Domestic violence: Breaking the cycle

THE Correctional Services Department hopes a 10-week course will change the behaviour of men with a history of family violence. We attended to find out if it works.

THE room is full of smiling faces, gathered to celebrate Michael’s 50th birthday. Champagne glasses tinkle as he taps the microphone to get the attention of his family and friends.

On the stage, Michael turns to his wife, whom he affectionately nicknames “my missus”. “I love you, my soulmate,” he says with a warm smile. “I want to grow old with you. We better finish off our bucket list together, too!”

Turning to his brood of now grown children, Michael tells how proud he is that they “always felt safe to talk to me” when they faced trouble in their lives.

It’s a heartwarming scene befitting so many family celebrations across South Australia – just not Michael’s. In fact, his name isn’t really Michael. SAWeekend has given this man a pseudonym to protect his identity because, in reality, Michael has caused so much harm to those around him that he has been jailed and referred to a rehabilitation program in a bid to change his dangerous behaviour.

11/4/18 - Arman Abrahimzadeh for SA Weekend magazine feature on rehabilitating perpetrators of domestic violence. Arman's father killed his mother in 2010. Photo Naomi Jellicoe

This loving scene has been conjured by Michael as part of an exercise designed to enable him and fellow offenders in the program to explore the kind of future they could have if they choose not to use violence.

Michael has spent a total of 13 years behind bars. On the outside he stole, lived on the streets, drank too much, verbally abused partners and his children “to feel big”, and was likely physically violent (although he doesn’t explicitly admit this).

Michael is one of five South Australian men attending the Domestic Family Violence Intervention Program run by the Correctional Services Department. There were 13 enrolled but, as the weeks wore on, one-by-one they reoffended, breached bail or parole conditions which landed them back in jail, moved away or just stopped showing up.

On average, only about 45 per cent of abusers who start this kind of program, held outside of prisons, actually finish the 10-week course. When captive audiences start the program behind bars the completion rate rises to about 80 per cent, highlighting the challenge for those trying to change behaviours in the community.

The five men sitting in a bland, fluorescent-lit room in the Adelaide CBD have landed here because they have been in prison or are subject to conditions of a court-order put in place to restrict their behaviour and protect their victims. All have a history of violence and abuse directed towards women and children they’re supposed to love. If you passed them in the street you wouldn’t necessarily suspect their past – except maybe William*, who wears a GPS monitoring device on his ankle. He sits sullenly in the far corner with his cap lowered over his eyes.

Next to him is Michael, a slight man, wearing baggy shorts and fiddling with his phone while waiting for the class to start. Robert*, in the middle of the haphazard circle of classroom chairs, is scruffy in tracksuit pants and a T-shirt, recounting weekend activities with his four sons. On his right, John* leans back in his chair, arms stretched behind his shaven head to reveal a sleeve of tattoos. Sitting closest to me, clean-shaven James* wears chinos and a collared polo shirt and rubber thongs on his feet.

While SAWeekend is not privy to the exact details of their criminal histories, these men have been deemed dangerous enough that scarce resources are being spent trying to change their behaviour, and the thinking that drives it. The taxpayer-funded program was launched by the Correctional Services Department about three years ago and has attempted to treat about 250 men.

“Everyone who comes into our program is about a 50 per cent risk of reoffending, or more,” says Greg Fuller, clinical supervisor for the Rehabilitation Programs Branch. “When these men reoffend it’s often in really violent ways … violently enough to be incarcerated. That reoffending is likely to have a police call out in relation to a physical assault.”

There are broadly two types of men who end up in front of Fuller and his team of psychologists, social workers and other clinicians – general offenders and specific domestic abusers. The latter may have a conviction for sexual or physical assault of a partner, or be restricted by a court order from visiting their children.

While these men cause undoubted pain, they usually have jobs and other connections to the community that give them “what we call stake in conformity”, Fuller says.

It is the so-called general offenders who are “much, much more dangerous”, he warns.

“They’re the men who have chaotic lives. They might use methamphetamines or get in high speed car chases. They have anti-social attitudes. That kind of chaos is always going to find its way into the home.”

When these men commit family violence “they reoffend at much higher rates, they reoffend quicker and they reoffend more violently”, Fuller says. “They require longer treatment and much more stringent monitoring.”

Some men are so unwilling to take responsibility for their actions that they are not accepted into the program, or have to be removed. Such as the man who told Fuller he was “proud” of hurting his family. Or another who bragged about his plans to resume beating his wife once their children were a bit older.

