Re: Boston, Quincy, San Diego, etc.
Linda Purrington (lpurring@earthlink.net)
Wed, 17 Jun 1998 08:24:30 -0700
One of the changes that is taking place, hotly contested, but moving
ahead, is the shift in police response to domestic violence. Lest anyone
comment that this is not an educational topic, take a look at the
violence variously labeled teen dating violence or domestic violence by
the state laws that are beginnning to address it. You could also call
this women-as-property violence. (Pornography is another offshoot of
this social phenomenon.) In Quincy and San Diego, for example, the
police departments have successfully and hugely reduced domestic
violence by always treating it as a crime, without requiring the victim
to press charges; this removes the problem of fear. If we picked up
these programs--and note that Quincy is a mine canary district for
Boston--we might begin to make inroads on the sense of entitlement men
have over women. You cannot fully address these issues in the schools
without also dealing with them in the larger community. Moreover,
research notes that vicarious learning is nearly as successfulas
experiential learning; effective police response to adult and teen
domestic violence clearly can wipe out most of the problem in a
community without being draconian. It is only when you have tacit
encouragement for male violence from (small town?) police departments
that you get wholly uncontrolled attacks on women such as De Santis has
described. Police labor pools tend to match the pools from which the
young killers are also drawn: uneducated, sexist, and armed. Programs
to reduce domestic violence such as Quincy and San Diego should be used
as prototypes for school curriculum responses to school killings.
Linda Purrington
Title IX Advocates
lpurring@earthlink.net
Sheeran176@aol.com wrote:
>
> Did I add correctly, 28 small town killings?
>
> Can we look at the larger picture. The number of 1,600 youth dead/year by the
> hand of another pulling the trigger seems to come to mind.
>
> There was one youth killed in Boston last year. I believe that city has been
> working on their violence program for about 15 years. Perhaps we need to look
> at how they have used ALL their resources, police, schools, churches and other
> community organization and programs to TRY to STOP the killing of their
> children.
>
> Anyone have more details on what is working in Boston?
>
> Jane Sheeran
> sheeran176@aol.com