San Quentin News

Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Domestic Violence 15 Percent of Violent Crime

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Intimate partner violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime. 

“The key question concerns the relationship between threats and actual violence,” reported the Wall Street Journal on a new study of domestic violence.

“To me, threats are clues,” said Dr. T.K. Logan, author of the study. “We tend to dismiss them because there are so many. We should hone in, not tune out.” She believes the central issue in domestic abuse troubles is being able to measure when words signal real danger.

San Quentin offers an effective tool to convert threatening language into communication with Nonviolent Communication (NVC). It teaches that much of the physical violence, substance abuse, domestic violence or emotional abuse is actually the “tragic expression of unmet needs.” NVC is a program that looks beyond violence to address the root causes of the violence and provide tools for working with life’s difficulties without criminal results.

Logan’s study published in February in the journal Violence and Victims provides some reliable tools to predict the relationship between angry words and violent deeds. Her study’s title, “If I Can’t Have You, Nobody Will,” was a typical threat used by male partners to control women. Others included “I will mess you up” and “You will just disappear.”

“According to a RAND analysis, every $1 invested in such [inmate] education generates at least $4 in economic return,” reports Fast Company.

“The state typically spends $71,000 a year to house an inmate. It costs about $5,000 total to help put one [incarcerated] student through community college”, reports Fast Company.

Logan found that such threats mattered. Women who were threatened often (an average of more than 50 percent of the days during the six-month study) were 10 times more likely to experience violence and five times more likely to be raped than women threatened an average of once a month.

As evidence that the legal system helps, the study found that both threats of harm and death went down dramatically under protective orders — from 83 percent to 19 percent after the courts got involved. Logan’s research also pointed to possible improvements in intervention through the use of protective orders that allowed authorities to identify and monitor those at greatest risk.

Though violence against women has declined over time, it remains an enormous problem. Logan’s findings, however, demonstrate it is the words used that are significant when it comes to domestic violence.

HOW TO GET STARTED

NVC Basics 1, Basics 2 and Next Step classes are taught on Wednesdays, from 3-5 p.m. in the Education Building. Sign-up sheets are posted in the Education Building and in North Block. NVC Basics and Next Step classes also are taught in H-unit on Wednesdays from 3-5 p.m. Students can get information about and sign up for classes in dorms 4 and 5 through Stand Up inmate program advocates or students can come to the registration evening the week before classes start and talk to an NVC teacher. The classes begin each quarter. The next one will start in early October.

[BOX A: 32.9 percent of California women and 27.3 percent of California men have experienced intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking in their lifetimes. California Partnership to End Domestic Violence (2015). Statistics and Facts. Retrieved from: www.cpedv.org]

[BOX B: One in three women and one in four men in the United States has experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. Husbands are five times more likely to kill wives than vice versa. A third of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate male partner or ex-partner, according to FBI reports. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ndv0312.pdf]

http://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/
http://sanquentinnews.com/domestic-violence-advocate-speaks-restorative-justice-symposium/
Boatwright

Going against the machismo culture against women

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Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto honored Women’s Day this March by urging an assault against the machismo culture that generates violence against women.

Pena Nieto urged the eradication of “a deeply rooted machista culture (that) ultimately and truly generates violence against women” The New York Times reported in an April 24 article.

Mexico has celebrated male entitlement known as machismo in Hispanic soap operas, movies, work and romantic relationships.

“But times are changing for the Mexican macho man, or ‘machista,’” the article noted. “Soaring crime rates against women in recent years, and a strengthening women’s rights movement, have forced Mexicans to begin addressing machismo and the harm it does through sexism, misogyny and violence.”

Justicia rota

Justicia rota

A combination of law changes, advocacy groups pushing education, and major Mexican companies have joined the effort to aid Mexican men “learn new ways of relating to people, particularly women,” said a participant in a group therapy program sponsored by Gendes, a research and advocacy group in Mexico City.

Tecate, a popular Mexican beer brand, has launched a television campaign with a woman covered in bruises.  “A man is defined by how he treats a woman. If you don’t respect women, Tecate is not for you,” says the voice-over of the commercial. 

For the past decade, the Mexican Congress has worked to implement a legal framework at all levels of government to prevent, address and punish gender-based violence, reports the Times.

A number of advocacy groups seek to use group therapy to question and address the cultural beliefs that lie at the heart of machismo, said Antonio Vargas, director and founder of Gendes.

“It is not easy to renounce privilege (of machismo),” admits Vargas.

Reflecting on his efforts in one such program, a participant asked: “Is it actually possible to live without violence? I have to hope that it is.”

In 2016, San Quentin authorized the launch of a Spanish Victims Offender Education Group (VOEG) class, the brainchild of two incarcerated Mexican-Americans, Arnulfo T. Garcia (San Quentin News executive editor) and Jorge G. Heredia (San Quentin News Spanish interpreter).

VOEG is a program that puts offenders and victims of crime in dialogue so they can discuss the impact of crime on families and communities.

Jose Segura, sentenced to 15 years to life, credits his success to being found suitable for parole to what he learned in Spanish VOEG.

