PERSPECTIVE ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE : Battered Women Need Better : Most victims still choose silence over prosecution that is harsher than necesary, often with dire consequences.

It has taken years of consciousness-raising, educating, lobbying and protesting by American women to get the legal system to take domestic violence seriously: to arrest and prosecute batterers, to make civil protection orders readily available, to forcefully intervene.

But what if such legal remedies turn out not to be the answer?

In a recent national study, only 14% of women who were beaten, choked or subjected to other forms of severe violence ever called the police. Not only are women not using the options now available to them; other studies have found that mandatory arrest laws tend to escalate violence by more serious offenders. Indeed, the standard advice that a battered woman should leave her batterer may be the most dangerous response. Studies show that women who attempt to leave abusive relationships are five times more likely to be killed than women who remain.

Harsher, more comprehensive criminal policies are not the panacea that we hoped they would be. We need to rethink our strategies for intervening in domestic violence. Overseas, where European feminists are fighting for similar legal responses to abuse, there is time to reconsider whether more rigorous arrest and prosecution strategies make sense. The American experience suggests trying a less rigid response to battering, one that takes into account the cultural, emotional and financial complexities of domestic violence.

Many women stay in abusive relationships because they are culturally pressured to endure violence. Orthodox Jewish women who file for divorce, even if for abuse, could be accused of violating Jewish law. African American women and Latinas who complain that their partners are violent fear that they will be ostracized for contributing to racial stereotypes. Violence can be the price a woman pays for preserving her cultural identity. In other cases, women stay because they are too scared, poor or unskilled to leave or because they love a man who is only occasionally violent.

The problem with contemporary criminal approaches and particularly with mandatory arrest and prosecution laws is that they are too threatening or too unresponsive to battered women. First, prosecutors unintentionally act in ways that are frighteningly similar to batterers. Under mandatory arrest and prosecution laws, prosecutors do what they want, when they want, without consulting the victim. Given the choice between a prosecutor you don’t know and a batterer you do, whom would you choose? Second, the law mistakenly attempts to eradicate violence by completely removing the batterer from a woman’s life, never attempting to grasp how he may be critical to her for cultural, emotional or financial reasons. Finally, the law ignores the fact that domestic violence involves two people who have in some ways become one, and that state-imposed efforts to separate them may be ineffective or inappropriate.

We need to recognize the hidden strengths of battered women and acknowledge the need for legal interventions that help them find ways to stop the violence in their lives. Under such a system, women would be invited to file complaints in informal and confidential settings: with social workers in hospital emergency rooms, at women-run police facilities or on battered women’s hotlines. These reports could be retained for verification of patterns of abuse. For women who want them, restraining orders and other legal remedies would be available. Other safety measures, including shelter stays and house surveillance, would be available on request through service centers. Criminal or civil actions could be provided but pursued only when and if the battered woman is physically and emotionally prepared to take that step.

This kind of flexible system could effectively combat domestic violence by empowering battered women to design their own course of action to eradicate violence from their lives. An array of options and a timeline that respects the uncertainty generated by conflicting loyalties is what a battered woman needs to finally face, at her own pace, what she may otherwise have endured to a tragic conclusion.