Family Violence Against Children: A Challenge for Society 9783110828030, 9783110149968

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Family Violence Against Children A Challenge for Society Edited by Detlev Frehsee Wiebke Horn Kai-D. Bussmann

W DE

G Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1996

Prof. Dr. Detlev Frehsee, Faculty of Law, University of Bielefeld, Germany Dipl. Pad. Wiebke Horn, Special Research Center SFB 227, University of Bielefeld, Germany Dr. Kai-D. Bussmann, Special Research Center SFB 227, University of Bielefeld, Germany With 25 figures and 31 tables ® Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Family violence against children : a challenge for society / edited by Detlef Frehsee, Wiebke Horn, Kai-D. Bussmann. p. cm. - (Prevention and intervention in childhood and adolescence : 19) Papers presented at a conferrence held September 22-24, 1994 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld, organized by a project of the Special Research Unit 227: Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence. ISBN 3-11-014996-6 (hardcover: alk, paper) 1. Child abuse - Congresses. 2. Child abuse - Prevention - Congresses. 3. Child abuse - Law and legislation - Congresses. I. Frehsee, Detlev. II. Horn, Wiebke. III. Bussmann, Kai-D. IV. Sonderforschungsbereich 227 - Prevention und Intervention im Kindes- und Jugendalter. V. Series. HV6626.5.F36 1997 362.7'6-dc20 96-33997 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - Cataloging-in-Publication Data Family Violence Against Children : a challenge for society ; [with 31 tables) / ed. by Detlev Frehsee ... - Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1996 (Prevention and intervention in childhood and adolescence ; 19) ISBN 3-11-014996-6 NE: Frehsee, Detlev; GT

© Copyright 1996 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany. Printing: Collignon GmbH, Berlin. - Binding: Mikolai GmbH, Berlin. - Cover Design: Hansbernd Lindemann, Berlin. - Photo: Ullstein-Bilderdienst, Berlin.

Preface

This volume is a collection of papers presented at a conference on violence toward children and adolescents held between September 22 and 24, 1994 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld. This conference was organized by a project running at the Special Research Unit 227: Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence under the working title "The Role of Law in the Origins of and Response to Violence Toward Children in Primary Social References." We would like to express our special appreciation to those institutions and people who made the present volume possible. We wish to thank the German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) for their generous financial support and the Center for Interdisziplinary Research (Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung, ZiF) for their hospitality during the conference. We are greatly indebted to Jonathan Harrow and Alexandra Labusch, who carefully translated several of the contributions and checked the final manuscript very thoroughly. We owe a special thanks to Axel Foerster for his continuous support and his conscientious efforts in setting up the final editing. Finally, we express our gratitude to the authors of this volume for their cooperation. Detlev Frehsee, Wiebke Horn, Kai-D. Bussmann

Bielefeld 1996

Special Research Unit 227 - Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence An interdisciplinary project of the University of Bielefeld conducted by Prof. Dr. Günter Albrecht, Prof. Dr. Otto Backes, Prof. Dr. Michael Brambring, Prof. Dr. Detlev Frehsee, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Prof. Dr. Klaus Hurrelmann (Coordinator), Prof. Dr. Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, Prof. Dr. Hans-Uwe Otto, Prof. Dr. Helmut Skowronek

Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence 19

Contents

Contributors

A The Impact of Law

IX

1

Violence Toward Children in the Family and the Role of Law Detlev Frehsee

3

The Swedish Ban on Corporal Punishment: Its History and Effects Joan E. Durrani

19

The Swedish 1979 Aga Ban Plus Fifteen Ake W. Edfeldt

27

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment Kai-D. Bussmann

39

B Attitudes and Discourses

63

Talking About Violence Heinz Steinert

65

Violence and Society - Violence in Society: Changing Conditions and Perspectives Heinz Stinker

73

War and Communal Violence: Challenges for Children's Development Kathleen Kostelny and James Garbarino

83

Social Change and the Trends in Approval of Corporal Punishment by Parents from 1968 to 1994 Murray A. Straus and Anita K. Mathur

91

Public Attitudes Toward Corporal Punishment in Canada Joan E. Durrani

107

VIII

C Formal and Informal Social Control

119

Sexual and Physical Abuse of Children: Public Attitudes and Legal Issues Wiebke Horn

121

Community Work: Networking, Activation, Cooperation Marianne Hege

133

Compassion Versus Control? Handling Child Abuse in the Netherlands Adri van Monlfoort

149

Governmental Reaction to Child Abuse Barbara Willenbacher

161

The Position of the Police Between Calls for Help in Crisis and Criminal Prosecution in the Conflict Field of Family Violence Thomas Feltes

185

Contributors

Bussmann, Kai-D., Special Research Center SFB 227, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany Durrant, Joan E., Department of Family Studies, Faculty of Human Ecology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2

Kostelny, Kathleen, Ericson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Developement; Chicago, Illinois 60611, U.S.A. Mathur, Anita K., Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire 03824, U.S.A.

Edfeldt, Äke W., Department of Education, Stockholms University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden

Montfoort, Adri van, Nederlands Instituut voor Zorg en Welzijn, Catharijnesingel 47, P.O. Box 19 152, 3501 DD Utrecht, The Netherlands

Feltes, Thomas, Fachhochschule für Polizei, Sturmbühlstraße 250, 78054 Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany

Steinert, Heinz, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Universität FB Gesellschaftswissenschaften, Senckenberganlage 31, 60054 Frankfurt/M., Germany

Frehsee, Detlev, Fakultät fur Rechtswissenschaft, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany

Straus, Murray A., Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire 03824, U.S.A.

Garbarino, James, Family Life Development Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14853 New York, U.S.A.

Sünker, Heinz, Bergische Universität/ Gesamthochschule Wuppertal, FB l Gesellschaftswissenschaften, Gaußstraße 20, 42097 Wuppertal, Germany

Hege, Marianne, Fachhochschule München, Fachbereich Sozialwesen, Lothstraße 34, 80335 München, Germany

Willenbacher, Barbara, Juristische Fakultät, Universität Hannover, Hanomagstraße 8, 30449 Hannover, Germany

Horn, Wiebke, Special Research Center SFB 227, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany

A The Impact of Law

Violence Toward Children in the Family and the Role of Law Detlev Frehsee

1 Introduction We are approaching the problem of family violence from its societal, political, cultural, and civilizational side in that we are less interested in the abuse of the child as an individual error but more in the normality of violent behavior toward children as an expression of the state of a society. Irrespective of the factors functioning on the micro- and mesolevels (Engfer, 1986, pp. 59-60), it is initially "the historical regulation of the social status of childhood" (Brinkmann & Honig, 1984, p. 41, translated) that provides the general framework in which specific conditions can evolve. The importance of this social role that society assigns to the child, the child's status as an object of communal care, has been emphasized repeatedly (Carlson & Davis, 1980, pp. 56-57; Kaufman & Zigler, 1992, p. 274; Parke, 1977, p. 197; Straus, 1991, pp. 139-140; Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1981, pp. 237-239; Straus & Mathur, this volume; Ziegler, 1990, pp. 184-185). This social status is mapped out and fixed decisively by the law that distributes the spheres of freedom and the responsibilities between the child, the parents as persons, the family, and the state. From the perspective of jurisprudence and legal sociology, we are interested in the impact of the law and the opportunities it provides for shaping children's status. Up to now, in order to study these aspects, we have compiled data from representative standardized surveys of approximately 2,400 adolescents aged between 13 and 16 years and 3,000 adults across the entire Federal Republic of Germany as well as structured interviews with 70 students at schools in Bielefeld and 65 experts from the field of voluntary and public youth services and the justice system. 2 The Current Legal Position The inescapable starting point when investigating family violence is the fact that in Germany, as in most, but not all, other countries (see Newell, 1992), the law permits the use of moderate physical violence by parents against their children, and thus waives the otherwise universal prohibition of violence (Gebhardt, 1994). This continues to be the case even though the countries signing Article 19 of the agreement of the United Nations on the rights of the child of November 20, 1989 ("Convention on Children's Rights") committed themselves to implementing all

Detlev Frehsee

suitable measures to protect the child from all kinds of physical or mental violence (BGBL, 1992, Vol. 2, p. 121). The llth legislative period of the German parliament (1986 - 1990) saw the first efforts to abolish the legal right to inflict corporal punishment (BT Drs. 11/7135). This was taken up again during the 12th legislative period (1990 1994) and advanced so far as a government proposal for a law to forbid corporal punishment by declaring "physical and mental abuse" to be illegal (BT Drs. 12/6343). Although many persons, in particular, representatives of child protection societies, criticized that this proposal did not go far enough because the concept of abuse is associated with only qualified forms of injury, it already went too far for those who fear encroachments on the legal freedoms of the family. Hence, the proposal failed. No revival of the discussion is to be seen during the current legislative period. However, this right to inflict corporal punishment is only one prominent cornerstone in the general legal status of the child, which, despite all, including the most recent, reforms, continues to view the child very clearly in the role of an object of parental control. The legal definition of parental duties as well as the limits set on their powers peter out into deliberately vague guidelines and provide a large scope for interpretation. Any expectation that the law should try to set up counterweights to ameliorate the structural difference of power that makes the child the favorite object of psychodynamic tensions and processes (see Petri, 1989) is soon confronted with the realization that the law protects, above all, the family. The thresholds for controlling and corrective interventions are very high. The state retreats into the role of a "supervisory body" (Frehsee, 1993, p. 108, translated). While we all value and defend respect for the private sphere, we have to realize that it is children who have to pay the price for this. This private sphere grants freedoms to the family in a closed space in which emotional exploitation, physical violence, and sexual abuse can breed. If we now turn to the forms of intervention and forms of processing that are available to the state, a wave of processes arising from accusations of sexual abuse of children is increasingly revealing their glaring limits, shortcomings, and deficiencies (Ollmann, 1994, p. 151). It is being pointed out in various ways that legal process itself contributes to family violence, because the social costs and burdens associated with legal prosecution may well encourage victims to decide to tolerate permanent relationships of abuse. And finally, interventions can themselves be damaging when unjustified or heavy handed measures are taken or the demand for legal proof triggers secondary traumatizations. I shall return to this later. 3 The Responsibilities Facing the Law Therefore, what demands can be made on the law? The deficits that are currently so apparent result in the general need to develop the legal interpretation of the parent-child relationship further toward more partnership, a loosening up of the family as a closed system, an acknowledgment of the growing emancipation of the child and the adolescent through greater recognition of their autonomy and

Violence Toward Children in the Family and the Role of Law

individuality, and a granting of personal rights of self-determination and access to services. However, as we have to concentrate directly on the issue of the use of violence here, we are concerned primarily with the delegalizalion of physical punishment and the response to acts of violence after they have occurred. First of all, we shall make a careful distinction between the major components associated with the law and its application, namely, the norm, the process, and the legal consequence (sanction). With regard to physical violence, questions of the norm are dominant (particularly concerning parents' rights to inflict corporal punishment). With regard to sexual abuse, we have to focus on questions of procedure. 3.1 The Norm Frequently, the norm is associated directly with the sanction. One of the reasons why the bill to abolish corporal punishment failed to become law was that the removal of the legal justification for parents to inflict corporal punishment was associated with the horrifying vision of hordes of parents being taken before the courts. Of course, this is nonsense. Compulsory implementation through process and sanction in order to exemplify the norm is the absolute exception. This is already known to apply specifically to family violence (insofar as it is punishable today) in a particularly marked way, because the inhibitions regarding recourse to Figure I: Sanctions Which Juveniles Have Experienced Slaps Ban on TV viewing Ban on going out Shouting Strong slaps Breaking off communication Reduction in pocket money Beating up Beating with a belt or stick

20

40

60

80

100%

Adults Survey 1994 (N = 2,392)

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officialdom are extraordinarily high. What is far more decisive is that the norm becomes omnipresent as a binding value and can be accessed at any time. Its decisive contribution is to provide an orientation for all related interactions. Such a binding definition of values seems to be necessary in light of the repeatedly confirmed high breadth of family violence in all socioeconomic groups (see, for Canada and the U.S.A., Durrani 2nd article, this volume). In our own survey, we were also astonished to find that physical punishment continues to have a major status and is used more widely than "modern" childrearing sanctions such as reducing television viewing or cutting pocket money (see Figure 1). In light of the fact that more extreme violence is also widespread, uncertainties should also have an impact on the point at which corporal punishment turns into physical injury. The law draws its borders by stating that punishment may not represent a "degrading measure" (§1631 II BOB, translated). However, this possesses no contours. Nobody, not even lawyers or the courts, knows how hard blows may be, or whether, for example, beatings with a stick or other instrument are still permissible (see BGH, NStZ, 1987, p. 173). The orientational function of this norm is almost completely zero (see Figure 2). It is notable that only a meager fraction of adults (3.7%) are familiar with the German norm; most of them give incorrect answers, and 30% reveal insufficient knowledge or complete ignorance. This data already suggests the existence of different attitudes toward the use of violence in rearing children. Under the pluralistic conditions of modern society, in which a wide range of different concepts coexist, it is all the more important for secular law to provide clear orientations on important issues. However, it is very interesting that despite this inadequate knowledge, the dominant attitude is that violence toward children should receive the same legal response as violence toward other persons (see Figure 3). Figure 2: Knowledge About Law1* "Which of the following legal prescriptions is today 's German law in force?" The "corporal punishment law" in force Planned maltreatment prohibition law Austrian "corporal punishment law" Swedish "corporal punishment law" No idea / no answer 10

20

30

40

50%

Adults Survey 1994 (N = 3,037)

Violence Toward Children in the Family and the Role of Law

Figure 3: "Beating is always supposed to be criminal bodily injury, thus also when children are concemde" exactly / rather yes

