Porter and Sorensen: How We Could Have Stopped the Violence

Domestic violence and its degrees of deviance happen as a result of society turning a blind eye to the insidiousness of it consequences. Working with families recovering from violent behavior, I have observed the culprit to this menace—it’s society’s need to label someone the “bad” guy. Judges, social workers and police officer aren’t qualified to determine the psychopathy of abuse and often they get it wrong. Knowing innately they aren’t qualified to make an accurate assessment, they are often apprehensive and don’t want to arrest people. They understand the consequences can be devastating (i.e., lose or struggle with employment, restricted from seeing kids and housing). As a result, many professionals are forced to make one of the two guilty and make judgment calls based on their own perspectives. Unfortunately, in the quest to select a victim or a perpetrator they often miss the mark. In a course for people convicted of family violence, I found high percentage of those mandated to class had information that suggested they were not the primary aggressor. When questioned as to where their partners were many stated they weren’t required to get the education. Unlike many family advocates, I believe educating both partners is how we stop abuse. Domestic/family violence is a pattern of behavior that left unchecked leads to more deviant behavior as it escalates. When you require both partners to get treatment in the earlier stages of abuse (i.e., the FIRST time it has drawn attention) then people figure out how to make healthier choices.  But let the behavior slide by ignoring or guessing wrong, you set the family up to fail. My grandfather once told me that when something happened he’d consequence all eight kids rather than try to figure out who did it. He said this way he knew he got the right one. Creating healthier families means everyone has to get educated. People who’ve been violated often tell me they do NOT want to be referred to as victims as it implies they are stupid for staying. They mostly want to stay with their partners but they just want to abuse to stop. Imagine how much court time we could save if the first step was education BEFORE conviction? Make education an opportunity and barriers could be broken down.

I am a proponent of education over incarceration but the problem lies in denial due to fear of losing everything. With this latest round of abuse allegations at the White House, the key issue is that Rob Porter denies what he has done. If there had only been one accuser one could assess that the incident is a he-said-she-said and proceed with an investigation, but when three women come forward the allegations cannot be overlooked.  I had a Top-Secret clearance and I know the drill…ANY information that suggests you could be blackmailed in the future makes you ineligible for a clearance as it jeopardizes national security. This case demonstrates that Mr. Porter should have never been in such a high position. Now, had he admitted he violated his significant others and he had been given the chance to seek appropriate treatment, perhaps he would have understood it is against the law to beat people. But because he got away with it, he was emboldened to continue his bad behavior. With each assault, it increasingly becomes easier to rationalize the aberrant behavior—and makes the behavior justifiable. If people, like Rob Porter and now accused David Sorensen, could get the education without being labeled for life, maybe they could gain the tools they need to be better. This comes, however, from getting EVERYONE education because those who are battered have an increased risk of finding the same kind of partner but with a different face. If they believe that abuse is normal then they won’t see the signs. The tragedy here is there are children watching and learning to repeat the cycle. My challenge to the justice system is to put everyone identified as a potential victim or perpetrator in treatment/education. If someone then chooses not to comply, they get contempt charges. My experience shows that when someone wants out of a violent relationship they would do just about anything to maintain their children but those who can manipulate the system simply use the courts as a weapon to continue victimizing.

In summary, we could reduce court backlogs, we could get families assistance sooner, we could promote healthier behaviors, people could maintain their jobs, homes and families, and children could witness how families should work. I also teach a court-ordered parenting class and the majority of people enrolled when give the chance to use better more healthier skills they use them. They often don’t know what they don’t know.

