The case against mandatory reporting of domestic violence injuries.

• Author: Daire, Virginia
• Position: Florida

As a voice for the safety of domestic violence victims, the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence (FCADV)(1) presents a counter argument to an article which appeared in the November 1998 issue of The Florida Bar Journal. The article was entitled "Domestic Violence: Why the Florida Legislature Must Do More to Protect the `Silent' Victims."

"If abuse is to be prevented," the article said:

[P]hysicians in all settings must comply with the statutes and educate themselves and assess all patients for abuse during each visit. Moreover, and more importantly, the Florida Legislature must enact laws, as have other states before it, to require physicians to report acts of suspected abuse, and to relieve the physicians of civil or criminal liability if the physician made the report in good faith. Only through these measures can physicians and legislators promote the health and well being of Floridians.

While the article focused on the massive, adverse impact of domestic violence on all Floridians and the significant, positive contributions that the medical community can make toward eliminating domestic violence, it did not explore alternatives to mandatory reporting; nor did it consider the potential for further harm that mandatory reporting entails.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence does not erupt overnight. Rather, the perpetrator's control over the life of his victim begins with charming and persuasive manipulation, and it usually escalates subtly over time as he amasses power in the relationship through coercion and intimidation. The control may start with the perpetrator's slow but steady isolation of the victim from her emotional support systems. It may proceed to verbal digression and/or economic deprivation to foster the victim's dependence on the perpetrator's good opinion or financial support. Eventually, however, it results in calculated acts of violence such as pushing, shoving, striking, hitting, and kicking, which, by this time, the perpetrator has conditioned the victim to believe she deserves.

In short, the perpetrator of domestic violence resorts to the imposition of increasingly severe repercussions against a victim who continues to defy his "right" to establish and maintain control over her life. Indeed, the risk of murder increases when the perpetrator of domestic violence suspects that he is losing the control that he has painstakingly developed over the course of time.

The most important part of a victim's ability to escape safely from domestic violence, therefore, is her development and implementation of a formal safety plan. In many instances, the victim only begins to recognize the need for such a plan when her children have been threatened with harm or when she receives the support she requires to realize that she does not deserve to be hurt. Frequently, the turnabout is gradual. It begins, sometimes, upon the victim's first contact with a domestic violence center. Advocates there are trained to be patient with the victim because they know that "making the final break" usually happens only over time. There may be many false starts as the victim tests the safety net of physical, emotional, and legal support, and weighs that support against her knowledge of the abuser's potential to hurt her or her children.

Escaping a...