66.9

partly

21.6

rather not / not at all

11.5 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90 100%

Adults Survey 1994 (N = 2,985)

How does this relate to the fact that the clear majority of 81% of children experience violence as reported above? It is apparent that belief in the childrearing efficacy of physical punishment is now held by only a minority. Therefore, the characteristic situation today is that although parents still hit their children, this is nonetheless accompanied by the attitude that this is not really right (compare, for the U.S.A., Straus & Mathur, this volume; for Canada, Durrani 2nd article, this volume). Therefore, the concern is no longer with the ultimate, purposeful inflicting of pain, but with a behavior that is carried out for emotional and affective reasons (see Figure 4). However, if the characteristic situation at present is that children are hit without premeditation but due to stress and weakness, can a legal prohibition have any effect? We think so. Admittedly, one has to understand that the primary effect of the norm is probably not to direct rational behavioral appeals to its targets; what seems to be far more important is that it equips the persons involved in a specific field of conflict with a medium of communication (Bussmann, this volume). The beneficiary here, that is, the child or a third person who is willing to provide support to that child, experiences a strengthening of his or her position when he or she is able to appeal to the judgment of the law and its authority. The norm forms an affectively neutral resource. By appealing to it, the conflict is no longer just an internal concern of the family system; it is simultaneously transferred into the legal system that provides an external reference structure. A prerequisite of empowerment of the child is that the child actually knows anything at all about what he or she has to put up with. And the precondition of knowing that you do not have to accept physical punishment is that such punishment is clearly illegal. In order to provide a contrast to the family, our survey also covered another area of life in which the traditional right to inflict corporal punishment was abolished only during the 1970s: the school. We found that, in contrast to other social references, the adolescents in our survey were very clearly aware that teachers were not allowed to hit them. They also considered that it was helpful for

Detlev Frehsee

Figure 4: "Whenparents do beat their children, it often happens out ofhelpness" exactly / rather yes partly

rather not / not at all 40

50 60 70 80 90 100% Adults Survey 1994 (N = 3,011)

them to have very clear legal knowledge about what their teachers are allowed to do (Bussmann & Horn, 1995). Parents, insofar as they hit their children out of conviction, could also have the legitimation for their acts removed. But also parents who continue to hit their children although they actually do not consider this to be right could no longer ease their consciences by saying that there is no law against it. It might even be the case that a clear legal directive would help them to find the strength to attain better self-control. Finally, a clear legal prohibition of the use of violence in rearing children could make it easier for the social environment to take sides and exert social control by expressing disapproval of violent childrearing styles. The Swedish example (Durrant 1st article, this volume; Edfeldt, this volume) is an impressive example of how very important it is for the law to draw clear and unmistakable borders and how effective such clarifications can be. In Germany, it is particularly the legal uncertainties that lead to reserve among relatives, neighbors, and witnesses. Respect for the autonomy of the family and its right to self-determination explains the notable lack of willingness to intervene among both the young and adults (see Horn, this volume). Thus, in a fictitious case of abuse among their circle of friends, the disadvantage mentioned most frequently by adolescents in our survey was interference in another family. This was followed only in second place by the risk of increasing the conflict through intervention. We also surveyed adults on various reservations that they would have about intervening in a case of child abuse. Here as well, the greatest reservation was about interfering in the private spheres of other families (see Figure 5).

Violence Toward Children in the Family and the Role of Law

Figure 5: Apprehension to Consult Youth Welfare Department or Child Protection Organisations in a Fictitious Case of Child Maltreatment I don't like to meddle i the privacy of othe I don't want to be regarded as a snooper One could get into contact with authorities

I have legal apprehensions to meddle in I Adults Survey 1994 (N = 2,963) exactly / rather true

partly true

rather not / not true

One precondition for an informal social control through communicative mobilization of the norm is that any kind of social environment actually exists. However, because social environments are suffering from the weakening of extended family and neighborhood references, it will be necessary to search for new forms of person-related network structures (see Hege, this volume) by setting up, for example, neighborhood care communities among families with children of the same age. Institutional provisions of care and assistance that wish to tap into these informal, lifeworld references need to be designed with the lowest possible thresholds and the greatest possible distance between themselves and the legal system (compare the Belgian Child Protection Center in Mameffe, 1994, p. 279). 3.2 Process It is well-known that there are strong inhibitions among victims and the environment about turning to officialdom and thus triggering an official process. I have already mentioned how this is due to the inadequacies and the insufficient victim friendliness of processes. However, another important aspect is the strict observance of form in German legal process. For non-German readers, it is necessary for me to explain that, particularly in criminal process, the so-called principle of mandatory prosecution is applied much more strictly than in most other legal systems. In principle, only the judge has some discretionary power. Police officers have absolutely no discretionary powers; and public prosecutors, only in areas of very moderate severity. Thus, the appeal to the legal system is linked particularly forcefully to a

Detlev Frehsee

10

final loss of personal control over the conflict. The person seeking protection loses all influence and, in some ways, becomes personally responsible for everything that then happens to the family. The dilemma already begins when the police are called to an acute crisis situation in order to carry out their function of protection from danger. However, this automatically, and for the victim unavoidably, leads to prosecution. Figure 6: "If you called the police in an acute case of child maltreatment, how -would you assess the likelyhood of the following effect:"

It would provide quick and effective help

It would lead to fear and feelings of gui for the child

16.0%

Adults Survey 1994 (N - 2,906) highly, quite, or rather likely

certain

highly, quite, or

Although the judge has wide discretionary powers to react to family disturbances in custody cases (§1666 BOB), removal of the child from the family seems to be a particularly economic form of reaction (Beiderwieden, Windaus, & Wolff, 1986, p. 313). This is because it is, in any case, the most certain way of protecting the child from further attacks and is much simpler to enact in comparison with getting involved in the difficult task of tackling the family's problems in a truly appropriate way (Mann, 1995, p. 313). However, the judge's examination of custody measures is also always a process to which those involved are simply subjected with hardly any personal powers of influence. As a result, the fear of losing custody of the child plays a major role in the decision on whether to go to the youth office for assistance. Such strict observance of form also impacts on much more far-reaching contexts. One example is given by the discussion on compulsory notification. In other countries, criminal law subjects certain professional groups to strict rules on notifying suspicions of child abuse. These are facilitated by relaxing the physician's oath of confidentiality and providing freedom from civil and penal responsibility (for the U.S.A., see Myers, 1992, p. 104; Rennefeld, 1993, pp. 4251). In Germany, in contrast, compulsory notification is rejected by, for example, most physicians, teachers, and social workers; and this not just because they fear that persons would no longer place their trust in them. It is even the case that they are also punishable under criminal law if they pass on their knowledge about

Violence Toward Children in the Family and the Role of Law

11

abuse unless this is necessary to prevent further injury to the child (§203 StGB; see Kaufmann, 1990, pp. 2-3; Witt, 1987, p. 178). These very cautious German regulations may well be explained by the fact that it is almost impossible for officialdom to avoid implementing its process when matters are drawn to its attention. Γη other legal systems in which the public prosecutor's office, for example, is granted broad discretionary powers even with serious offenses, there are other options for deciding whether it would not be more meaningful to drop charges in the interests of the family provided that a suitable solution to the family's problems can be found (Myers, 1992, p. 16). In these systems, it seems to be regarded as far less problematic when information from the private sphere is passed on to these offices. Perhaps the problem can also be solved by making completely nonlegal services such as assistance centers the addressees for such notifications. Thus, it would seem as though German legal process is insufficiently flexible (Haffke, 1993, pp. 79-81) in terms of possibilities of waiving or dropping charges. Therefore, information-, negotiation-, and problem-related, that is, assistanceoriented support services must be sufficiently integrated to permit a departure from legal process at any point (see Figure 7). On the level of initial intervention, this raises the question whether the police should be freed from their constraint of mandatory prosecution. Victims would then be less apprehensive about calling for the assistance of the police in order to break up acute violence during "family arguments." This would be in line with their primary interests (see Feltes, this volume). The question whether charges should also be pressed could be made independently. In Germany, the DAIP Project at Duluth, Minnesota (Dobash & Dobash, 1992, pp. 180-183) is currently being followed with great interest, and it is being checked whether approaches can be found within the German legal system that would permit similar types of process (Schall & Schirrmacher, 1995, pp. 36-66). Indeed, the police laws in the individual federal states already provide the option of a so-called "ordering off the Figure 7: "Criminal justice should confine to search for the truth in a criminal proceeding. Finding a resonable solution should be a matter of e.g. the youth council." exactly / rather yes partly

rather not / not at all

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90 100%

Adults Survey 1994 (N = 2,967)

12

Detlev Frehsee

field": The police can order the violent parent to leave the home for a short time, and prohibit him or her from returning to the home if there is a risk of further abuse. If this does not suffice, the parent can also be taken into custody (e.g., Tegtmeyer, 1995, §34, §35, Rn 7). Recently, custody courts have also started to work with the so-called "go order," in which, instead of removing the child from the home, the violent parent is removed from the family for a longer period of time at the other parent's request (§1361b BOB; see Gerhardt, von HeintschelHeinegg, & Klein, 1995, pp. 481, 484). On the level of the public prosecutor's preliminary proceedings, attempts have been made to provide a certain relaxation in lifeworld terms of the compulsory prosecution of criminal offenses since 1992. According to Number 235 III of the guidelines for criminal procedure, public interest in prosecution can lapse in cases of child abuse when social-educational, family therapeutic, or other supportive measures have been introduced and seem to be effective. However, this applies only to the field of minor physical injury. It should be considered whether such a solution could be extended to cover more serious injuries as well as sexual offenses. In recent times, the public prosecutor's office and counseling services have been cooperating in a model program at Passau. Charges against the violent parent are dropped provisionally after assigning a "counseling order" according to §153a, Section 1, No. 1, StPO. The accused has to confirm attendance of 5 hours of counseling at a child guidance or marriage counseling center; if necessary, this serves as preparation for a course of therapy. The program organizers are trying to set up social training courses (Beulke, 1994). In civil law, in contrast, it does not seem to be the legal situation that prevents flexible process. Since 1990, §1666a BOB stipulates that separation of the child from the family has the rank of a last resort that is only permissible "if the danger cannot be confronted in another way and also not with public assistance" (translated). Even though complaints are also raised here about schematic procedures, there are several important aspects: First, there is still insufficient provision of child- and family-appropriate care services (see, on the broad range of provisions for crisis assistance, counseling, accommodation, and therapy in the U.S.A., Rennefeld, 1993). Even though, in recent years the official institutions of youth services have been supplemented by a notable range of private assistance centers and refuges for sexually and physically abused children in Germany as well (see, e.g., Enders, 1990, pp. 293297; Olbing, Bachmann, & Gross, 1989, pp. 231-235), social workers continue to complain that insufficient resources and continuous cuts in public funding have led to a clear decline in the development of assistance provisions. Second, there is controversy regarding the inevitability of separation from the family in cases of sexual abuse. The effectiveness of measures directed toward treatment of the family or its members in order to preserve the family unit has been seriously questioned. The claim here is that tendencies toward sexual abuse are chronic and cannot, or only temporarily, be brought under control (Chromow & Enders, 1990, p. 136). As a result, the family is a lost cause in any case. Perhaps the numerous cases of suspected sexual abuse in which youth offices and custody courts have precipitately removed children from their families and even

Violence Toward Children in the Family and the Role of Law

13

taken them directly from preschool into care without even interviewing the nonsuspected parent can be traced back to such attitudes (Ollmann, 1994). However, this is countered by a family therapy approach that asserts that separation, above all, foster care, is always a high price for the child to pay as well. Paradoxically, this applies particularly to disturbed family systems with chronic relationships of abuse whose strict external isolation is reflected in existential symbiotic relationships of dependence at their core (Larson, 1986). What is remarkable is that such a preference for the dichotomous model of penal law with its separation into victim and offender roles rather than a holistic, problem-related approach is particularly found among social workers (Honig, 1996, p. 27; see, also, Koers, 1989, p. 105). Third, intervening authorities are often faced with the problem of unclarified facts, particularly in case of sexual abuse, because they are called in on the mere suspicion of an offense. Penal law, which is bound to the assumption of innocence, is frequently accused of setting the level of proof too high when it cannot sanction despite strong suspicion and thus leaves uncertainty and uneasiness in its wake. The custody courts, whose priority is the well-being of the child, have recently been accused of sometimes acting too hastily. Even the forensic psychology of witness testimony seems to have reached its limits here when contradictory expertises neutralize each other (Endres & Scholz, 1994, pp. 469-470; Fegert, 1993, pp. 45-106, 132-133). A particularly bad example is the recent criminal process against a preschool teacher (the so-called "Montessori Process") who was repeatedly imprisoned and released depending on which expert had just expressed an opinion (for a report on the case, see Duve, 1994, p. 233). This may well be a problem that also has to be solved normatively because of the limitations inherent to the human ability to ascertain the truth. As in view of the chronicity of abuse relationships, an intervention can be indicated just on mere suspicion, it is perhaps necessary to replace imagined certainty in one direction or the other by developing arrangements that could be accepted by the parties involved on a basis of expressly admitted uncertainty such as temporary distancing, reduced contacts (e.g., contacts only in the presence of third persons), exclusion of risky situations, and the like. The problems in ascertaining the facts have become apparent because the currently controversial debate in Germany has led to a great sensitivity toward symptoms of sexual abuse. The statements of children questioned with a correspondingly suggestive attitude can later be attacked with regard to their credibility. When one considers, in any case, how difficult it is for even adult women to extricate themselves from abuse relationships, it seems problematic when, in child cases, preschool teachers trigger a criminal prosecution and thus expose children to a process that even the public prosecutor can no longer stop. Therefore, it seems to be important to look for procedures through which such initial interviews would remain the preserve of experts, and the decisions on procedures would be the preserve of committees that could carefully select among the various reactions with a certain objectivity and draw on a range of different professional competencies. Although the conference principle was planned for the youth offices a few years ago (§36, 2, Child and Youth Services Act), there seem to be continued deficits in its implementation (Mann, 1995, p. 313). The Confidential