Clarence Thomas and Domestic Disputes

As a family advocate fighting for the rights of people to feel free from violence, I find Clarence Thomas’ argument about misdemeanors and guns ignorant and naive. The reason many domestic disputes are misdemeanor is because for far too long we have viewed violence in the home as a private matter and society hasn’t been willing to give consequences for the outrageous behavior. Men, women and children are maimed and murdered annually after years of severe emotional, financial, sexual and physical abuse. Often convictions are guessing games and the persons with the abusive tendencies walk away with a mere slap on the wrist and then turn around and annihilate their families. Family members being assaulted learn that they have no recourse and must endure the extreme abuse often subjecting their children to a life harsher than a warzone. What most people don’t recognize about family violence including our great leader here is psychopathy is a progressive disorder, which is a grooming process where each assault, whether emotional or otherwise, increasingly worsens—eventually leading to trauma and a spectrum of mental health issues for everyone exposed to the intensity. I have been a proponent of using education and treatment FIRST to assist families in the earlier stages of family violence instead of punishment but the issue is so polarized because everyone’s looking for the bad guy. If we required the entire family to get intervention services maybe people could maintain their rights to bear arms while guaranteeing the safety of others— saving lives and allowing families to live violence-free. Unfortunately, we’re looking for someone to take the rap but we’re missing the mark, as 40% of convicted people at least in my program were actually the ones who got assaulted. We’re judging families through shame for being “stupid” enough to stay yet handing kids over to violent parents for leaving giving the abusive persons access to assault their children and torment the protective parents. We’re unwittingly locking parents and partners into battering relationships for years because we don’t want to take away their rights or subject them to anything, which could tarnish their reputations. If people don’t want to lose their rights to bear arms THEN STOP hurting others. Simple as that! But to accomplish this feat we must reframe how we see violence and help families educate themselves on how to live differently. I have worked with many people with abusive tendencies and they change when they understand they can get their needs met without using violence and people who are abused learn that what they were exposed to wasn’t normal. In order to tackle violence, we must recognize the early warning signs. If you threaten to blow up an airport or shoot a supreme-court justice, it is automatically considered more than a misdemeanor so let’s make our families just as important. Why should the elite be entitled to protection when the vulnerable are ignored?  

Normalizing Violence & Unhealthy Behaviors

The NFL not only endorses their players to perform on the field but they also condone their bad behavior off the field by overlooking serious predictive signs of future violence. Here was a clear-cut opportunity to help a young man brighten his potential for healthier living. Not with money or prestige but with interpersonal success. Infants are not born violent they learn it through social tolerance, reward and lack of consequences. Given this fact, we need to play this out. Generational learning is most likely the culprit for the behaviors both Clark and Diamond experienced as a couple. The adults and mentors in their lives most likely demonstrated that it’s okay to hurt of be hurt by someone you love.

Diamond Hurt indicated that her siblings were not involved in the domestic violence Frank Clark perpetrated against her, yet sources state the kids ran for help crying out, “He killed Diamond.” Children are literal and when they see someone being choked and knocked out, it’s easy to conclude that someone is dead; and, that one experience has lasting and devastating consequences. These young children are forever changed as a result of one drunken night when a professional football player felt justified to hurt another person in front of children. What he did wasn’t just domestic violence; it was family violence. His one moment of indiscretion changed the future of these children. In many states when someone inflicts violence against another person in front of kids, they are charged with child abuse and mandated into treatment. Unfortunately, we’ve made getting help a bad thing. Instead of trying to figure out who’s guilty let’s figure out how to make these families whole. My experience shows that at least 40% of convicted abusers were actually victims and since the “guilty” party is mandated into therapy, the real violator walks free. My grandfather once told me when something happened he’d consequence all eight of his kids because he didn’t have time to figure out who was wrong. He would say this way he knew he got the right one. In most cases of domestic violence regardless of who is charged, the relationship continues and sadly they maintain the status quo because when nothing changes, nothing changes.

If we want to see change, everyone in the family needs treatment. They’re called relationships. The litmus test is that when two people are together as two halves, do they make a whole or a hole? Are they left feeling completed or defeated? Without the information necessary to make informed choices, people don’t know what they don’t know. They can’t improve their relationships until each person acknowledges their part in the dysfunction. Frank Clark has potential on and off the field if his new team does the intervention necessary for him to recover. Clark and Hurt both need replacement skills to learn to communicate and operate differently. The children who witnessed this event will need help processing the trauma they experienced before they adopt the behaviors as normal. We have to break the cycle of intergenerational violence that’s being modeled and show families how to live well. We could eradicate violence simply by promoting healthy alternatives. Everyone would benefit from addressing how to make this right rather than focusing on being right. Let’s change the playbook and strive toward healthy outcomes. Football players and other professional athletes should be held to a higher standard because of their immense power to influence our youth. Let’s look at domestic violence training as an opportunity rather than a punishment. Let’s get everyone involved in the dysfunctional relationship, involved in treatment. This way they can make informed decisions based on their newfound knowledge. A college education isn’t considered a punishment; on-the-job training is not considered a punishment; and getting help to live well shouldn’t be either. I’m asking Roger Goodell to campaign for a cause—Healthy Habits, Happy Homes. 

