he had been arrested in 1989 for spousal BATTERY and that he had threatened to kill his ex-wife. The disclosure that a prominent sports figure and movie star had abused his wife prompted a national discussion on the causes of domestic violence, its prevalence, and effective means of eliminating it.

Despite the attention that domestic violence issues have received, publicized instances of domestic violence continue to occur. Like the case of O.J. SIMPSON, several of these cases involved current or former athletes. Jim Brown, who, like Simpson, was both a famous football player and actor, received a six-month sentence in 2000 for vandalizing his wife's car during an argument. Also like Simpson, Brown had a history of alleged domestic-violence incidents, though he had not been convicted in the previous allegations.

Although thousands of cases involving domestic violence occur each year, those that involve celebrities continue to attract the most attention. In 1999, movie director John Singleton pled no-contest to charges of battering his girlfriend. Singleton is best known...