DECREASING DRINK DRIVING LEADS TO INCREASED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Every time we create a new law to protect one individual it has the effect of disadvantaging another individual. This is not just a philosophical belief it is a reality. Sometimes they might say ‘I am stretching the point a bit’ but when one has to consider the impact of any law one may often apply what I call the ‘what if’ rule and as Mythmania is my specialty I reserve that right.

We enact drink-drive laws, quite rightly, to prevent drunks from getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle or any other form of transport – even horses, and hurting other people or animals either deliberately or accidentally.

In all the fervour and the knee-jerk reactions to prevent people from killing themselves on the road through the misuse of alcohol we may not see the whole picture and the flow on effect of the introduction of these rules. I may have to explain that I am totally against the free-for-all that the selling of alcohol has become. This drug is just as dangerous, if not more so as any other and to allow its sale so openly to anyone with the money is just wrong. I am a drinker that is true, and I may sometimes have more than I should. The odd fact that I only drink in one hotel is irrelevant to this story.

Hotels and Social Clubs, in my estimation, like any community gathering place carry with them certain unwritten rules of behaviour if you wish to be able to continue enjoying the conviviality and the atmosphere. To break any of these rules usually has the result of you being taken care of’ by those around you and as a result one is forced to behave in a manner acceptable to other patrons. In my case, in a town with less people than days in a year, one stands out if you dare breach the local customs.

This ‘control’ in hotels usually established by the publican means that if you do drink too much then advice to stop drinking is usually enforced and back-up by other drinkers. Whether or not one has done the R.S.A Course which usually just means you know when people are pissed and should be refused service, just common sense really, the person dispensing the alcohol usually knows when the customer should stop and it’s not after a certain amount of drink either for different people have different tolerances and differ in their reactions. Some get violent, others go quiet and still others just drop top the floor unconscious. In the case of some females a sign of drunkenness was how far they threw their dress over their head and danced the ‘fandango’.

To cut a long story short, when the majority of people drank in a hotel, rules applied which did not necessarily apply if you got pissed at home. Most commonly it was restricted to ‘alcoholics’ that drank too much everywhere. The Salvation Army was always adept at locating an alcoholic. All that coin box shaking and rattling was not just for the collection of money and selling the ‘War Cry’. How long it took and the accuracy of your aim getting a coin into the box was a telltale sign of sobriety.

Over the last few decades there has been a slow change in peoples drinking habits because of the introduction of drink driving laws and the increasingly harsh measures being applied to prevent people from continuing to drink and drive. The effect of more drinking at home has meant less social control and censure by peers and subsequently less self control. In the pub you got a bunch of fives applied liberally to the nose, at home the reverse has begun to apply and it is long suffering women and children who now cop the brunt of the bunch of fives from an out-of-control drunken mate.

It might be prudent at this point that to suggest the abuse is not strictly confined to the male of the species but where I say men in this case I should really be saying them so as to include all three genders. My point is that away from public gaze a drunken person can perpetrate all manner of heinous offence upon family and friends in privacy and of course this includes vulnerable children.

Anti-Traumatisation

In the State of Victoria as in all other Australian jurisdictions there are Government Services with the legal authority to remove children from their parents. Generally, but not in all cases they are removed from allegedly abusive situations by either parents or carers both legal and illegal. I say allegedly as there is extensive evidence that the abuse is perceived and not actual. In the eyes of the authorities, but not necessarily in the eyes of the child, they are coming from supposedly unloving situations or where the parents lifestyle is considered unsuitable for the raising of children.

Removal of children from abusive situations is both a proper and responsible action to be taken by anyone with statutory responsibility for the protection of children, especially where child sexual assault may be involved. The main problem is that in the eyes of the law the abuser, as an adult, is innocent until proven guilty and hence is legally permitted to remain in the family home until such time as a court decides otherwise. The only alternative to removing the child is that the non-offending adult/s encourage the offender to leave of their own accord for the sake of harmony until the slow grinding of the law takes its course.