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Domestic and Family Violence: Get the Picture

I am doing a 2nd edition on my book, "Breaking Free, Starting Over: Parenting in the Aftermath of Family Violence." To the untrained eye, domestic violence and child abuse are hard to picture. We are not there to capture the screams, the blood and the tears shed. But with the recent attention the NFL has received on domestic violence and child abuse, people appear outraged. My question is what do  people think domestic violence and family violence look like? I was unsurprised by Ray Rice's actions because the video is EXACTLY what domestic violence looks like.  And Adrian Peterson's switch-yeilding beating is PRECISELY what child abuse happens. Now that we get the picture let's apply it to everyone who suffers with abuse and become intolerant. Let's stay on this bandwagon and shift our paradigm. No excuse for abuse!

People with abusive tendencies are often charismatic, good looking and successful. Unhealthy people don't always look like hunchback monsters and they live in every socioeconomic group. They are everyday people who have had violence role modeled to them as not only acceptable but effective in getting their needs met. Their actions, whether wittingly or unwittingly, are learned as children and passed down through the generations. In order to stop abuse however we need to start looking for solutions. I have worked for 30 years with people who have abused their families and most welcome healthy tools to make their lives different. To make the abuse stop however we have to be intolerant of excuses and expect healthier role modeling from those who are in positions to change society's views on battering. Athletes, for example, do not spit on referees because it's not tolerated and there are consequences that matter to them. Instead of focusing on the problem let's use preexisting methods that work to generate solutions like clear consequences and firm expectations. Zero tolerance. Maybe more importantly, telling people what you want from them rather than what you don't want, often motivates change. Give them tools to do it right. Power and control over your life is what everyone wants. When you don't have power and control that is when you want to use power and control over others. Providing tools that assist with managing life successfully, and well, naturally attrits the violent behaviors.

Our most precious commodity is our children and they are witnessing violence and learning to use it as a means to getting what they want. Everyone deserves to be heard and to get their needs met appropriately so if we listen and regard our families with respect and honor, kids will learn compassion, patience and peace. They can get what they want without anyone else being hurt. We need to reexamine what we think domestic and family abuse look like and then take actions to stop the violence

NFL & Domestic Violence: When Money Matters More…

The NFL made a monumental move by attempting to tackle domestic violence and now are rolling over because money talks, so abusers walk. It seems the league has intercepted the first ever outrage and is supporting violence against vulnerable women and children. It appears that Peterson’s team lost its momentum and seems willing to overlook assault so they can win. Money matters more so they’re going to welcome him to play. The messages sent to victims are, “You must live in fear…and nobody’s stepping in.” If the league wants to let the legal process play out maybe Peterson and his other abusing buddies should play without pay and donate the proceeds to assist victims with the therapy they’ll need to recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If they really respect the game and want the privilege to play football, they’ll do what they have to do to stay in the game.  Peterson, Rice, Hardy and McDonald’s behaviors disgrace the teams they represent. They are not being held accountable. They don’t have to take accountability.

Domestic violence in the NFL has been exposed. The waking giant has been provoked and is finally paying attention. The choice to reinstate, bring back or caudle these abominations is greedy and irresponsible. What does it take before we stop tolerating this, another OJ? When are we going to take family violence seriously? The sad part of all of this, besides the obvious, is that domestic violence can be changed. It can be eradicated. People who commit family violence are simply acting out their past with societal tolerance, endorsement, reward and passivity. Abusers don’t know what they don’t know but by ignoring the atrocities we only perpetuate and guarantee further trauma.

These players need education. They need to recognize their unhealthy behaviors. They need assistance with understanding what they’ve done. Treating them like privileged elitists instead of making them accountable is an atrocity. This is a sad day for victims as they now know they can’t get away. Domestic violence is about power and control. We just taught women and children that if you love abusers you’ve made your bed and you need to lie in it. We judge victims by asking them why they stay but then we turn our backs by rewarding their assailants and judge the victims when they tell or leave. Shame, shame, shame on the powers-that-be who are more concerned with the bottom line. Letting money matter more does an injustice to families and society.

NFL Can't Change What They've Done. They Can Only Change What They Do!

All TMZ did was report the average day in the life of every battered woman in this country and it doesn’t matter why it took so long, it only matters that society isn’t burying its head in the sand anymore. The assault against Janay Rice is what domestic violence looks like—sometimes even worse. It is the reality for victims and their children. Their plight has been minimized and disregarded for generations.