Latest figures show SA Police are responding to soaring numbers of domestic violence-related call outs each year – peaking at almost 30,000 in 2016-17. At least 35 South Australians have died as a result of family violence since 2010. So you might wonder if it’s worth spending scarce taxpayer funds, which could be used to support victims or spread awareness, on trying to get inside the minds of brutal men. Can they really change? Is it possible to rewire their brains, and maybe protect their next girlfriend, wife or child?

The team of nine running the Correctional Services program believe so.

“People can change, if they want to,” says Ryan*, a provisional psychologist who has been in the role for two years. “We know many men with a history of family violence do change and go on to stop being violent and abusive. To not work towards this change also potentially equates to giving up on, not only these men, but also their current and future partners and children.”

Ryan recalls at least once success story of sorts – a man who was “prone to all kinds of abusive behaviours”. After completing the course, his partner “reported that she was seeing some big changes with the way he approached conversations with her, the way he reacted to her at times, the way he managed his emotions and behaviour”.

Kate*, who works in tandem with Ryan in twice-weekly sessions, concedes there is a high level of resistance when they start their work, which could come from “feelings of shame or guilt, or believing that they don’t need to be there”.

But with most men that wall comes down early enough in the 10-week course to show potential for change.

“We do see after a while men taking more responsibility for their choice to use violence and abuse,” Kate says.

Timing is key. It’s best if the team can capture an abuser early in their cycle of violence.

“You get to the men hopefully when they’re in a bit of a remorse phase and the incident is fresh in their mind,” Fuller says.

“The further you get away, the more time the men have to reflect on their offence in a way that minimises their bad work and maximises the blame in other places.”

Back in that small, fluoro-lit room, the first test the men who sign up to this program face is to own up to their abuse. It’s called the “facing up session”. The men are asked to read through an extensive list of behaviours and tick those they have been responsible for.

“That’s a really heavy session,” Fuller says. “We clearly say to them we’re not going to give you an opportunity to explain it or put any context around it. We’re just interested in what you’re responsible for.”

The behaviours range from staring angrily at a partner or thumping a table during an argument, escalating to insisting on knowing where your partner is, restricting her spending or stopping her from getting a job. Then there’s outright violence like forcing sex, grabbing a partner by the hair, kicking or strangling her and even headbutting.

Threatening harm to a partner, child or family pet features frequently, as do manipulative behaviours such as recruiting others to spy on a partner or telling children the abuse is their mother’s fault.

“Afterwards, we have a conversation about how did that feel to own up to this thing and then not be allowed to justify it. That’s very challenging for them,” Fuller says.

“We challenge them fairly hard, but we need to offer them an ethical place to stand while we do that (so they don’t give up). So we say, as you fill this in we’re expecting that you might feel shame and guilt. That would be a reasonable thing. What does it say about you that you feel that? And what would it say about you if you didn’t?”

The men SAWeekend observed seem to have come to the realisation that society says their behaviour is wrong – but they may not believe it yet themselves. Many appear as if they are giving answers they think the assessors want to hear.

After giving one answer where he accepts responsibility for abusing his former partner, John blurts out: “If I say it’s anything else it will be (assessed as) me not taking responsibility”. Further along the denial spectrum, James later leans over during a break to flatly declare: “I don’t need to be here. I’ve never hit a woman,” he protests. “I’m only here because they told me I have to be here.”

The secure room where these sessions take place feels almost like a school classroom, except for the smell of cigarette smoke that wafts in when the men return from a break outside. There is a lot of yawning, knee jiggling and staring at the ceiling as they count the seconds until it’s over. They are constantly bargaining for an early minute or a way to shorten the course. They snigger and make fart jokes. And they are quick to anger when their behaviour is challenged.

As a woman in this role, Kate says this can sometimes be confronting, but that her presence is important. “I’m definitely mindful of gender stereotypes that some of the men might come into the room holding, and being quite mindful not to let that play out, or play into their ideas of what women or men should do,” she says. “It’s essential for the men to see that genuine respect for each gender.”

As they make their way through the sessions – with themes such as the cycle of violence, gender and power, and dangerous thinking – the men talk about “taking responsibility” and describe their actions as “not right”. But it is rare that any of them will actually say what they did wrong.

In one exercise they are asked to think about a time when their abusive behaviour would have affected their children.

John initially refuses to write anything down. When pressed, he says his daughter “witnessed me yelling a couple of times but I tried to keep her out of it as much as possible”. “My daughter doesn’t really remember it. I don’t really like thinking about it. They’ve forgiven me and I’ve apologised, and that’s sort of where I want to leave it.”

Ryan and Kate try extremely hard not to give answers for the participants, which prompts a lot of long, awkward silences as they consider the consequences of behaviour that would be blindingly obvious to most of us. Eventually, John comes up with an example. He confides he had thrown plates of food at the walls during fights with his ex-partner, while his daughter was in the house.