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Doctor system in the Netherlands seems to provide an interesting model in this respect (see Montfoort, this volume). This institution also provides ideas on how to solve another difficulty: As a result of the functional separation and complexity of the different legal fields and areas of responsibility, various authorities, officials, and public and private institutions in many areas work parallel to each other without any communication (see, for the development of work focuses and approaches in this field, Willenbacher, this volume). The fact that rules of confidentiality also apply between different public offices (Papenheim & Baltes, 1993, pp. 157-160) impedes cooperation and the coordination of different types of intervention. In addition, the formal commitments and constraints of public offices lead other institutions to shy away from including them in a joint processing of the problem, as is the case when child protection centers refuse contacts with the police or youth office. Here as well, there once more seems to be an initial need to relax these official constraints. These constraints are responsible for the lack of models of cooperation between the police and social-educational crisis intervention and assistance services. Although such a model has existed in Hannover for several years (Driller, 1989), cooperation seems to continue to be difficult, and the model has not yet been imitated anywhere else in Germany. One decisive reason for this is that it is not possible for the police to engage in public and exclusively problemoriented cooperation, because they are subject to the legal constraint to follow up punishable events that come to their attention. This reveals the need to develop organizational networking procedures for the infrastructure of private and public assistance services (Hege, this volume), the coordination of various local provisions, and cooperation between the responsible offices and institutions. Finally, the protection of the child in court proceedings is open to discussion. Here as well, the extremely formal process structure hinders reform. For example, the principle of immediacy in criminal process, that is, the basic rule that proof must be directly accessible to the perception of those involved in the process, prevents use of the internationally widely tested method of interrogating the child through videotaped transmission (Frehsee, 1989, p. 28; Perry & Wrightsman, 1991, p. 164). In May 1995, a court permitted video interrogation for the first time; however, this has triggered a very controversial discussion and continues to be considered irreconcilable with legal process (Hussels, 1995). Here as well, there is a need for legal reforms in order to permit not only simultaneous transmission but also the use of videotapes of earlier interrogations (Frommel, 1995, p. 194). 3.3 Legal Consequences The state's power of coercion first manifests in the sanction, be it through a civil law separation of the family or the punishment of the offender. The rejection of repressive, persecuting, and exclusive interventions, of the "twofold mandate" of assistance and control that is assigned to official institutions particularly from the camp of the so-called "new child protection movement" (Wolff, 1992), refers in the final instance to the state's external control and constraint embodied in the

Violence Toward Children in the Family and the Role of Law

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sanction. The important factor here is that the constraint of the sanction takes away the victim's, the family's, the social environment's, and the lifeworld's responsibility, denies their ability to cope with problems, assigns them an inability to cope, and withholds any opportunity for them to develop violence-free systems of relationships through their own processing of difficulties (Mann, 1995, p. 309). On the other side, the norm gains its communicative value precisely through the fact that it creates the opportunity for those interested to mobilize an ultimate power. In final terms, even institutes that align themselves with the new child protection movement admit that there is always a remainder that cannot be dealt with without recourse to the penal constraints of the state (Mameffe, 1994, pp. 284-285). And therapists also recognize that treatment has to be supported by legal measures (Fiimiss, 1989, p. 79; see Horn, this volume). Admittedly, it is decisive that this power for autonomous action in the unwilling can only be effective as long as it remains latent and is not put into force. It is therefore of great interest to see how victims, helpers, and professional supporters cope operationally with the threat of such a mobilization. Perhaps this embodies the decisive, and in the future indispensable role of a sanction potential retained by the state. Finally, it naturally also has to be asked how far the actual implementation of legal sanctions is necessary in the interests of the victims, that is, in first place, the children. That children no longer want to live at home is revealed in thousands of cases, for example, in children who hang around railway stations and prefer a life that is supported by prostitution, drug dealing, and theft but is still a free life in comparison with the family. But what are their real needs with regard to a court assignment to foster care? What is the real concern when a child personally wants her or his father to go to prison? Does she or he want to feel safe from him? Does she or he want to get rid of personal feelings of guilt? One can certainly rule out the possibility that the child acts in line with the official puiposes of punishment. An empathic, child-centered research policy must follow the goal of seeking for alternative solutions that serve to protect children without them having to pay for this protection by being subjected to further injuries. The risk of abuse is manylayered and has to be pointed out on every level, be it abuse by parents; by political interests such as, on the one hand, a traditional family policy and, on the other hand, the women's liberation movement; or abuse by the law itself. Notes German "corporal punishment law" in force = "Humiliating childrearing measures are prohibted"(§1631 IIBGB) Planned German "maltreatment prohibition law" = "Physical and mental abuse and other humiliating measures are prohibted" (§1631 II BGB) Austrian "corporal punishment law" = "The use of violence and the causing of physical and mental suffering are prohibted" (§146a II ABGB) Swedish "corporal punishment law" = "The child may not be subjected to either corporal punishment or any other humiliating treatment" (Section 6 §3 II Parents' Code)

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References Beiderwieden, J., Windaus, E., & Wolff, R. (1986): Jenseits der Gewalt - Hilfen flir mißhandelte Kinder. Basel, Frankfurt/M. Beulke, W. (1994): Gewalt im sozialen Nahraum - Zwischenbericht eines Modellprojekts. In Monatsschrift für Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform, 77, 360-376. Brinkmann, W. & Honig, M.-S. (1984): Umrisse eines Kinderschutzes als sozialpolitische Praxis. In W. Brinkmann & M.-S. Honig (Eds.): Kinderschutz als sozialpolitische Praxis (pp. 7-20). München. Bussmann, K.-D. & Hom, W. (1995): Elternstrafen - Lehrerstrafen. In J. Bastian (Ed.): Strafe muß sein? Das Strafproblem zwischen Tabu und Wirklichkeit (pp. 29-41). Weinheim, Basel. Carlson, B. E. & Davis, L. V. (1980): Prevention of domestic violence. In R. H. Price, R. F. Ketterer, B. C. Bader, & J. Monahan (Eds.): Prevention in Mental Health (pp. 41-62). Beverly Hills. Chromow, I. & Enders, U. (1990): Das Jugendamt: Dem Täter Grenzen setzen!. In U. Enders (Ed.): Zart war ich, bitter war's. Sexueller Mißbrauch an Mädchen und Jungen (pp. 136137). Köln. Dobash, R. E. & Dobash, R. P. (1992): Women, violence and social change. London, New York. Driller, U. (1989): Praxisbericht über das "Präventionsprogramm Polizei/Sozialarbeit" (PPS) Hannover. Bewährungshilfe, 1989, 244-255 Duve, T. (1994): Hexenjagd in Deutschland. Anmerkungen zum Fall "Montessori". In K. Rutschky & R. Wolff (Eds.): Handbuch sexueller Mißbrauch (pp. 233-241). Hamburg. Enders, U. (Ed.) (1990): Zart war ich, bitter war's. Sexueller Mißbrauch an Mädchen und Jungen. Köln. Endres, J. & Scholz, O. B. (1994): Sexueller Kindesmißbrauch aus psychologischer Sicht. Neue Zeitschrift für Strafrecht 1994, 466-473. Engfer, A. (1986): Kindesmißhandlung. Stuttgart. Fegert, J. M. (1993): Sexuell mißbrauchte Kinder und das Recht, Vol. 2. Köln. Frehsee, D. (1989): Children's evidence within the German legal system. In J. R. Spencer, G. Nicholson, R. Flin, & R. Bull (Eds.): Children's Evidence in Legal Proceedings (pp. 28-38). Cambridge. Frehsee, D. (1993): Steuerung familiärer Binnenkonflikte durch Recht. In D. Frehsee, G Löschper & K. F. Schumann (Eds.): Strafrecht, soziale Kontrolle, soziale Disziplinierung (pp. 103-119). Opladen. Frommel, M. (1995): Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Schutzes krindlicher Opferzeugen im Strafverfahren. Kritische Vierteljahresschriftfür Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft 1995, 177-196. Fürniss, T. (1989): Krisenintervention und Therapie bei sexueller Mißhandlung in der Familie Erfahrungen aus Großbritannien. In H. Olbing, K.-D. Bachmann, & R. Gross (Eds.): Kindesmißhandlung. Eine Orientierung für Ärzte, Juristen, Sozial- und Erzieherberufe (pp. 77-89). Köln. Gebhardt, J. (1994): Prügelstrafe und Züchtigungsrecht im antiken Rom und in der Gegenwart. Köln, et al. Gerhardt, P., v. Heintschel-Heinegg, B., & Klein, M. (1995): Familienrecht in gerichtlicher und anwaltlicher Praxis. Neuwied. Haffke, B. (1993): Strukturelle und psychosoziale Ursachen der Gewalt gegen Kinder und die sich aus ihnen ergebenden kriminalpolitischen Konsequenzen. Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Konfliktforschung, 15, 53-81.

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Honig, M.-S. (1996): Parteilichkeit als Dilemma. Forthcoming in: M.-E. Karsten, H.-U. Otto (Eds.): Die sozialpädagogische Ordnung der Familie. Hussels, M. (1995): Videoübertragungen von jugendlichen Zeugen in Mißbrauchsprozessen - eine Bestandsaufnahme und Überlegungen de lege ferenda. Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik, 28, 242244. Kaufman, J. & Zigler, E. (1992): The prevention of child maltreatment: programming, research, and policy. In D. J. Willis, E. W. Holden, & M. Rosenberg (Eds.): Prevention of child maltreatment: Developmental and ecological perspectives (pp. 269-295). New York. Kaufmann, F. (1990): Die Jugendhilfe im Spannungsfeld zwischen Strafverfolgung und Erziehungshilfe; Rechtsfragen im Zusammenhang mit Straftaten, an denen Minderjährige als Täter oder Opfer beteiligt sind. Zentralblatt ßr Jugendrecht, 77, 1-10. Koers, A. J. (1989): Erfahrungen aus den Niederlanden. In H. Olbing, K.-D. Bachmann, & R. Gross (Eds.): Kindesmißhandlung. Eine Orientierung ßr Ärzte, Juristen, Sozial- und Erzieherberufe (pp. 101 -108). Köln. Larson, N. R. (1986): Familientherapie mit Inzestfamilien. In L. Backe, N. Leick, J. Merrick, & N. Michelsen (Eds.): Sexueller Mißbrauch von Kindern in Familien (pp. 104-117). Köln. Mann, M. (1995): Entscheidungszwang der Justiz im Spannungsverhältnis zur familienorientierten Konfliktmoderation der Jugendhilfe. Zentralblattßr Jugendrecht, 82, 307-314. Marneffe, C. (1994): Modemer Kinderschutz. Jenseits von Strafverfolgung und Skandal: das Brüsseler Zentrum "Kind in Not". In K. Rutschky & R. Wolff (Eds.): Handbuch sexueller Mißbrauch (pp. 279-290). Hamburg. Myers, J. E. B. (1992): Legal issues in child abuse and neglect. Newbury Park. Newell, P. (1992): Children are people too. The case against physical punishment. London. Olbing, H., Bachmann, K.-D., & Gross, R. (Eds.) (1989): Kindesmißhandlung. Eine Orientierung ßr Ärzte, Juristen, Sozial- und Erzieherberufe (pp. 231-235). Köln. Ollmann, R. (1994): Rechtliche Aspekte der Aufdeckung von sexuellem Mißbrauch. Zentralblatt für Jugendrecht, 81, 151-159. Papenheim, H.-G. & Baltes, J. (1993): Verwaltungsrecht für die soziale Praxis, 10. Aufl. Frechen. Parke, R. D. (1977): Socialization into child abuse. In J. L. Tapp & F. J. Levine (Eds.): Law, justice, and the individual in society psychological and legal issues (pp. 183-197). New York. Perry, N. W. & Wrightsman, L. S. (1991): The child witness. Legal issues and dilemmas. Newbury Park. Petri, H. (1989): Erziehungsgewalt - Zum Verhältnis von persönlicher und gesellschaftlicher Gewaltausübung in der Erziehung. Frankfurt/M. Rennefeld, B. (1993): Institutionelle Hilfen ßr Opfer von sexuellem Mißbrauch. Ansätze und Arbeitsformen in den U.S.A. Bielefeld. Schall, H. & Schirrmacher, G. (1995): Gewalt gegen Frauen und Möglichkeiten staatlicher Intervention. Stuttgart. Straus, M. A. (1991): Discipline and deviance. Physical punishment of children and other crime in adulthood. Social Problems, 38, 133-154. Straus, M. A., Gelles, R. J., & Steinmetz, S. K. (1981): Behind closed doors. Violence in the American family. New York. Tegtmeyer, H. (1995): Polizeigesetz Nordrhein-Westfalen, 8. Aufl. Stuttgart, et al. Witt, C. (1987): Die Zusammenarbeit von Klinikum, Polizei, Staatsanwaltschaft und Jugendamt zur Verfolgung und Verhinderung von Kindesmißhandlungen unter den Gesichtspunkten von Datenschutz und Schweigepflicht. Unsere Jugend, 39, 178-190.

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Wolff, R. (1992): Hilfe ohne Kontrolle. Der "neue Kinderschutz" als Pionier für zeitgemäßere Konzepte sozialer Arbeit. Blätter der Wohlfahrtspflege - Deutsche Zeitschrift für Sozialarbeit, 1992, 165-168. Ziegler, F. (1990): Kinder als Opfer von Gewalt. Ursachen und Interventionsmöglichkeiten. Freiburg (Schweiz).