Domestic violence advocates, myself included, have been championing for justice but our “rants,” as novice people call them, have been ignored because society believes domestic violence is a private matter.  I have boycotted professional sports for 25 years because of the assaults players have been able to get away with because of their status. I literally walk out of a room or I leave the building when a game is on because of my appalling distaste for the tolerance for violence against women. People considered my ban silly, but protesting was important to me. I shouted my disdain from the mountaintops as an international speaker, author and director of a nonprofit called CHANCE (Changing How Adults Nurture Children’s Egos) to train professionals, parents and partners about the devastation of family violence.  The mission at CHANCE goes one step further in the campaign to support families: we provide replacement skills to people to assist them with getting their needs met the right way. Here’s the most amazing part: when people are given healthier tools and see that they can be heard and regarded the right way, they use them. Violence is a learned behavior based on the inability to cope and emote properly but more importantly violence is violence because we allow it.

Being perpetrators or victims are not life sentences. I see people change everyday but it starts with intolerance. In the past, I’ve heard some of the most asinine excuses for athletes’ behaviors like, “I know he tore the hinges off the door, but he’s such an awesome hockey player” or “That girl is probably lying about the rape but this guy sure can shoot a basketball like nobody’s business.”

The cover up for domestic/family violence is insidious and reaches way beyond professional sports leagues. The police officer who charged the victim in this case is no different than a lot of the police officers serving our cities and our nation. I know countless accounts of law enforcement not only failing to serve and protect but also grossly carrying out miscarriages of justice. Advocating for victims has been frustratingly perplexing because champions for the cause have experienced unconscionable roadblocks generated by people’s willingness to turn away or even punish victims for their predicaments. The catch-22 is if victims stay they are blamed for making their beds, but when they leave they get blamed too. The legal system goes beyond police officers and a victim trudging through the system is like trying to push their way through a Hong Kong traffic jam. The courts are just as guilty, insensitive and infected, as they use ridiculous terms like Parent Alienation Syndrome to describe victims’ protection of their children. Victims are forced to co-parent or often lose custody of their children to their perpetrators under the guise of failure to protect…but more disturbingly is that the courts then give custody to the very persons who abused the victims.

Case in point: one officer arrested a pregnant woman whose perpetrator had been starving her 8-year old daughter and her. They had been held prisoners in a locked room and she literally clawed her way out by scratching and overpowering him. Visualize that picture. Although this guy had four prior domestic violence convictions, the police officer arrested her and labeled her the primary aggressor!  Due to her conviction, she was ineligible for victims’ shelter because she was now labeled as an abuser. And the perpetrator taunted her because there wasn’t anything she could do. Now he didn’t even have to lock the doors because she was trapped in isolation.

Another victim was sleeping in her bed when her ex-husband broke into her apartment and commenced choking her. The police in that case arrested her because the assailant had significant scratch marks on his arms during her attempt to pry his hands away from her neck.  These stories are not the exception; it’s the reality for battered victims and their children. And unfortunately, the buck doesn’t even stop here. Judges, often female ones at that, refuse to give restraining orders to victims even when the evidence is overwhelming that the victims are in peril. What the average citizen fails to realize is that domestic/family terrorism is the reason we have so much mental illness, so much crime and so much violence, period. In my practice 100% of incarcerated prisoners I’ve worked with have witnessed or experienced family violence—one hundred percent!

I say kudos to TMZ and the NFL for exposing the Ray & Janay Rice case, but the work is just starting. Janay’s life is in potential danger because batterers externalize their behaviors. He’s going to blame her for losing his job.  The police officer’s response enabled Ray Rice to blame her. Taking this to its logical conclusion, what’s going to happen when he blames her for losing his $50 million job? Social tolerance allowed Ray Rice to get to this point because he didn’t spit on refs, he didn’t beat up other players, and he didn’t punch his coach...because those behaviors were against the rules. Let’s move away from why it took the NFL so long to switch gears and get it right. What matters, is they did. I would like to see similar intolerance for this heinous crime throughout the rest of society. Police officers need to serve and protect, judges need to hand out restraining orders whenever anyone is or feels endangered—regardless, and education and training need to be given to both perpetrators and victims alike so each can make an informed decision about how to live their lives differently. TMZ painted the picture of domestic violence for us all to see, but now it’s time for action. 

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