While self-reflection is difficult, victim blaming and deflection come easily. John, in particular, takes exception to “women arguing back”.

“In all fairness they’ve got the right to that, but it makes it all worse,” he says. “I’m not being sexist here, but some women think ‘I’ve got the same right (to argue), we’re equal’. I suppose if they love you they’re just going to put up with it (abuse). The first time it may be scary but then after a while…” he trails off.

During another conversation, James begins to suggest that beating a woman behind closed doors doesn’t have as much impact on public safety as, say, a coward punch outside a packed pub. “You’re not causing hysteria (at home) are you? I’m not condoning it but...” he too trails off.

One thing that gets men to change their thinking is their children. Fatherhood is a point of pride for the men in this program and it can be the catalyst for what psychologist Ryan calls the “light bulb moment”.

“When we start to explore the impact on partners and children that can be a moment where you actually see the men kind of get it. You can tell by the mood in the room or by the silence … that something has hit home.”

However, fatherhood is also the point at which many put their blinkers back on, Ryan says. “They might go through the program, taking responsibility and saying what they did was wrong but they won’t leap to the conclusion that abusing a partner is also an abuse on the children. That can be a clear point where the men will stop in terms of their responsibility taking.”

An emotional point comes when the men are asked to look at images drawn by children who have lived in violent households.

William, who has a young son, has talked earlier about hoping his boy “grows up to live a normal life” and sees him as “a hardworking Dad who would do anything for him … and is also like a best friend”. This same man admits to threatening the boy’s mother and smashing her phone in an angry confrontation in a public car park.

During this exercise, William picks up an image drawn in black and white by a young boy and is asked to describe it to the group. “It looks like he’s living in a violent house. His Dad comes home drunk, punches his mum in the face. She’s bleeding, he (the boy) is screaming for his mum.” Then, stunningly, he adds: “It’s pretty straightforward.”

All of the men in this group have been spectacularly let down by their fathers. Fuller says about half of all men who go through the program have “grown up in a violent house”. Often when examining the children’s drawings these men are “thinking about not just the violence they’ve committed but also about the violence they’ve seen”.

John shares that his father “beat the shit out of me”. “I knew no different. In the world most of us live in, it becomes second nature, if you live like that for long enough,” he argues – highlighting the importance of breaking this cycle of violence between generations.

“Watching my Dad push my mum around, coming home blind (drunk) every night, spending all his time at the football club and neglecting us – I thought that was normal.

“My mum was there for us, so I thought she (his ex) will be all right, because my mum was all right.”

Ultimately, this course is supposed to teach these men that they have a choice about how to behave. As Kate puts it, “anger doesn’t have to equal violence”.

This appeared to have sunk in with participant Michael by the time SAWeekend visited. “We were all stuck on one pathway, what we all know,” he muses. “It’s our choice to go that way, the way we’ve always been going, or it’s our choice to go a different way.”

But Kate is realistic about how difficult a task this is. “We’re undoing a lot of years of belief systems,” she says. “There are some men that probably will need further intervention.”

Follow-up is also needed for their families.

Specialists from Women’s Safety Services SA are paired with partners and children of men going through the program, to support them through what can be a risky time.

WSSSA director of services Ginny Cisneros says while many women leave the relationship, those who stay “hold hope for a change in men’s behaviour”.

“Many women report that they wish their partner might ‘go back to being the person I first met’,” she says. “Violence in relationships generally worsens over time, both in frequency and severity, and talking about this provides opportunities for women to identify his patterns of behaviour and the impact it has had on her.”

Where change is evident, partners become less “fearful of his behaviour towards her or their children”, Cisneros says. But others witness “no change, or very little change, or changes in the violent tactics used”.

“Many women report that … the emotional violence that accompanies, or replaces, the physical violence is worse, and the hardest type to deal with,” she says.

WSSSA specialists check in with these partners after the program ends, to ensure their safety and gauge any longer-term effect of the work the men have done in therapy.

Psychometric testing, done before and after the program, also gives the Correctional Services team some indication of whether they’ve made a difference.

Fuller concedes that the program has not been running long enough to fully evaluate its effect. “We’re an important part of the process (of curbing domestic violence) but we’re right at the end of it. It’s just a drop in the bucket of a huge problem,” he says.

Compared to more established treatment approaches, such as for sex attackers or drug addicts, programs working with domestic abusers are “comparatively a new field” and lessons are still being learned. But, as Fuller argues, “if we stop running them, then we’ll never learn what works”.

*names have been changed.

For support phone 1800 RESPECT, Zahra Foundation Australia on 8352 1889, WSSSA on 1800 800 098, Relationships Australia on 1300 364 277 or Mensline Australia on 1300 789 978. In an emergency call 000.