What Is Battered Woman Syndrome?

Battered Women Syndrome turned out to be a social psychology term. Becoming a legal concept in North America was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is used legally to refer to a special pattern of behaviour exhibited by women who have long been abused by their husbands or boyfriends. Battered Women Syndrome is composed of two concepts: Cycle Of Violence and Learned Helplessness. The concept was first proposed by Dr. Lenore Walker, a pioneer in domestic violence and an American clinical forensic psychologist.

Battered women syndrome

Battered Women Syndrome turned out to be a social psychology term. Becoming a legal concept in North America was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is used legally to refer to a special pattern of behaviour exhibited by women who have long been abused by their husbands or boyfriends. Battered Women Syndrome is composed of two concepts: Cycle Of Violence and Learned Helplessness. The concept was first proposed by Dr. Lenore Walker, a pioneer in domestic violence and an American clinical forensic psychologist.

Chinese name

Battered women syndrome

Classification

Acquired helplessness was proposed by Dr. Waco to explain why battered women cannot take the initiative to end violent marriages. The term acquired helplessness originally came from a trial in the 1960s by psychologist Martin Seligman. Sullivan kept several dogs in an iron cage and shocked various parts of the iron cage from time to time every day. At first, the dogs kept jumping around in the cage, trying to avoid the electric shock, but they soon found nowhere to hide. The dogs stopped their active avoidance behavior and instead adopted a method of minimizing pain (such as lying face down in an iron cage when receiving an electric shock to minimize pain). The dogs seemed to understand that, rather than avoiding hopelessly, it would be better to endure quietly. Dr. Waco believes that the abused women's response to domestic violence is similar to that of dogs in a state of no shelter after being shocked in an iron cage. After being subjected to violence for a long time, the abused women are psychologically paralyzed, and they have recognized from countless beatings that they are unable to stop the violence committed by their husbands or boyfriends. Every violence from her husband or co-boyfriend makes them more "recognize" their helplessness. Over time, they became more passive, more obedient, and more helpless in this state of mind. Most of the expert evidence on battered women syndrome focuses on describing and explaining this sense of helplessness in battered women.

As expert evidence, the abused women's syndrome was used by the prosecution as a means of proving that the defendant was not guilty, less guilty or should have a reduced penalty

Battered Women's Syndrome, as admissible evidence, first appeared in Canadian judicial practice in 1987. Lin Lavali, 22, has been abused and beaten by her husband for 3-4 years living with her common law husband. The frequency of domestic violence at the time of the incident was several times a week. From 1983 to 1986, her medical records showed that she had been beaten to the emergency department eight times. Her injuries included severe bruising, a broken nose, multiple nasal bruising, and black eyes. On the evening of August 30, 1986, friends came to her house for a party. In the early morning of the 31st, after most of the guests left, the husband quarreled with Lavalli again. According to her later confession recorded at the police station: Lavali knew she would inevitably be beaten again, and fled to the bedroom upstairs to hide. The husband chased upstairs, dragged her out of the closet, gave her a slap, left fingerprints on her face, and punched her with two more punches. Then, pointing at her nose, she said: You are my woman. Whatever you ask, you have to do. He threatened to kill her when the guests left, unless she had shot him with a gun before that. Lavalie shuddered deeply. I just felt that my mind was blank except for the scene of the previous beatings. She just remembered taking the gun he handed over, pulling the bolt, and the bullet didn't know where it went. He shot another bullet into the gun and handed it to her. In extreme fear, Lavalie shot him from behind when he left the bedroom. She was charged with murder. During the trial of the case, Lavalli put forward a justification for defense. Her lawyer produced ample evidence that her husband often beat her during cohabitation. The defense lawyer also invited Dr. Fred Shane, who has extensive experience in treating battered women, to testify as an expert witness. Dr. Shane's testimony was based on three four-hour interviews with the defendant, the police's case file on the case, the medical records of the defendant receiving trauma treatment in the hospital from 1983 to 1985, and the interview with the defendant's mother. Expert testimony proves that Lavali has obvious characteristics of abused women's syndrome. Her killing behavior is a reasonable response of a long-term victim of violence in the face of death threats from the perpetrator. The prosecutor believes that the fight between husband and wife is common knowledge and not specialized knowledge, so expert evidence is not needed. The prosecutor asked the judge to rule the abused women's syndrome as unavailable evidence. The prosecutor also believes that a large amount of evidence has proven that Ravali did not break up with him despite frequent beatings. This time he was shot and killed from behind, and the jury was sufficient to make the correct judgment: Ravali Intentional killing. The judge of the first instance held that domestic violence, as well as the psychological and behavioral effects of domestic violence on victims, were impossible for jury members composed of ordinary people to understand and belonged to expertise and required expert assistance. There is a correlation between Ravali's experience of violence and her final murder. Therefore, the expert testimony of battered women's syndrome meets the requirements of case law and is admissible evidence. The judge of the first instance also instructed the jury to completely ignore the inferences made by expert witnesses based on unavailable evidence (such as untested witness testimony). Experts' inferences based on admissible evidence and their probative power are judged by a jury in accordance with the law. After a collective review, the jury announced the justification of the defense justified by Lavali, and Lavali was not guilty. The prosecutor dissatisfied and protested. The majority of the judges of the Court of Appeal accepted the public prosecutor's claim and in 1988 ruled that the first instance judgment was abolished and the trial reopened. The case was later appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Focus of dispute: Whether expert evidence of abused women's syndrome is admissible; whether there is a correlation between abused women's syndrome and proper defense; whether the trial judge's instructions to the jury are sufficient. After a written hearing, the Supreme Court of Canada supported Lavalli's justification for defense, revoked the second instance ruling, and resumed the first instance verdict. The starting point of the Supreme Court of Canada's adoption of expert evidence of battered women's syndrome is that the law's provisions on proper defense lack a gender perspective, and it is unfair to women who are not as good as men in height, physical strength, and ability to fight by hand. The lack of gender awareness will inevitably affect judges and juries to make accurate judgments on the rationality of masochistic killings. Therefore, the expert testimony of the battered women syndrome is essential for the jury to hear the case.