The Swedish Ban on Corporal Punishment: Its History and Effects Joan E. Durrani

1 Introduction^ For 5 years, from 1979-1984, Sweden was unique in the industrialized world for having passed the first explicit ban on corporal punishment. To many of us, particularly those of us living in North America, this appears to have been a radical and, to some, intrusive legal development. However, from the Swedish perspective, the law was the logical conclusion of an evolutionary process that unfolded over a period of decades. The present chapter will provide an outline of this development followed by an evaluation of the effects of the law. First, it is important to note that Swedish society as a whole has undergone an evolution over the past century that has produced an increasingly collective and egalitarian social context in which such legal changes have taken place. Promotion of children's physical and mental health has become a cornerstone of family policy, as reflected in Sweden's welldeveloped child care system, parental leave and sickness insurance provisions, and health care system. Moreover, the Swedish state has increasingly moved into what has traditionally been considered to be the private sphere with the support of the majority of its citizens. 2 History of the Swedish Law 2.1 Early Attempts to Reduce Corporal Punishment, 1920s - 1940s One hundred years ago, corporal punishment was common in Sweden and many children experienced severe beatings (Sverne, 1992). But by 1928, there was sufficient concern about this situation that the Education Act was amended to forbid corporal punishment in the gymnasiums (secondary schools). Sweden was one of the first countries to implement such a measure. Its significance is made clear when one notes that corporal punishment is still legally sanctioned in Canadian schools more than half a century later. The success of this early measure, together with continuing concern about the level of violence permitted toward children in the home, led to a change in the Parenthood and Guardianship Code (a civil code governing family law) in 1949. In an attempt to reduce severe beatings, the word "punish" was replaced by

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"reprimand" in the section defining permissible parental behavior. The legal defense for corporal punishment remained in place, however, in both the Parents' Code and the Penal Code. 2.2 Increasingly Explicit Legislative Changes, 1950s and 1960s The inadequacy of changing the wording of the corporal punishment defense became apparent throughout the 1950s. Parental violence was continuing to occur, and it was believed that maintaining the defense in the legal codes was contributing to this problem by providing an explicit sanctioning of corporal punishment. In 1957, the section permitting parents to use force in reprimanding their children was completely removed from the Penal Code. The intent of this change was to provide children with the same protection from assault that adults receive and to clarify the grounds for criminal prosecution of parents who abused their children. Parents' rights to use corporal punishment had still not been eliminated completely, however, as the Parents' Code still contained a paragraph permitting this practice. This situation allowed parents to use mild forms of physical discipline that would not constitute assault under the Penal Code. The inconsistency of these two sets of laws was eliminated in 1966, when the parental right to use corporal punishment was removed from the Parents' Code. At the same time that laws permitting corporal punishment in the home were being repealed, so were those allowing this form of discipline to take place in other child care settings. In 1959, an "experiment" was carried out in the welfare schools; the teachers were asked to refrain from using corporal punishment for 1 year, after which they could evaluate the success of this approach. While there was some initial resistance to this idea and some debate in the media, during the course ofthat year, a change took place in the Headmasters' beliefs such that they no longer felt that beating was necessary and the media debate diminished considerably (Linde, 1978). As a result, 1960 witnessed the abolition of corporal punishment in the Statutes for Child Care Institutions and Reformatory Schools. It was expected that now parents and other caregivers would cease to use physical force. By this time, interest had been generated in assessing the effect of these legislative changes on public support for corporal punishment. One of the two largest public opinion polling organizations in Sweden carried out a series of national surveys through the late 1960s and early 1970s. Respondents were asked in each survey whether they thought that corporal punishment was sometimes necessary. Between 1965 and 1968, the percentage who thought that it was necessary declined from 53% to 42% (SIFO, 1981). By 1971, this percentage had declined even further to 35% (SIFO, 1981). Also, between 1965 and 1971, the proportion of Swedes who believed that children should be brought up without the use of corporal punishment increased from 35% to 60% (SIFO, 1981).

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2.3 The 1970s and the Children's Rights Commission It is evident that changes in public attitudes changed quite substantially following modifications to the law regarding corporal punishment. But these changes appear to reflect changes in social norms on a broad basis more than simply an increased awareness of the legal status of corporal punishment. The evidence for this notion comes from a poll conducted in 1971, which demonstrated that 60% of the population did not know that corporal punishment was no longer legally defensible. As a result, a public education campaign was launched in an effort to increase awareness of the fact that physical force was no longer legally sanctioned. Soon thereafter, in 1975, a 3-year-old girl was badly beaten by her father and was taken to hospital with bruises over her entire body. Despite the girl's injuries, the court acquitted her father, stating that he had not exceeded his right to chastise his daughter (Sverne, 1984). This event demonstrated, as Peter Newell (1989) has argued, that removal of the criminal defense does not ensure that children will be treated equally to adults before the law. In 1977, soon after this father was acquitted, a large exhibition on child abuse was held in Stockholm and attended by 60,000 people (Linde, 1978). A large number of those attending the exhibition signed a petition that called for more stringent laws on the use of physical force against children (Linde, 1994). That same year, the Minister of Justice appointed a Commission on Children's Rights to review the Parenthood and Guardianship Code and formulate recommendations for modifying it to improve children's welfare. The Commission concluded that, although the right of parents and custodians to use corporal punishment had been removed from both the Penal Code and the Parents' Code, it had not been replaced with clear guidelines for parents' or legal authorities' decision-making. Therefore, it was not clear whether corporal punishment was not approved but permitted, or whether it was actually forbidden. The Commission was unanimous in its support for a proposal to include a paragraph in the Parents' Code that explicitly banned the use of corporal punishment by parents. In 1978, this proposal underwent a "remiss procedure" during which it was submitted to 30 authorities for review and response. Twentyeight of the 30 authorities supported the proposed ban. In 1979, the proposal was put to a vote in Parliament. There was virtually no opposition; the proposal was supported by all parties and the final vote was 259 in favor and 6 against (Sveme, 1994). The relevant paragraph now contained in the Parents' Code reads: "Children are entitled to care, security, and a good upbringing. Children are to be treated with respect for their person and individuality and may not be subjected to physical punishment or other injurious or humiliating treatment."

The goal of the ban was to alter public attitudes and acknowledge children's rights as autonomous individuals, not to criminalize parents (Sverne, 1994). As the legal amendment was made to the Parents' Code, it carries no penalties. Punishment for infraction of the law remains within the arena of the Penal Code and is administered only in cases that meet the criteria of assault. The law was

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intended as a guideline for parents to follow and as a means of changing attitudes toward the use offeree in childrearing. The absence of sanctions for parental transgressions provides increased opportunities for early intervention into troubled families. Generally, parents are helped through support and education, rather than through prosecution. The law ensures the right of refusal to prosecute trivial acts even if they are punishable under the Penal Code, and the definition of corporal punishment does not include physical force or restraint used to prevent harm to die child or to others (Newell, 1989). The law does, however, forbid not only corporal punishment but mentally humiliating treatment as well - for example, ridiculing, frightening, threatening, or locking up a child. Therefore, the concern that mental abuse would increase in the face of decreased physical punishment was addressed by the legislation. 2.4 Supportive Measures, 1979 to Present As part of its proposal, the Commission strongly recommended that a public education campaign accompany the passage of the new law. A massive campaign was funded by the Department of Justice. The ban was wellpublicized by the media, but more importantly, a 16-page color pamphlet explaining the reason for the law and providing alternatives to corporal punishment was given to every household with a young child. These pamphlets were also distributed through medical offices and child care centres and translated into all immigrant languages. This was the most expensive pamphlet distribution ever carried out by the Ministry of Justice (Ziegert, 1983). Further, for 2 months, information about the law was printed on milk cartons, to ensure that it was present at family mealtimes when parents and children could discuss the issue together. As a result of this campaign, by 1981, a total of 99% of Swedes were familiar with the law - a level of knowledge unmatched "in any other study on knowledge about law in any other industrialized society" (Ziegert, 1983). Today, education about the law continues. As the Commission's report was the shortest printed official report in Sweden's history, it is used in school to teach children how a law is created. The law is also discussed in parent education classes, which are available to all expectant parents, and in well-baby clinics (child health care centres), which are used by virtually 100% of the population. The legislation also appears in the 9th-grade lesson plan on Child Development. In compulsory English-language classes, a vocabulary-building exercise is based upon a conversation between an English couple who support corporal punishment and a third person who opposes it (Newell, 1989). Such measures provide information about the law directly to children and extend its preventive function. 3 Effects of the Law The effects of the law upon behavior are difficult to demonstrate, as no largescale longitudinal studies have been conducted. There is evidence from two qualitative studies that although Swedish parents tended to be rather permissive in

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the early 1980s, this has changed and they now are generally quite skilled in using democratic childrearing methods (Haeuser, 1988, 1990). Further, rates of child abuse appear to have declined; the number of referrals to St. Göan's Hospital in Stockholm, which receives all child maltreatment cases, had declined by 1989 to one-sixth of the 1970 rate (Haeuser, 1988). By the mid-1980s, Swedish rates of physical discipline and child abuse were half those found in the U.S. (Gelles & Edfeldt, 1986; Haeuser, 1988), and the Swedish rate of child death due to abuse was less than one-third the American rate (Gregersen & Vesterby, 1984). As the primary purpose of the law was to alter public attitudes, this is an important variable to examine, and longitudinal data are available to permit such an analysis. It will be recalled that by 1971, the proportion of Swedes who thought that corporal punishment was sometimes necessary in childrearing had declined to 35%. By 1981, two years after the law's passage, this proportion had decreased to 26% (SIFO, 1981). In 1994, a national survey was commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and carried out by Statistics Sweden. This study revealed that only 11% of Swedes now support the use of corporal punishment in childrearing (Lundgren, 1994). (For a more detailed description of this study's findings, see Edfeldt & Durrani, this volume.) Therefore, over the course of three decades, public attitudes have undergone a major shift; whereas a majority of Swedes believed in the necessity of corporal punishment in 1965, only a small minority support its use today. The purpose of the law was to make it clear to Swedish citizens that hitting children is not permitted. It was also intended to educate parents about the importance of giving their children good care. It removed what could be construed as a silent sanction of corporal punishment and is the culmination of an evolutionary process that saw Swedish society increasingly reject corporal punishment as a means of educating children and increasingly recognize the rights of children as individuals. It was the educational component of the law that was seen as most important, rather than the potential for legal penalties. 4 Conclusion The Swedish corporal punishment law has been very effective in shaping a social consensus regarding the rejection of corporal punishment in childrearing. However, the law's implementation and the attitude shift that accompanied it cannot be viewed in isolation from the social context in which it developed. The social developments that led up to its implementation include: 1. The growth of a strong children's rights movement, represented by two prominent and influential organizations, Rädda Barnen (Swedish Save the Children) and Barnens Rätt i Samhallet (Children's Rights in Society). These organizations have contributed to a high degree of public recognition of children's status as persons. 2. A collectivist orientation that places children's welfare at the centre of social policy formulation. This orientation is manifested in Sweden's highly developed and heavily subsidized day care system, generous parental leaves, paren-

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tal sickness insurance, children's dental insurance, and a broad array of welfare measures that have reduced the child poverty rate to less than 2% (Smeeding, 1992). 3. A focus on preparation for parenthood. For example, at all levels of education, students are educated about responsible parenthood. Baby-care courses include a parent training component, prenatal classes are accessible to all expectant parents, and support groups for parents of young children are available at community health centers. All such services are provided free of charge. Together with the nonpunitive nature of the corporal punishment law, these measures increase the likelihood that parents who find themselves relying on physical force to raise their children will seek assistance and/or be identified early in the cycle that often leads to abuse. This coherent preventive approach has resulted in broad public support for the abolition of corporal punishment and commitment to the eradication of child abuse. Since Sweden passed its law, four other countries have done the same - Finland (1984), Denmark (1986), Norway (1987), and Austria (1989). In 1985, the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers recommended that member states review their legislation on corporal punishment in order to limit or prohibit it, even if violation does not necessarily entail a criminal penalty. The Swedish experience can be very instructive in this regard, because it provides evidence for the effectiveness of such measures in altering societal attitudes toward the use of physical force in childrearing. Note Much of the information obtained in this chapter was obtained during a research visit to Sweden supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council. The author would like to thank Gunborg Anderson, Gunilla Bodin, Ake Edfeld, Simone Ek, Anette Larsson, Gunnel Linde, Tor Sverne, Karin Lundin, Peter Newell, Anika Oster, and Gun-Marie Pettersson for their valuable contributions.

References Bums, N. (1992): Legislative and attitudinal comparison of western countries on corporal punishment. Paper presented at the Meeting of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. Chicago. Gelles, R. J. & Edfeldt, A. W. (1986): Violence toward children in the United States and Sweden. Child Abuse & Neglect, JO, 501-510 Gregersen, M. & Vesterby, A. (1984): Child abuse and neglect in Denmark: Medico-legal aspects. Child Abuse & Neglect, 8, 83-91. Haeuser, A. A. (1988): Reducing violence towards U.S. children: Transferring positive innovations from Sweden. Unpublished manuscript. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Haeuser, A. A. (1990): Banning parental use of physical punishment: Success in Sweden. Paper presented at the Eighth International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect, Hamburg. Linde, G. (1978): Corporal punishment. Paper presented to the Second International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect, London.

