WIFE ASSAULT – The Criminal Justice System

(Copyright: Ontario Women’s Directorate)

Facts to Consider

Wife assault is a crime. Harming a wife or girlfriend is just as illegal as harming a stranger.

█ Wife assault can take many forms. Some of the criminal charges that may apply are:

• assault • hostage taking • aggravated assault • assault causing bodily harm • abduction in contravention of a custody order • assault causing bodily harm • sexual assault • aggravated sexual assault

• sexual assault causing bodily harm • uttering threats • sexual assault with a weapon • intimidation • forcible confinement • attempted murder • murder

█Most assaulted women who have gone to court report a reduction or termination of violence after court. (1)

█When the police, rather than the victim, lay charges or arrest husbands, the probability of new incidents of violence are cut in half. (2)

█Assaulted women are twice as likely to follow through on charges laid by police than on charges they lay themselves. (3)

█In 1981, London (Ontario) police were directed to lay charges in all domestic assault cases where reasonable and probable grounds existed

  • police laid charges in only 3% of cases, although 20% of victims were advised to get medical attention. Victims laid their own charges more than five times as often as police.
  • After the directive, police-laid charges increased 25 times. (4)

█In 1991, police in Ontario laid criminal charges in 65% of occurrences reported to police. This represents a 24% increase from 1986. (5)

█According to a 1993 Statistics Canada survey, only 26% of wife assault incidents are reported to police. (6)

█38% of all women murdered in Canada, and 40% of all women murdered in Ontario in 1992, were killed by a current or estranged male partner. (7)

█A recent study indicates that a total of 551 women were killed by their current or estranged male partners between 1974 and 1990 in Ontario. (8)

Issues to Consider

█Assaulted women often feel unable to report their assaults to police and go through the criminal justice system. There are many reasons for this, including:

  • fear of retaliation or revenge by the offender, often as a result of threats
  • lack of information about legal rights
  • fear that they won’t be believed and/or will be blamed for the abuse
  • slow, ineffective and/or insensitive response by police, the courts and probation and parole officers. For example, a recent Toronto Study found that 83% of women who called police did not feel adequately helped or protected against further abuse. (9)
  • for immigrant women, fear that they or their partners will be deported
  • many racial minority, immigrant, refugee and native women fear that if they call the police, their partners will be mistreated by the police and courts because of racism and discrimination.

█The criminal justice system only responds to physical and sexual assault. It is important to recognize that emotional and psychological abuse can be just as harmful.

█Even when criminal charges have been laid, many abusive husbands continue to try to control, harass and intimidate their wives through the manipulation of child custody, access and support.

References

1. Peter Jaffe et al., A Research Study to Evaluate the Impact and Effectiveness of the Policy Directive That Police Lay Charges in All Domestic Violence Incidents Where Reasonable and Probable Grounds Exist (Toronto: Provincial Secretariat for Justice, 1985), 28.

2. Jaffe, A Research Study, 26.

3. Peter Jaffe and C. Burris, Wife Abuse as a Crime: The Impact of Police Laying Charges, Canadian Journal of Criminology 25, no. 3 (1983).

4. Peter Jaffe et al., The Impact of Police Charges in Incidents of Wife Abuse, Journal of Family Violence 1, no. 1 (1980), 38.

5. Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services, Lae Enforcement Activity in Relation to Spousal Assault in Ontario, 1986-1991 (Toronto, 1993).

6. Statistics Canada, “The Violence Against Women Survey.” The Daily, November 18, 1993.

7. Ministry of Supply and Services Canada, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre of Justice Statistics, 1993.

8. Women We Honour Action Committee, Woman Killing: Intimate Femicide in Ontario 1974-1990 (Toronto, 1992), vi.

9. Brenda Farge and Barbara Rahder, Police Response to Incidents of Wife Assault (Toronto: Assaulted Women’s Helpline and Metro Toronto Action Committee Against Wife Assault, 1991), 16.

Further Resources

• Joan Bain. Spousal Assault: The Criminal Justice System and the Role of the Physician. Ontario Medical Review (Jan. 1989), 20-28.

• Barbra Schlifer Clinic and Ontario Women’s Directorate. Your Rights: An Assaulted Woman’s Guide to the Law (Toronto, 1992). Available from the Ontario Women’s Directorate.

• Community Legal Education Ontario. Assaulted Women: A Manual for Advocates (Toronto, 1990).

• Canadian Council on Social Development, Wife Assault and the Criminal Justice System. Vis-à-Vis 8, no. 1-2 (Summer, 1990).

• Jurgen Dankwort. Out of Court, Out of Mind? Perception 13, no. 3 (1989), 17-19.

• Bridging the River of Silence, 54 min.

Bridging the River of Silence is the story of three women sho have been assaulted by their male partners, and the response of the criminal justice system to their cases. Available from Kinetic Inc. (416) 963-5979.