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by pltm
(PLTM) - Sensitive matters, including those related to domestic disputes, need to be investigated thoroughly, and police officers need more training to deal with these delicate situations. This is the view expressed by local Psychologist, Dr. Sylvia Simmons.
In an interview with BVI Platinum News, Dr. Simmons expressed that cases related to matters of domestic dispute in the home are so many in numbers, but noted that the victims are afraid to speak out for many reasons.
She noted that one of the prime reasons is the inclusion of police officers in the matters, their lack of concern, as well as their failure to do thorough investigations.
Dr. Simmons expressed that too often in the Virgin Islands, women are arrested for assault, out of an act of self-defense. This, she said, dampens any victim’s spirit and lowers their trust in the authorities.
She also indicated that if proper and thorough investigations are done in these matters, rather than just depending on the complaint made, many lives can be saved.
“Some women don’t believe that the law will do anything for them. When he hits her, but he gets to the police first, she is arrested and charged. Sometime proper investigations are not done and women go down for the fall, all for self-defense. She gets charged and he doesn’t, and even though she tries to explain that she hit him after he was abusing her as self-defense, they [police] ignore that and charge her still, or sometimes they charge them both.”
She added, “That discourages women or victims in general from going to the police, because they don’t see any sense in it. It’s deterring persons from making reports. We need to look at the seriousness of the matters or it’s [domestic abuse] not going away.”
To this, she noted that officers who deal with matters that possibly stem from domestic abuse, need to be trained to deal with these sensitive matters, as well as to conduct better investigations.”
“I think the front-line officers who actually see and deal with these cases need to be trained more and do proper investigations into these matters, to see who is the true victim or who is the true aggressor,” Dr. Simmons told BVI Platinum News.
She added that police should also be in a position to assist victims out of these situations.
“They should deal with the matter, try to help. Police don’t do this, but persons in domestic matters, police should be able to assist and even in the slightest instance that a person is being abused, slip them information that can assist, or encourage them to seek help or counselling.”
Another reason why victims are afraid to speak out in some cases, is because of how highly the community speaks of the batterers.
Dr. Simmons said, “The community often praise these men. They say he is a doctor, lawyer, Indian or chief, so he cannot be an abuser; look how he takes care of his family.”
This takes a negative toll on the victim, as they begin to assess and strongly judge and blame themselves for the abuse.
“Now the victim feels they are the bad persons and that they are the problem, because of how the community view and speak about batterers,” she told BVI Platinum News.
She stated, “Making these assumptions are not ok; the victim is hearing it, then they become judgmental and try to fix themselves, and that fixes nothing, because the batterer is still going to abuse them because they need to have the power and control.”
According to Dr. Simmons, “Domestic abuse is not a simple issue. It is not a family matter, it’s a community matter and we have to become advocates for these persons. Too often we sit back and say it’s not our business. We have a number of women who are scared.”
She expressed that matters of domestic abuse will continue to increase if things do not change.
“It’s just a matter of time. Domestic abuse is a problem nationwide. It’s not unusual for women to be killed; they get killed every single day because of domestic violence and I don’t see that stopping. I see it increasing more and more.”
Dr. Simmons added, “Another generation is coming up with children who are seeing all this and think it is ok. We are breeding a whole other generation of batterers. It’s a learnt behavior and they tell themselves based on what they see between their mother and father, that they hit someone whenever they are mad.”