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Linde, G. (1994): Personal communication. Stockholm. Lundgren, L. (1994): Allmanhetens Installning till Olika Former av Barnuppfostran [Public attitudes toward different forms of childrearing]. Stockholm. Newell, P. (1989): Children are people too: The case against physical punishment. London. Smeeding, T.M. (1992): Why the US antipoverty system doesn't work very well. Challenge, 35, 30-35. Sverne, T. (1984): Untitled unpublished manuscript. Sverne, T. (1992): The Swedish ban on physical punishment. Paper presented at the Seminar on Ending Physical Punishment of European Children, London. Sveme, T. (1994): Personal communication. February 4, Stockholm. SIFO [Swedish Opinion Research Institute] (1981): Aga och Barnmisshandel [Spanking and child abuse]. Unpublished report. Ziegert, K. A. (1983): The Swedish prohibition of corporal punishment: A preliminary report. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 45, 917-926.

The Swedish 1979 Aga Ban Plus Fifteen Äke W. Edfeldt

1 IntroductionI} This paper will describe a Swedish study recently carried out in order to assess public attitudes toward different forms of childrearing. The aga (corporal punishment) ban has been a law in Sweden for 15 years, but lately in the mass media, it has been possible to see or hear people saying that corporal punishment should be permitted again. From the 1980 effect study (Edfeldt, 1985), it was obvious that the frequency of aga in Swedish families changed considerably after the passing of the law on July 1, 1979. Until that time, social attitudes toward corporal punishment had been positive in many respects. It was generally believed that good parents tried to do anything, including using physical punishment, to make their children behave. When we first set out to pass a law against aga, we did not want parents to be punished for using aga, because that would create martyrs. What we wanted was for the social pressure in Swedish societies to shape a belief that good parents do everything they can to get their children to behave, except for the use of physical punishment. All professionals in Sweden had agreed during the late 1970s that corporal punishment was a bad method of childrearing. While it eliminated unwanted behaviors in animals and humans more quickly than any other method, it had so many negative co-effects that it was considered a bad use of parents' authority to inflict this kind of punishment on children. So, we wanted the prevailing social attitude to be that it is not a good parent who uses aga. Fifty-two percent of the 1,218 Swedish families who participated in the 1980 SUSA study reported that they used aga in response to our first question referring to it. But later on during the interview, it became evident that only 24% said that they would continue to use aga. This is just about one-half of the group who off-handedly said that they were still using aga. But this is the group in which it is obvious that the new type of social pressure was working. Of course, they do use it. They said it in answer to the first question, so of course they do. But the very fact that not more than half the group (24%) kept admitting that they would use corporal punishment means that during the year from July 1979 to August 1980, the social pressure had turned and made a very effective impact on a big group. They were no longer prepared to stand up for using this form of punishment. We are still quite sure that this is the first critical step toward dismissing corporal punishment totally.

28

Äke W. Edfeldt

We do not know very much today about what the Swedish public thinks about the corporal punishment ban because there has not been any research since the above-mentioned effect study performed in 1980 and published in 1985 (Edfeldt, 1985). The present report is based on a survey of Swedish adults commissioned by the Department of Social Welfare and carried out by the State Institute of Statistics, Sweden, in April, 1994 (Lundgren, 1994). 2 The Survey Method A random representative sample of people between the ages of 18 and 74 years completed postal questionnaires. A follow-up telephone call in May reached 50% of the people who had not returned completed questionnaires, although they had received two reminding letters asking them to do so. Of the respondents, 71% were parents (65% men, 75% women). More than 80% of people in the oldest and middle-aged groups (55 to 74 years and 35 to 64 years respectively) were parents, while only 42% of those in the youngest age group (18 to 34 years) had children of their own. This survey was intended to assess the ideas and attitudes held by the general public toward aga, rather than testing actual behavior. As it is difficult in postal questionnaires to ask people questions about breaking laws, respondents were only asked about their own experiences of corporal punishment during their childhood. All findings are reported at the 95% confidence level. The error limits are about 4% with regard to the total sample, around 6% when the sample is divided into men and women, and up to 10% when it comes to smaller groups, such as age groups. The survey was sent to every 1 in 200 Swedes. Since the total population of people aged 18 to 74 years amounts to around 6,000,000, the survey was sent to some 30,000 individuals. The drop-out rate is not skewed when it comes to sex, age, or region of the country. 3 Results of the Survey 3.1 Attitudes Towards Corporal Punishment Respondents were categorized into four groups: a) those who were positive to corporal punishment, at least in lighter forms; b) those who were in principle against all forms of physical punishment but might use it if they were very angry; c) those who were against all forms of corporal punishment and would never use it themselves; and d) those who did not know what they should do or what is best to do. Table 1 presents the distribution of respondents across these four groups. Only 11% of the total sample felt positively toward corporal punishment, at least in its lighter forms. Twice that number said that they were against all forms of corporal punishment, but that they might use it if they were provoked to the point of anger. Approximately one-half of the respondents indicated that they were opposed to all

29

The Swedish 1979 Aga Ban Plus Fifteen

forms of corporal punishment and would never use it. The remaining 10% were unsure about their attitudes toward its use. Table 1: Percentage of Respondents in Attitude Groups

Attitude Positive to punishment at least in lighter forms Opposed in principle, but might use it if provoked Against all forms and would never use it Don't know

Group Age2

Total

Gender Men Women

11

16

6

6

22

24

20

56

50

10

9

Young Middle

Education Oldest

Compulsory University

10

18

18

4

20

25

21

17

25

62

59

58

49

51

65

12

13

7

11

12

6

Men were more likely than women to indicate that they might support the use of corporal punishment, whereas women were more likely than men to be firmly opposed to its use. Men and women were about equally likely to indicate that they were opposed to corporal punishment in principle but might use it if provoked. The youngest respondents were less likely to endorse the use of corporal punishment and more likely to be firmly opposed to its use than were the oldest respondents. Finally, very few respondents who had university-level education supported the use of corporal punishment, whereas almost onefifth of the respondents with compulsory-level education did so. 3.2 Attitudes Toward the Use of Corporal Punishment in Anger Respondents were asked how far they agreed that "moderate corporal punishment is necessary in some childrearing situations, but if used, it should be thoroughly considered and not an effect of anger." Onehalf of the sample disagreed totally with this statement, whereas onethird partly or totally agreed (see Table 2). This finding is somewhat surprising when compared to the results of our first formulative international study on Violence Towards Children (Edfeldt, 1979), which showed that Scandinavian people (Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian) considered it to be absolutely inconceivable to hit a child after consideration; one simply must not do that.

30

Äke W. Edfeldt

Table 2: Percentage Agreeing with the Use of Corporal Punishment in Anger Group Age2

Gender Attitude Total Men Some corporal punishment is necessary in some situations, but if used it should be thoroughly considered and not a result of anger Strongly agree 16 20 Partly agree 18 21 Disagree 52 47 Don't know 11 10

| Women

12 15 58 13

Education

Young | Middle | Oldest

12 19 56 12

14 15 59 10

24 20 40 12

Compulsory | University

23 18 40 15

7 17 68 6

The typical reaction from the Scandinavian countries was that the use of corporal punishment was a bit more understandable, although not excusable, only if you got so mad or provoked that you could not stop yourself. This attitude was found to be in contrast with that of Anglo-American respondents (including those from old English colonies in Africa and Asia), who said that hitting a child in anger was absolutely unforgiveable. But it was seen as acceptable to hit a child after thoroughly considering what kind of punishment this child ought to have for a particular kind of transgression. 3.3 Situations in Which Corporal Punishment is Acceptable Those respondents who reported that they could accept at least lighter physical punishment were asked about the situations in which they thought corporal punishment should be used. The findings are summarized in Table 3. Of this group, 35% indicated that corporal punishment would be acceptable if the child was displaying bad and provocative behavior at home. If the child displayed bad and provocative behavior away from home, 26% said that physical punishment was indicated. Respondents in this subgroup were most likely to view physical punishment as acceptable if the child caused damage despite the parent's attempts to stop him or her from doing so (41%). If the child was putting him or herself in dangerous situations despite the parent's warnings, 39% said this called for physical punishment.

31

The Swedish 1979 Aga Ban Plus Fifteen

Table 3: Percentage Endorsing Acceptibility of Corporal Punishment in Various Situations

Situation

Total

Gender Men Women

Group Age2)

Education

Young Middle Oldest

Compulsory

University

Child is being bad at home Yes 35 40 Maybe 26 28 No 34 28

30 24 40

32 28 37

31 28 38

46 22 26

43 22 26

26 25 47

Child is being bad away home Yes 26 Maybe 29 No 41

30 31 34

21 26 48

23 30 43

22 29 44

33 27 34

28 28 36

16 25 57

Child causes damage despite parent's warning Yes 41 48 Maybe 27 26 No 28 22

34 27 35

40 28 28

36 26 34

48 26 21

45 23 25

32 28 38

from

Therefore, although bad behavior might be worse away from home than at home, adults tended to look upon corporal punishment as more acceptable when bad behavior took place at home. This is another example of the secondary social pressure effects originating in the Aga Ban. One strikes out more easily behind the closed doors of one's home in which the social costs are lower than they are in more public situations. At the time of the passage of the law, we predicted that it would be harder to get behind the closed doors of a home and to intervene there. But as long as the parents were outside their homes where other people were around to watch, we expected that they would be more willing to adhere to the law. The findings of this study suggest that this has indeed been the case. 3.4 Acceptable Types of Punishment Respondents were asked which of four given types of punishment they believed parents would use. The results are presented in Table 4. Physical punishment and exclusion from the group were endorsed least frequently. Verbal threats were chosen by twice as many respondents as were physical punishment and isolation. The most popular consequence was material punishment, for example loss of weekly allowances, which was endorsed by the majority of the respondents.

Äke W. Edfeldt

32

Table 4: Percentage Indicating what Various Types of Punishment are Acceptable Group Age2)

Gender Type of Total punishment Physical punishment 11 Verbal treats (e.g., no Chrismas 22 presents if ...) Material punishment (e.g., with78 drawal of weekly allowance) Isolation (e.g., eat in your 10 room)

Men

Women

Education

Young Middle Oldest

Compulsory

University

18

4

7

11

16

14

9

27

17

30

22

14

17

22

73

38

78

84

70

78

75

10

10

12

11

6

6

17

37 25 36

35 29 33

37 25 35

47 24 24

41 23 30

38 24 37

Child puts self in danger despite parent's warning 39 Yes 41 Maybe 26 27 31 No 27

Verbal threat was chosen by men more often than it was by women, whereas material punishment was chosen by women more often than it was by men. This difference reflects the tendency among Swedish families for men to play more of a consulting part and for women to institute the domestic matter-of-fact controls. 3.5 Respondents' Own Experience of Corporal Punishment Respondents were asked about the frequency with which they had been physically punished by their parents as children and as teenagers. Their estimates are summarized in Table 5. Of the total sample, about onehalf reported that as children they were never punished physically by their mothers or fathers, and 71% that they were never so as teenagers. About onequarter of the respondents received corporal punishment once in a while as children, whereas half that number received such punishment once in a while as teenagers. Only a small minority of respondents had received corporal punishment up to once a week. In the SUSA study (Edfeldt, 1985), 50% of respondents had experienced physical punishment, and, of those, 9% had been punished once a week. Although the present survey was conducted some 14 or 15 years after the SUSA study, the populations represented by the two samples overlap, so we would not expect the two sets of findings to differ too much in this regard.

33

The Swedish 1979 Aga Ban Plus Fifteen

Table 5: Percentage of Respondents who Experienced Corporal Punishment as Children Group Age2'

Gender Experience of corporal punishment

Education

Total

Men

Women

Young Middle Oldest

Compulsory

University

mother 53 23 7 1

52 23 9 1

54 23 6 1

56 27 4 1

55 19 9 0

48 25 10 1

51 21 9 0

56 26 8 0

10

13

10

13

10

13

9

As a teenager by mother never 71 71 rarely 11 11 2 sometimes 1 once a week 0 0 don't 7 remember 8

72 11 3 0

75 14 1 0

70 10 4 0

69 10 1 0

64 9 3 0

77 10 2 0

6

5

9

8

11

As a child by father never 52 rarely 26 7 sometimes once a week 1 don't remember 10

43 35 8 1

62 16 6 1

56 25 4 0

53 25 9 1

46 30 8 1

48 23 8 1

8

12

11

10

9

12

68 11 5 0

75 8 3 0

76 9 3 0

70 12 6 0

68 8 3 0

62 8 7 0

6

6

7

10

As a child by never rarely sometimes once a week dont't remember

11

As teenager by father never 71 rarely 10 sometimes 4 once a week 0 don't remember 6

6

59 26 7 0

81 9 2 0

In the present study, a small group of respondents stated that they did not remember how frequently they had been punished. We would hypothesize that these individuals were likely to have received harsh punishment as children and as teenagers. In the SUSA study, the interviewers found it very hard to make people remember such things, but when they did remember, some felt it was good to speak about it, to get it out of their systems, and eventually take a stand against it. But it was rather difficult to get that far. These individuals always started by not remembering, but as they continued to talk about it, the whole story came out. In a postal questionnaire such as the one used in the present study, that kind of a

Äke W. Edfeldt

34

process cannot be triggered, so we cannot determine how many of those who could not remember actually received harsh punishment as children and/or teenagers. 3.6 General Views on Childrearing The present survey included a question on regarding the respondents' difficulties in raising children. However, this question was given only to those respondents who were parents at the time of the survey (see Table 6). The majority of the parents surveyed indicated that they found childrearing to be difficult, whereas less than onefifth stated that it was easy. Table 6: Percentage Agreeing that Childrearing is Easy or Difficult Group Age2)