There are many situations where one parent will deny any wrong-doing by the other similar to those involved with domestic violence and will categorically deny that there is any offending going on at all. If the authorities believe that both parents may be abusive and this includes emotional and financial abuse in addition to sexual or physical abuse then the Police can take action and remove the child.

But herein lies the dilemma that cannot ever be resolved satisfactorily. In the eyes of the child there is no wrong being done, and commonly believe that if the parents or carers have done no wrong then it must be themselves, the supposed victim, that are at fault.

Removal of the child is seen to be the least traumatic experience for government welfare workers and locking the child in detention the easiest way to prevent them from ‘acting out’. Until this situation changes and the child feels they have control of what happens to them the damage to children will be on-going and forever irreparable.

Once removed these children are then isolated from the non-abusive parent (who has to ask permission to visit their child), any siblings, local friends, school and school friends, supportive teachers and significant others who should be encouraged to maintain their relationships as part of the healing process are also excluded.

Ideally any child should be placed as close as possible to their natural home environment, attend the same school, maintain the same friendships with other children and significant adult contacts. The schools responsibility and that of others would be to ensure that non-contact is maintained with the abuser. How one does this without ‘publicising’ the problem is a dilemma that will have to be addressed? Without client confidentiality in schools, where only qualified counsellors (not unqualified religious zealots) know the situation is also critical to the healing process.

Removal in our present system almost exclusively means exclusion from everyone known and trusted by the child where in reality there need only be separation from the abusive adults. How can we expect any child to feel safe and secure in the unrealistic and traumatic environment in which we place them.

Some that I have known and worked with state that they feel that they are the one at fault by the way they are treated, especially so when accommodated in so-called ‘‘safe environments’ that actually resemble detention centres and who have similar policies and procedures. Before it was closed down as a ‘safe environment’ the N.S.W Departments facility for these children, those that could not be immediately placed in foster care, maintained the illegal policy of locking all external doors and windows to prevent children from absconding. If such an environment is said to be a ‘safe’ for children then why the need for such security measures? In a sane world we do not lock up the victims, hence the similar insanity in detaining refugees.

What we need to do is maintain effective contact with everyone in the child’s realm with supervised visits home being made a regular occurrence and maintenance of contact with extended family and significant others encouraged. Supervision in this context would only be a precaution against the child coming into contact with the offender and not a check on the morals or behaviour of the rest of the family. I would even suggest that the child be allowed to spend time overnight with non-abusive parents and siblings whenever the abusive adult is not present.

This traumatising process is more intense when it comes to the counselling of victims, much the same as the protocols for ‘notification’ of any child who presents for sexual assault counselling who may not wish such a course of action.

One thing I learnt in my periods of working with sexually abused children some time back, was that they must feel as though they are free to say what they want and confident that you are not going to go running off and blabbing to someone they don’t know about their most intimate disclosures as is required with the ‘team’ approach of the welfare services.

The system of group confidentiality within agencies, whilst a good practice to be encouraged, must be tempered with the fact that informed consent must be obtained from the client before disclosure to others and not to be bandied around over a cup of coffee at lunchtime with other staff members.

The legal process is also demeaning, embarrassing and traumatic. One particular case on which I worked involved three victims of the same perpetrator. The fact that I could only work with the boy who did not have Family Services support meant a positive outcome for him, whilst the other two who did have Govt. support were worse off.

Over the two and a half years the case ran no welfare services appeared, nor did they provide any sexual assault counselling, legal representation or even transport to and from court. My client won his case because he did receive all the necessary support and several years later also won a case for compensation. Some improvements have been made to the legal process over the last few years but government welfare processes it seems have improved very little.

The one problem with this de-traumatisation process is that it will make it much easier for children to disclose and to receive counselling but with CSA services already thin on the ground we may not be able to handle the surge in demand