plasticwrap

As someone who's complained to the police about domestic violence and was shocked at how they were gagging to treat it as a non-crime to the point that they had to be bollocksed in court by the judge and victims' rights adviser only because I made an issue of it, which most victims don't, I find their public campaigns against domestic violence insulting. The police are as responsible for domestic violence as those who commit it, because they are one of the few authorities who have the power to bring offenders to justice, but they aren't the slightest bit interested.(end of rant)

That's terrible!

I always view the WINZ posters (Don't put up with it! Tell your case manager!) fairly cynically as well. No-one is there to really support a person moving out of such a difficult situation. It just gets ignored and minunderstood.

I think you're right about misunderstanding. 'Learned helplessness' and how psychological violence affects people are pretty complex areas, so it's not that surprising that many people don't understand or just somehow find it a little unbelievable (eg, that a victim didn't really notice as the perpetrator began to exert more and more control). It doesn't help that we have a culture where compassion is seen as weakness.

I think that the police should have dedicated officers that only deal with investigating abuse (including domestic violence) and that all other police officers should be banned from doing so. A lot of police officers came into the force to have car chases and catch robbers, which is fine, but it's not surprising that they really resent having to deal with the softy sobbing stuff.