Gender View of childrearing

Total

Men

Women

easy

17

23

11

10

difficult

74

67

80

9

10

9

don't know

Young Middle

Education Oldest

Compulsory

University

18

20

21

15

83

76

68

69

78

7

4

12

10

7

3.7 Attitudes Toward Societal Support for Childrearing When asked whether they believed that parents should have better help from society when it comes to bringing up children, almost onethird answered affirmatively. This proportion was similar across gender and age groups. These findings are presented in Table 7. Table 7: Percentage Agreeing that More Societal Support for Childrearing is Needed Group Age2

Gender

Education

Agreement

Total

Men

Women

Young Middle Oldest

Compulsory

University

Yes

29

25

33

34

28

37

27

29

3.8 Summary The findings of this study demonstrate that the majority of Swedes are against all forms of corporal punishment. More women than men and more younger than older people hold this view. Physical punishment is more acceptable if the child causes damage or exposes itself to dangers than if the child is simply behaving

The Swedish 1979 Aga Ban Plus Fifteen

35

badly. Material punishment is the most popular consequence for misbehavior. According to the present analysis, younger adults have been physically punished more rarely than older ones. However, children born after the Aga Ban were not included in this study, so we are not able to determine the size of differences in the use of corporal punishment among parents having children before and after the Ban. These findings can be compared with those of a 1965 Gallup survey in which 53% of the Swedish population said that corporal punishment was a method that they could not manage without when it came to rearing and teaching children (SIFO, 1981). When that study was repeated in 1971, a total of 35% of the general population wanted to keep corporal punishment as a necessary instrument in childrearing. In the present study, 11% of respondents stated that they were positive to corporal punishment, at least in its lighter forms, and 22% stated that they were in principle against it but might use it when provoked. Added together, these groups constitute 33% of the sample, which is about equal to the proportion who said they could not be without corporal punishment before the law was passed. However, there is a very definite difference in attitudes before and after the law. Before the law was passed, this third of the population said that corporal punishment was necessary and spoke publicly in favor of it and in opposition to the law on television and radio programs and in newspaper articles. But now only 11% are absolutely positive to corporal punishment, yet with the further restricting addendum "at least in its lighter forms." These are exactly the kind of results we hoped for. This is the effect of the reversed social pressure created by the law, which has developed to such an extent that today no one publicly admits that they cannot do without corporal punishment in bringing up their children. Of course, we know that about 4% of the Swedish population still uses severe forms of violence in this respect. Yet, the views of the general population mirror the effects of the changed social pressure, which is a direct effect of our criminalization of corporal punishment. Nobody can stand up any more and publicly state that, "I am a good father. I use corporal punishment because I think it is needed." It is the other way around now. Today such a person is looked upon as a bad father. 4 Conclusion Currently, we are examining interview data concerning teenagers' lives in a rather large suburban area to the north of the Swedish capital. It shows what kind of life is led out there, especially among young citizens between 11 and 19 years of age. The areas to the north and north-east of Stockholm are rather prosperous. There are large areas with one-family houses that are highly desirable areas in which to live. The data indicate two things (we have no figures to report, as this a qualitative study): a) Corporal punishment is still used but less talked about by some middleaged parents, and b) the youngest parents (aged 20 to 35 years) are more definitely against corporal punishment than the older ones. This finding replicates

36

Äke W. Edfeldt

those of the American Family Welfare professor Adrienne Haeuser (1990) who studied the Swedish situation after the implementation of the Aga Ban. She found that the youngest parents were more consciously adverse to using violence and increasingly realizing that the only way to bring up children is to set patterns oneself through one's own way of living and behavior. They know that children learn more from what they see their parents do than from what they hear their parents say theoretically about what is good behavior. So the youngest parents, both fathers and mothers, take more time with their children and they not only take time to ask their children about school, but share the child's experiences in a more direct and deeper sense. We no longer see the good father of the 1930s coming home and asking the boy if he has been a good boy, getting some examples, and then giving out the weekly allowance with a pat on the head or shoulder or dealing out corporal punishment if the boy has not been too good. In the 1930s, this was the traditional, almost proverbial, good father. Today's good father crawls on the floor with his children, allowing the children to take possession of him, just like mothers used to do. By being together with children this way, parents have ample opportunity to show through their own reactions what they expect from their children; and if they do not realize this, the children will make it obvious the hard way. Misbehavior will crop up when it is most inconvenient. This is something that the young modern parent realizes; it is not mischief on the part of the child, but just the way life is. You cannot ever be "off as a parent; you are on duty all the time whether you want to be or not. Those who can handle it can set good patterns of behavior for their children. However, the children of the parents who themselves show bad manners will learn that this is the way to behave and act accordingly. This is the matter-of-fact way that young parents look upon childrearing. And it means that more and more young Swedish parents are behaving in a real, natural, human way toward their children. And that is a very positive change. The children get the right signals as long as the parents are good company for the child. If a child happens to be on the living-room carpet doing important things with its toys when the father needs the same space for watching a football game on the television, the father cannot just pick up the child's things and throw them away, because that will be reflected in the child's behavior and the child's understanding of proper behavior in some other conflict situations. In all those everyday situations, in all those small things that our parents did not observe or even think of, lies the alternative to physical punishment. To us, this is similar to what physicians talk about in relation to health care. They speak about primary, secondary, and tertiary health care. Primary health care takes place before individuals become ill and ensures that health care functions so that the illness will never develop. This is the most preventive level; let us call it primary parenting in early childrearing. Secondary health care takes place when an illness is underway but stops it from developing further and, in favorable cases, eliminates it. In relation to parenting, this is the level where on which parent realizes that a child has developed wrongly. The child must be corrected and the parents have to effect this in an active and positive manner. The third level of health care is implemented when illness is not only approaching or underway, but is a fact. Surgery or other care that can make life better for

The Swedish 1979 Aga Ban Plus Fifteen

37

the afflicted person is carried out. With regard to children's mental health, this is the therapeutic level. In this case, the child's behavior patterns must be altered, not because the child was bad to start with, but for, example because the parents have been using faulty methods of childrearing. We believe that the SUSA study and that of Adrienne Haeuser (1990) show that today in Sweden there are young parents who are doing "primary parenting" with full awareness of what they are doing and why they are doing it. As long as one can report from a culture, society, religion, or section of life that young people are showing signs of understanding and using primary-level parenting, then every hour we have spent in our kind of preparative work has been worthwhile. We need to tell others who are reluctant to make legal changes against physical punishment in childrearing that such measures are basic to all progress. This is what we all must strive toward. Notes

2

A particular appreciation is owed to Joan E. Durrani for valuable suggestions and support for setting up this manuscript. Young = 18 to 34 years, Middle = 35 to 54 years, Oldest = 55 to 74 years.

References Edfeldt, A. W. (1979). Violence (awards children. Stockholm. Edfeldt, A. W. (1985). Allt vad i gören: Slutrapport fran SUSA-projektet om aga och väld i hemmet [Final report from the SUSA project on spanking and domestic violence]. Stockholm. Haeuser, A. A. (1990, September). Banning parental use of physical punishment: Success in Sweden. Paper presented at the Eighth Annual Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect, Hamburg. Lundgren, L. (1994). Allmanhetens installing till olika former av barnuppfostran [Public attitudes toward different forms of childrearing]. Stockholm. SIFO (Swedish Opinion Research Institute) (1981). Aga och barnmisshandel [Spanking and child abuse]. Unpublished report.

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment Kai-D. Bussmann

I Introduction The relatively weak legal status of children and adolescents oberved in all Western societies (e.g., Frehsee, 1992; Dutton & McGregor, 1992, pp. 321-322; Melton, 1992) is manifested in the legal right of parents to physically punish their children, which contributes to the fact that children and adolescents are excluded from the socially accepted sanctions against violence. One is not allowed to strike anybody apart from one's own child, and, in some countries, this privilege is even extended to teachers, who are allowed to physically discipline their students. This report, therefore, discusses the question of whether violence against children could be reduced through the abolition of the right of parents to physically discipline their children. These figures are the result of a representative nationwide survey of 3,000 adults and 2,400 thirteen- to 16-year-olds, and are based on 68 interviews with Bielefeld students cumed out within a research project on "Family Violence Against Children and the Ambivalence of the Law" at Bielefeld's Special Unit 227. The representative survey of adolescents was made in 1992, and the interviews with adults followed in 1994. The key interviews with adolescents took place in 1993 and 1994. 2 Trends in Family Violence 2.1 Changing Values and Changing Attitudes Toward Corporal Punishment Analyses of social change in civilization theory (Elias, 1976, 1988) predict a steady reduction of violence in the family as well. However, the theories and research on changing social values in modern society also indicate that the use of violence in rearing one's own children is gradually declining. Therefore Inglehart's classic studies of postmaterialism (1971, 1977, 1989) already observe a decline in the acceptance of such functions of social systems as "public order," and a strong emphasis on values such as "participation in decisionmaking," "freedom of opinion," and "equality of women." Although the onedimensionality of the theory of postmaterialism has been criticized from different sides (e.g., Herz, 1987; Klages, 1985), more complex theories on changing social values have also come to a similar conclusion. The main thesis that the right to

40

Kai-D. Bussmann

equality and self-determination is arising at the expense of tradition and authority is unchallenged (Meulemann, 1985, p. 398; Schulze, 1993, p. 86). The values of duty and acceptance are losing ground in favor of the right to self-development (Klages, 1985; Reuband, 1992). Other social theories that postulate a process of individualization (Beck, 1986) also predict a growing importance of the subject. According to the latest research on social changes, one should expect to find that the frequency and distribution of family violence in childraising is decreasing steadily, because submission and conformity have achieved at least the same value as the importance of the individual versus the whole (see the value synthesis of Klages, 1985, p. 164). The use of violence in bringing up children is becoming less and less appropriate in such a value system. Such minor blows, for example, as a box on the ear or a slap, which served in previous centuries to remind wives and other "menials" of their subservient position, are also considered out of place (Lüdke & Lindenberger, 1995). A slap is a symbolic action demeaning another person, and precisely such intentions have less legitimacy in the observed changes in the system of values. Although we have conducted no longitudinal study, the results of our inquiries confirm these changes impressively (see, also, Straus, this volume). For example, 81.7% of those surveyed agreed with the statement that, "Parents should talk with their children more instead of hitting them." Only a minority of parents still believe that slapping is a useful form of discipline. Nowadays, a beating is considered less an effective form of discipline and more a loss of control in a given situation or an overreaction (see, also, Frehsee, this volume). Discursive forms of reaction clearly take priority. Physical discipline as an effective method of childrearing is, in the meantime, "out"; the educational ideal in our society as well as in the family has quite clearly become one of nonviolence. This development is heading, therefore, slowly but surely in the direction of nonviolent and discourse-oriented conflict-solving patterns. 2.2 Changing Values and Changes in Sanctioning Style When transferring these developmental perspectives to the behavior level, such changes should also be provable (for the U.S.A. see, Straus & Gelles, 1986, crit., Stocks, 1988). Let us begin with the current situation. The statements of the parents as well as those of the adolescents document the continued existence of a relatively high degree of various forms of discipline and other sanctions. According to the statements of adolescents, 66.7% received loss of television privileges, 64.2% were not allowed to go out, 34.5% had their pocket money reduced, 36.9% received the silent treatment, and 52% were yelled at. In comparison, a box on the ear was, at 81.5%, still the most frequent and widely distributed form of sanction. Indeed, 43.5% of the adolescents received a heavy box on the ear and 30.6% a beating (similar to the international studies of Newell, 1989, p. 50). In addition, in our study of parents as well adolescents, we have constructed specific groups of sanction patterns from these individual types of sanctions. Such group divisions serve to separate problematic from unproblematic groups. In

41

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment

particular, these group divisions allow us to define the basic target group more precisely, that is, those parents who more frequently practice severe corporal punishment in the disciplining of their children, in order to facilitate the evaluation of the possibilities of legal reforms and education campaigns. The results from our studies of factors have allowed us to establish specific groups. The surveyed types of sanctions can be divided into four factors covering minor and severe corporal punishment, as well as withdrawal of privileges and mental abuse. In a second step, these four groups were formed from the resulting graded combination of sanctions in the four factors. The first group was defined as raising their children (almost) sanction-free. They employ neither physical punishment nor other forms of sanctions, and account for 7.5% of the total population of all parents. The second group of parents refrain to a high degree from physical punishment as well, but frequently employ other forms of sanctions in disciplining their children, such as "withdrawal of television privileges," "withholding of pocket money," and so forth. This group consists of approximately 10%. hi comparison to both of these groups, the following two groups do not raise their children violence-free. For the third and fourth groups, the extent of violence-free sanctions was not given. They should only differ in the frequency of minor or severe corporal punishment used. The third group may be described as the "conventional parenting group" on the basis not only of its size but also of its use of frequent but usually minor punishments such as a slap or a box on the ear. Almost 60% of parents surveyed belong to this group, according to our definition criterion. The fourth group is defined as relatively susceptible to the use of family violence. Approximately one fifth of all parents fulfill the criteria for the "violence-prone" or "abusive" group. These Figure 1: Groups of Familial Sanctions

Sanctionless Education

Education free of Corporal Sanctions Conventional Education

Violent Education 10

20

Adolescents (N = 2,392)

30

40

50

60

Parents (N = 1,288)