“When I committed my crime, I had a belief system called machismo. This belief system taught me to have a big ego, be tough, never ask for help, or let another man push you around,” Segura said. “VOEG helped me see and transform the rage inside of me. I learned that asking for help or expressing my emotions is acceptable. It’s not something that makes me weak.”

http://sanquentinnews.com/optionb-org-support-group-overcoming-effects-incarceration/
Boatwright

Domestic violence advocate speaks at Restorative Justice symposium

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Forgiveness is a key component of healing from abuse and achieving a successful life. And lawsuits can be an alternative to prison sentences, speakers told a Restorative Justice (RJ) Symposium at San Quentin State Prison.

Guest speaker Tracy Sovereign spoke of forgiving an abusive father, who never apologized. She was followed by Esquire Tia Katrina Taruc Canlas, who advocates suing men who commit acts of domestic violence as an alternative to incarceration.

“I feel … there’s a way that men can be healed in so many directions,” Sovereign said in the prison’s Catholic Chapel before an audience of almost 35 community members and more than 150 incarcerated men. “I just found out my dad was abused. So if we can break that … cycle, we can all heal.”

Sovereign opened with a gospel song.

Then she described a father who took corporal punishment way too far. The beatings started when she was five She said he beat her without mercy, leaving welts, bruises and a busted lip. They escalated to pulling a gun on her over bringing home bad grades, shooting it into a mattress to let her know he was serious and then hitting her over the head with a 2×4.

When her brother, 10 years younger, turned seven, the beatings started on him too. While getting beaten together, the two would cry in the corner.

“They say hate begets hate, hurt begets hurt,” Sovereign said. “I remember screaming we weren’t going to do this to our kids. I know in my heart that love is abound.”

At 16 years old, Sovereign moved out. By 17 she was pregnant and had a baby at 18.

On her 25th birthday, her dad knocked on the door. When her mother answered, he beat her in front of Sovereign’s two sons. Then he called Sovereign over and hit her over the eye with a gun, and said, “I should shoot you in front of your kids. You betrayed me,” according to Sovereign.

With the gun pressed against her forehead, Sovereign prayed out loud. She noticed her father’s face change.

“That wasn’t the man who was supposed to love me,” Sovereign said. She never stopped loving her father. Deep down she knew there was a reason for the way he acted although she didn’t know what it was.

“If we can break that…cycle, we can all heal”

“He never apologized,” Sovereign said. “I didn’t need the apology. Something in me could not hate him. I had already accepted that everything was OK. My healing came from God.”

After healing, she moved on with her life. She has taught dance and sings and she has a bakery business. Her husband is a worship pastor, and they have three kids who are all successful. Her brother’s kids are also successful.

Two years ago, the 51-year old learned from her grandmother that her father also was abused as a child.

“To know his story will help you know your story,” Sovereign said. “With my dad I found out he’s from a generation of abusers … so it was a cycle. We broke that cycle. Now I’m working with my dad to help him release it.”

Sovereign now has an excellent relationship with her dad, who is a church bishop and helps kids get scholarships.

Taruc Canlas began her story with an explanation of why an attorney who sues people stood before the podium at the restorative justice symposium.

“I am a supporter of criminal justice reform,” said Taruc Canlas, executive director and co-founder of the Alipato Project, an organization dedicated to suing domestic violence perpetrators.

“The reason why I do this is because there are better ways to address harm than prison,” Taruc Canlas said. “It doesn’t actually help the victim when somebody they love goes to prison. As an alternative to prison, we sue them.”

She said at the Oct. 14 event that domestic violence is about control. Men use “gaslighting” (convincing the victim that she is crazy and nothing happened) and financial control as power dynamics. Control dynamics keep women in bad relationships far too long.

Taruc Canlas saw firsthand that financial power dynamics kept her mother in an abusive relationship. Her mother, who barely spoke English, moved from the Philippines to marry someone in the states. Her livelihood and visa required staying married. Grandfather Alipato provided Taruc Canlas’ mother a way out of the abusive relationship. He moved her to another state.

Taruc Canlas believes that while a controlling power dynamic exists, RJ mediation doesn’t work. Getting abused partners to a space where they’re safe and everything is funded sets the stage for restorative justice. So she sues for medical expenses, moving bills, lost wages and moving-on money.

Her pilot program achieved success in four out of five cases. Two settled, two won default judgments (where the defendant doesn’t contest the lawsuit) and one lost a jury trial.

Rose Elizondo, co-founder of the North Oakland Restorative Justice Council, took a few minutes to honor one of the first members of the Restorative Justice Group at San Quentin – Robin Guillen. After serving about 40 years, a parole board found him suitable for release.

“My name is Robin, and I’m a peacemaker,” Guillen said. “It’s a hard, tiring walk, especially in these iron houses. You don’t give up. One thing they can’t take away from you: your attitude, how you think about things, your mind. All my relations thank you.”

“When Tracy tells her walk … it’s inspiring,” Guillen said. “Tia … It’s women who come in here and share that assists us in making the changes.”

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