70%

42

Kai-D. Bussmann

parents confessed, among other things, to having frequently given their children a beating or a "good spanking" (see Figure 1). The comparison between parents and juveniles shows that it is the affected youths themselves who report conspicuously little violence. Astonishingly, the reasons for this can be found in a more tolerant attitude of the juveniles and in a stronger orientation toward the standards and normalities within their own families, which is still to be shown. At least in the area of severe corporal punishment, the statements of the juveniles widely coincide with those of their parents. Consequently, here we can assume a surprisingly clear and relatively high level of violence. For the fourth group, the violence-prone one, observations by third persons can also be included. 21.8% of the juveniles know about a case within their circle of acquaintances where children are frequently hit by their parents. Furthermore, the adults have also been asked directly about any suspicions of child abuse. Accordingly, 13.5% of the interviewees did already have a suspicion of the like. Taking into account that the observation of childrearing within families from the outside can only be very limited, these orders, however, indicate that our group of "violence-prone families" can conceal a great deal of violence. Furthermore, the size of both the groups that use violence in their childrearing practices indicates, as in other international studies (e.g., Daro & Gelles, 1992; Straus & Donnelly, 1993) that the majority ideal of nonviolent parenting is far removed from actual domestic practice. Changing value orientations are thus identical to only a small degree with the behavior of parents in everyday family life. Violence today plays a relatively large role in childrearing, also in comparison with other forms of sanctions. Comparing behavior and attitudes, it is only the attitudes of parents toward corporal punishment that have changed to a high degree in line with these commonly observed societal changes in values. Moreover, the assumption of a change in values in progress is strongly supported by this discrepancy between a predominately violence-avoiding attitude and an everyday upbringing punctuated by minor acts of violence. We probably find ourselves in a phase of gradually changing normative facts, without these facts being directly apparent in the modes of behavior. This is especially valid because, as we generally know from social research, there is a remarkable difference between the attitudes of interviewees and their actual behavior (e.g., Meinefeld, 1977; Six, 1980). 2.3 Trends In order to be able to investigate the gradual reduction in violent forms of childrearing, one cannot just analyse the present. Therefore, in a second step, we investigated the frequency of personal experience with familial violence relative to the age of those interviewed. Taking into account the current attitudes against family violence of the majority, one can expect a correlation between the ages of the interviewees and their own personal experience with sanctions, in so much as the older interviewees must have experienced more frequently both corporal punishment and violence-free sanctions in their childhood and youth. The results

43

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment

show that our youngest age group, those under 30, experienced minor and heavy physical punishment least often in their childhood, whereas those over 75 reported the most frequent experiences with family violence. However, for the decades between, a reduction in familial violence cannot be confirmed. When Straus and Donnelly (1993, p. 424) used these methods in their research, they actually registered a slight increase in younger interviewees. Thus, if one compares longer periods of time with each other, the reduction in familial violence seems to occur not gradually, but rather in phases. In order to investigate intergenerational shifts, we compared the sanction practice of the parents of today with their experiences with sanctions in their own childhood. A slight reduction in the frequency of all types of sanctions was found. Using the groups formed above, one can further investigate the intergenerational trends among the individual sanction groups. With the help of our group criteria, we compared the answers of the interviewed parents on their own childhood experiences with their later sanction patterns toward their own children (under 18, living at home). Table 1: Intergenerational Changes in Sanction Patterns (N = 1,179) Sanction-free

Personal experience

48

4.1%

82

7.0%

433

36.7%

616

52.2%

Own children

88

7.5%

127

10.8%

721

61.2%

243

20.6%

+ 40

+ 83.0%

+ 45

+45.0%

+ 288 +66.0%

- 373

- 60.5%

Changes

Corporal punishment-free

Conventional

Abusive

Groups of Familial Sanctions

The table indicates a clear shift from one generation to the next, especially from serious abuse to lighter forms of physical punishment. The group of "abusive families" is the only one that reduced its size by one half. The other groups, in comparison, all became larger. The greatest increase was seen in the group of "sanction-free families," followed by the "conventional sanction" group. However, a methodological problem must be pointed out here. Data of the interviewees on their own childhood sanctions always relates to both parents, whereas the frequency and type of their current sanction practices only relates to one parent. It is known, however, from other similar studies, that both parents do not punish their children equally. According to Straus and Donnelly (1993, p. 428), the difference can be as great as 50%. Even using this 50% figure, which is probably overestimated for our study, as a basis for our sample, and adjusting the answers of the interviewees accordingly by proportionally increasing the sizes of both abusive groups (3 and 4) by half of the families currently seen as nonviolent (1 and 2), the change is still enormous. There still remains a reduction of 56% between the generations in the group of abusive families. To summarize, one or two generations previously, a sanction practice was obviously the norm that, compared to our current standards, would not be considered as an extremely abusive group, but rather as representing conventional

44

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childrearing practices. Family violence, therefore, seems to be gradually decreasing. 2.4 The Methodological Problem of Reference For methodological reasons, it would surely be a mistake to view these admissions as "objective" or "true" statements of frequency. These admissions from the interviewees express self-perceptions and therefore self-interpretations of developments. Therefore frequency reports should be interpreted with care. But even, if the frequency of personal experiences of the interviewed parents is underestimated, there now seems to be an orientation in the direction of violencefree childrearing (see, also, Daro & Gelles, 1992). This slight reduction corresponds to a trend also established in other studies (for the U.S.A., Daro & Gelles, 1992, p. 522). One can also say that there is a certain correspondence between the statements of the parents and the adolescent group interviewed by us two years previously. The adolescents reported, on average, an even greater reduction in violence than the group of parents. Precisely these astoundingly less frequent reports of adolescents are interesting and need to be explained. The lower frequencies of the adolescents lead one to suspect a problem in perception that would explain not only the difference between statements by the children and the parents but also the slow reduction in familial violence among the individual age groups. The perception of violence probably depends on the system of reference concerned, as violence cannot simply be observed, but first must be defined (Honig, 1992, p. 371; Neidhardt, 1986). Violence is, therefore, also dependent on the standard of evaluation concerned. Thus, adolescents are oriented to a great extent toward the norms given by their parents, and these, in turn, justify their own parenting and the punishment experiences of the adolescents (see below). In comparison, the parents are oriented more toward the attitudes and norms of their environment than the children and adolescents concerned; which means that they are more capable of perceiving violence. Parents view their style of childrearing more strongly through the eyes of their surroundings, in which a violence-free style is more politically correct. The questioned adolescents tolerate all familial sanctions including physical punishment, independent of their severity, if their parents use them often enough. As shown in our qualitative interviews, the limits of tolerance of the adolescents punished by their parents are reached at different rates: Those who are beaten at home named (shockingly) "being crippled by a beating," whereas others stated that their limits were already reached with "a light slap." Generally, it also became evident that adolescents consider corporal punishment to be more acceptable than adults. See the following comparison of parents' and adolescents attitudes' toward different examples of corporal punishment.

45

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment

Figure 2: Attitudes Toward Parental Corporal Punishment

Slaps Slaps on the bottom Sound slaps

4.2

Beating with a stick on fingers Beating with a stick on the bottom Thrashing

1 correct Adolescents ( N = 2,362)

4

5 "criminal"

Parents (N =1,217)

These results are not surprising from various theoretical perspectives, for example, the theories of moral socialization (cf. Nunner-Winkler, 1992), social learning (Bandura, 1977), legal-sociological norm theory (Popitz, 1980), or social-psychological dissonance theories (Festinger, 1957; Frey, 1979), according to which familial norms are internalized, social habits possess a normative status, or normative dissonances are minimalized. Therefore, the perception of violence is, to a high degree, dependent on the individual system of reference (see Berger & Luckmann, 1980, p. 42) in which the interviewees perceive behavior, such as a box on the ear or a beating. One can assume that the reports about their own experiences in childhood, particularly for the older interviewee groups, also circulate within a different normative reference system. Their memories relate to those experiences they recognized as violence. It is not possible to observe something that belongs to the past. One can only remember the observations. Should it be valid that the attitudes toward abuse have changed, the interviewees remember, in comparison to the present, less violence than they nowadays perceive (see the results of Straus & Donnelly, 1993, p. 425). Therefore, this is not merely "a memory problem," but rather a systematic distortion of timebound reference systems that influence the perception of the interviewees, hi addition, longitudinal studies do not help to overcome this problem in perception, as the interviewees ultimately observe "violence" in timebound categories. The principle problem of reference remains. This has consequences for the interpretation of our data. Today's awareness of violence in families leads to a paradox, that "sweetens" one's own childhood events but regards today's styles of childrearing with critical eyes. The current

46

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more critical attitude has differing effects on childhood memories and the observations of current childrearing practices. The further in the past the childhood experiences lay, the greater the "reference effect" becomes when evaluating the frequency of sanctions. Today's generation of parents, with whom we have already seen a reduction in violent forms of sanctions, are least affected by this "reference effect." However, in those older interviewees whose childhood recollections lay further in the past, a decline in violence becomes more difficult to prove, as their perceptions are based on the very different norms and values of other decades. Summarizing all findings, a relatively slow reduction in violent forms of childrearing can be perceived, not only in attitudes but also in behavior. This reduction, however, seems to occur from generation to generation and not continuously. 2.5 Countertrends and the Cycle of Violence The question of why the change in behavior is taking place relatively slowly allows the further question of whether there are not countertrends, that is, can one assume in any way that parents are raising their children with less violence than they themselves experienced? Can one therefore presume for all parents a positive development, or is there actually a counter-development for some? In order to be able to investigate the shift between personal childhood experiences and one's own child-raising behavior more accurately, we have returned to our previously established sanctions groups. Table 2: Shifts in Sanctioning Styles Across Generations Sanctions experienced / Sanctions used

Sanction-free

No corporal punishment

Sanction-free

21 43.8

15 18.3

No corporal punishment

11 22.9

Conventional

Conventional

Abusive

N %

27 6.2

25 4.1

88 7.5

31 37.8

37 8.5

48 7.8

127 10.8

13 27.1

32 39.0

333 76.9

343 55.7

721 61.2

Abusive

3 6.3

4 4.9

36 8.3

200 32.5

243 20.6

N %

48 4.1

82 7.0

433 36.7

616 52.2

1,179 100.0

The result is. A remarkable percentage of parents could be found who claimed to have received no punishment in their childhood, but hit their own children, and therefore should be classified with the groups of conventional or even abusive parents. These results concur with other studies showing that there are parents

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment

47

who strike their children without having had similar experiences in their own childhood (see Engfer, 1986, p. 244). Also, this group is relatively large. Therefore, from the sanction-free group, a third of the parents are found to be in the conventional group (27.1%) and the abusive group (6.3%), respectively. This countertrend is similarly high in the second group of corporal-punishment-free families: 39% migrated to the third group and 4.9% to the fourth group. The following table shows these countertrends clearly (see Table 2). Approximately one half of those who were most severely and frequently beaten in their childhoods can in fact be counted today among those at a lower level of violence (conventional group 55.7%). A third continue the cycle of physical violence experienced in their own childhoods with their own children, as 32.5% are still to be counted today among those in the fourth group of abusive parents. In comparison to this, 11.9% no longer use physical punishment in raising their children. Additional regression analyses confirm a circular process. Light and severe physical punishment experienced in their own childhood dominates the later parental sanctioning style (see, also, Herrenkohl, et al., 1983; for further studies, see, Milner & Crouch, 1993, pp. 47-48). The "cycle of violence" (Steinmetz, 1977) is by far the strongest in the group of conventional sanction patterns. Over three quarters of those questioned from the conventional sanctions group continue to use this type of parenting on their own children. In addition to "countermovements," a cycle of passing on physical punishment from generation to generation is apparent. Familial abuse in one's own childhood obviously seems to increase the probability of corporal punishment of one's own children. This relationship is valid, in our analysis, not only for abuse but also for other forms of sanctions or parenting styles as well. Individually experienced styles of childrearing preform to a certain extent the later forms used on one's own children. The above-mentioned findings from the interviews with juveniles fit into this picture. As we have already stated, the primary reference system for adolescents to evaluate their parents' childrearing is their own family. On the one hand, the response behavior of the parents points out the effects of social desirability, and therefore indicates a process of social rejection of familial corporal punishment practices. This is a welcome development; on the other hand, these results also indicate a hindrance in the shift of attitudes between the generations. In summery, one can state, on the one hand, that circular processes exist. The next generation of parents must first free itself from its own experiences. On the other hand, there are biographical countermovements that do not allow us to assume as a matter of course that problems of familial abuse of children will gradually disappear by themselves. These countertrends among a large proportion of parents speak for the fact that violence against children in not only slight but also severe forms is based on a normative structure in our society (see, e.g., Frehsee, 1992; Garbarino 1977; Gelles 1993; Schneider 1995; Straus, 1991). These parents do not support violence as a form of childrearing, but still legitimize it sufficiently. Obviously, society lacks reliable and consistent normative basic outlooks on how one should view violence in childrearing. The observed shift in attitudes has not yet settled down to being a socially acceptable norm. The

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participants are obviously able to act with impunity in opposition to these public opinions relatively easily, without having to fear any informal sanctions. Intergenerational inconsistencies are therefore explained, as when parents raised in a nonviolent fashion use physical punishment on their children. It seems quite important in such a societal constellation that the law establishes legally binding, universally valid norms in support of the existing positive outlook, for example, by repealing or drastically limiting the rights of parents or figures of authority to punish children. In the following section, several group-specific problems will be described that limit the effects of legal reform and therefore dampen the accompanying euphoria. The following group-specific evaluations were based on univariate analysis of variance. 3 Group-Specific Problems of Legal Regulation 3.1 Phenomenon Relating to Self-Containment The necessity, and, at the same time, the special problem of legal programs, is based on the social self-containment of the family unit in relation to its environment, which has, till now, been supported by law (Frehsee & Bussmann, 1995; Straus, 1991; concerning familial violence against women, see Yllo & Straus, 1992). This self-containment of families is confirmed empirically in our study. In our given fictitious case of child abuse within the circle of acquaintances, the interviewees were asked about their attitudes and their willingness to intervene. The fourth "abusive" group showed the most strongly developed attitudes against intervention, such as, "How children are reared in other families is no business of mine," or, "The parents must have a good reason." hi our fictitious case of child abuse, this group, in addition, were least inclined to change the circumstances of other familial relationships, that is, get involved. This group also showed the greatest restraint toward the advisory services of the youth offices or child protection centers and were most aware of negative consequences in the neighborhood. The fourth group of parents also expressed the strongest objections to legal interventions in the private area of childrearing. 3.2 Level of Education and Social Background Furthermore, we investigated whether childrearing violence is equally part of all population groups, that is, ubiquitous. The latest research on "The Myth of Classness" (the title of Pelton & Trenton, 1978) is not homogeneous (see, also, Straus & Donnelly, 1993). The results of our study show the necessity of differentiating between minor and severe forms of maltreatment. The results of our surveys of both juveniles and adults show that minor corporal punishments such as a slap are distributed almost evenly over all social classes (on class, see Engfer, 1986). However, in spite of such a similar distribution it cannot be ignored that minor and especially severe forms of corporal punishment are used significantly

49

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment

frequently in lower-class families as a disciplinary style (on SES, cf. Straus & Donnelly, 1993). Further analyses of variance have revealed that particularly the feature 'school education' is responsible for the differences, as compared to professional education and professional status. In order to exercise minor forms of corporal sanctions, it is less crucial what kind of professional status or professional education one has achieved but rather what form of school education has been acquired during adolescence. The dependency of the frequency and the severity of sanctionings on the standard of education is revealed by the four sanction groups (see, also the resource theory by Goode, 1971, p. 633). The self-reports by parents confirm that in the fourth group, a lower level of education is overproportionally represented; whereas in the violence-free and in the sanction-free groups, a higher level of education is more frequent. Figure 3: Educational Degree and Groups of Familial Sanctions

Sanctionless Education

5.8

Education free of Corporal Sanctions Conventional Education

Violent Education

40

50

60

70%

N = 1,818 Parents

Low

Medium

•

High

In our survey of juveniles, those with a 10th grade education (leaving school at the age of 16) reported the highest number of incidents of severe corporal punishment. Once again, based on our four sanction groups, we find correspondingly that students who graduate from schools with university entrance qualifications report the lowest percentage of maltreatment, that is, belong to the fourth group of abusive families (11.1%), whereas the former group of students (10th grade education) have the highest percentage (23.5%): Children and juveniles from families with to some extent severe forms of violent sanctions are overpropor-

50

Kai-D. Bussmann

tionally represented in the group of students with less education. Those with intermediate school-leaving certificates are found to be between these two groups. The interdependence of level of education and forms of violence, especially severe ones, leads one to the somewhat unfortunate suspicion, that it is precisely these important target groups that would be least affected by legal programs such as the abolition of the right to corporal punishment. At the very least, it would require a special effort in public awareness campaigns to reach these groups, because, as we know from research on the effects of media concerning the theory of the knowledge gap, disparities in the transmission of information result from, on the one hand, uneven media reporting, and, on the other, from factors on the side of the recipients (Bonfadelli, 1987, p. 306; Meyn, 1990, p. 193). The desired legislative impact is to be expected primarily in the legal target group, which in comparison, are least affected by these regulations. 3.3 Group-Specific Attitudes If one compares these four groups only with regard to their attitudes, they are not so very different from one another - there is no serious, irreconcilable gap between them - however, there is a great difference in practice, especially between those groups that use corporal punishment in childrearing and those that do not. The abusive group of families proves to be the most problematic, differing most from the other groups. The actual target group of legal reforms is least open to the abolition to or limitation of the right to corporal punishment. This group is least likely to condemn corporal punishment, which is hardly surprising, as it is commonly practiced by them. In their opinion, light corporal punishment is considered "OK" to the highest degree of all four groups. Their patterns of justification are also worth considering. The fourth group advocates most often light physical punishment in childrearing on the grounds that "hitting one's own child is not really the same thing as hitting an adult," or "a few slaps are better than not talking to one's children," or also "sometimes the best way to set limits is a few slaps." Therefore the fourth group displays a range of attitudes that presents barriers to establishing legal norms. Precisely this main target group deviates most strongly in many ways from the other groups of parents. 3.4 Violence Instead of Psychological Sanctions or Prohibitions? Last of all, we examined the possible thesis that parents who refrain from corporal punishment use other forms of sanctions more frequently instead. The results from our standardized adolescent and adult surveys show, on the contrary, that in the fourth group of relatively abusive families, not only does severe punishment occur, but also a relatively high percentage of other sanctions in comparison to the other groups of families. There is a positive relationship between violence and

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment

51

other familial sanctions: The more often violence is used, the more often other forms of sanctions are found. However, a substitution effect cannot be excluded. On the basis of our data, this thesis is, however, not very plausible. If, for example, it is possible to lower the abuse niveau in childrearing through legal reform programs, we believe there would be a positive rather than a negative effect on the other forms of sanctions. 4 The Impact of Legal Restrictions on Familial Corporal Punishment 4.1 Regulation by Law? In general, one could assume, on the basis of changing attitudes toward violence in childrearing and the intergenerational shift in the direction of minor forms of abuse or a total rejection of corporal punishment, that the chances for the reception of a legal abolition of the right to corporal punishment - as already in force in Sweden (Durrani, this volume; Edfeldt, this volume) and in 1989 in Austria - are all in all, satisfactory. On the other hand, numerous obstacles are apparent, which allow doubts as to the efficacy of a legal prohibition of corporal punishment. On the one hand, discontinuities on the behavioral level and circular trends within the intergenerational shift process can be observed that leave room for doubt as to whether a legal prohibition can be successful. Attitudes toward corporal punishment clearly indicate a certain intergenerational instability, and correspond only to a minor degree with the actual use of violence. On the other hand, problem groups were identified, which are conspicuous through their relatively high incidence of violence used in raising their children. Moreover, this actual primary target group of abusive families features social characteristics and attitudes that further support doubts as to whether a prohibition of corporal punishment can be successful. Society can endeavor to intervene in this gradual normative process of change by stabilizing and supporting, both in the form of public discourse and by legal restrictions on private parental areas of childrearing. However, it is a very modern and new strategy to attempt to regulate social problems by law. Even classic juridicial sociology was, in its time, still of the opinion that the law was incapable of causing social changes (Ehrlich, 1913; Seagle, 1952; Sumner, 1906). According to this opinion, observing laws has to do with the conformity of the legal norm with already existing social norms. In the meantime, this pessimistic thesis has yielded to the view that law should rather be used as a means to intentionally cause social change (Friedmann, 1969; see, also, the papers collected in Rehbinder & Schelsky, 1972). Doubts, however, with regard to the regulatory potential of this law have remained for both criminologists (e.g. Schumann, 1987, 1989) and juridicial sociologists (see, e.g., the discussions in Rottleuthner, 1989; Teubner, 1992).

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4.2 Corporal Punishment in Schools The question regarding the effects of an injunction on corporal punishment should be investigated first in another domain of childhood and adolescent educational experiences in which the prohibition of corporal punishment has already been established. Since 1977, teachers are restrained under German law from the right to use corporal punishment; it is therefore astounding that 11.5% of adolescents could report having been struck during their education by both male and female teachers. Moreover, 3% of students reported having had such experiences repeatedly. A comparison of their familial and educational experiences shows impressively the considerable discrepancy between family and school childrearing practices, as more than 80% of adolescents experienced being struck by their parents. Furthermore, we inquired about being beaten with a stick or similar object, which is a form of punishment common throughout the entire school history, as shown impressively throughout the literature (Aries, 1988; Drechsel, 1985; Radbill, 1978). This form of punishment at school has, however, not vanished completely; but for today's generation of students, these forms of corporal punishments are extreme exceptions, contrary to their domestic experiences. Only 2.3% of the interviewees could report such incidents. However, education is far from sanction-free, as the qualitative interviews proved. Only 7.3% of the adolescents surveyed reported never having had any sanctions. "Detention" was reported as the most frequent sanction (67.6%). "Imposition of extra assignments" was the second most frequent form of sanction named in our study. More than one half of the students (55.8%) reported being punished by having to write the most boring possible texts or sentences over and over. Imposition of punishments such as "cafeteria duties" or "janitorial duties" are also relatively prominent (30.8%) and therefore take third place. Only 19.1% of the students interviewed reported occasionally having been sent out of the classroom as a further sanction. Due to the rather marginal significance of corporal punishment within the general spectrum of educational disciplinary actions, one could also draw conclusions about the potential effect of the prohibition of corporal punishment in familial childrearing. However, the fact that one cannot compare the degree of liberties of teachers at school with those of parents at home speaks against it. Within the school system, there are numerous control agencies such as principals or supervisory boards, all watching over the prohibition of corporal punishment, and all able to institute disciplinary procedings by means of formal measures. In addition, parents can easily be informed by their children of incidents of being struck, and have the right to legal intervention. All of these control mechanisms do not exist in everyday familial childrearing. In the final analysis, the family is characterized by a higher degree of self-containment (see above), which is also supported by law. Nevertheless, if one compares the punishment practices of teachers with those of other adults outside the family circle, who are also legally restricted from using force, the level of abuse of teachers ranks below that of the average population. Thus 18.6% of adolescents have been struck at least once by other adults

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment

53

(strangers, neighbors, relatives, etc.,) and somewhat under 6% reported repeated experiences of this. The lower incidence of violence by teachers is probably due to the higher control level at schools. By comparing the level of violence of parents with that of other adult groups, the risk of children and adolescents being struck by an adult is somewhat greater in the family. In those places in which the law permits a legal private area for adults by means of a suspension of the common interdiction against violence, violence has a relatively greater impact on relationships between adults and children. This correspondence speaks in favor of the impact of legal interdictions, in spite of the stated restrictions. 4.3 Law as a Communication Medium As much as this comparison between school and family advocates the abolition of the parental right of corporal punishment, doubts remain, nonetheless, as to the benefits of such an abolition, since families cannot be controlled institutionally in the same way as schools. On the one hand, a special protection of the family from governmental intervention is, in principle, obligatory, as it is embodied in Article 6 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. On the other hand, governmental interventions in family life are often dysfunctional. The deterrent effect of legal prohibitions is kept within reasonable limits, as one can assume that nobody favors the State Attorney entering the child's room. Most advocates, therefore, believe more in the efficiency of public information campaigns (e.g., Daro & Gelles, 1992). Precisely the effects of an enforcement of the prohibition of corporal punishment, including minor forms, does not allow the belief that legal sanctions would function as a deterrent for families. It seems necessary to develop a different understanding of the impact of law, if precisely those weakest members within the family unit should not be further excluded from legal protection regarding the general prohibition against violence. A theoretical approach is desired: one that avoids stressing more than is necessary the importance of legal professions and institutions, that is, formal social control. A new legal concept is required, evaluating law more strongly as a normative structure within society. Indications in this direction, such as the "Cultural Spillover Theory" of Straus (see, also, Gelles, 1993), and other similar theories focusing on cultural justification (see, e.g., Garbarino, 1977), assume the normative processes of transference within society (here, the justification of violence and corporal punishment, see Straus, 1991, p. 137). The law in juridicial sociology is more often regarded as only a structure (Peters, 1991, p. 282; Rottleuthner, 1992, p. 136) or as a discursive resource (Teubner, 1992) and provision of regulations, that draws its own individual picture of reality while, at the same time, pervasively forming and constituting this world (Hunt, 1993, p. 301; Mclntyre, 1994, p. 109). In spite of such an understanding of law as structure, one should, however, be careful of giving the law a blank check for integrative functions. This postulated integration mechanism demands an empirically provable theory. I see the way principally in a communicative-theoretical understanding of law that aims to differentiate between law as an institutional resource for regulating conflicts in

54

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the sense of legal mobilization, on the one hand, and law as a communicative resource with a highly symbolic meaning, on the other. As a theory, I suggest an application of the approach of the symbolically generalized media of communication, as first developed by Parsons. Classic communications media, since Parsons (1980, p. 57, for an overview see Kunzler, 1989) are: "money," "power," "influence," and "commitments." In the latest German media theories, law is also regarded as a more or less independent medium of communication (see Esser, 1993, p. 537; Habermas, 1985, Vol. II, p. 384; Luhmann, 1991; Munch, 1992; Willke, 1991, p. 156). hi general, media are viewed as "special languages," or as an extra vehicle for languages, that enable a reduction in the communicative problems of societies. Money is one example here, which Parsons took as a model for the development of media theories. Media transmit highly compromised information, which, due to its symbolic form, can be reused and can become long chains of communication within a society, without having to redefine new contents of communication (Willke, 1991, p. 161). It is sufficient to communicate in cases of conflict by means of legal categories or terms evaluated by law, so that the legal recipient inevitably moves within the semantic and programatic construction of legal systems, and is tied to the law by means of communication. Therefore, the basic idea is that law does not "guide" or "steer" the behavior of the protagonists - all criminological research has shown that there is a limit here but as an institutional medium of communication, it can, to a high degree, influence it. Its fundamental suitability for having an impact on the communication and perceptions of the protagonists, even within relatively closed subsystems such as families, should, however, not be underestimated. Two levels can be distinguished on the basis of this communicative-theoretical understanding of law: a perceptual-psychological effect, and a discursive effect. 4.4 The Effect of Legal Norms in Terms of Psychology of Perception Our survey of the definitions of "violence" used by the interviewees indicates how the normative structure of society affects one and the same act. If one assumes that the use of the term "violence" contains a value judgment and cannot be considered as a simple perception, then surveys on the use of language are indicated. We have therefore surveyed the differing terms for violence in different social situations. The following diagram indicates that all those actions that are legally prohibited can at best be defined as violence. As the slap from parents is justified by law, this activity was regarded by most interviewees as not very violent. This changes, if parents do not punish their children for educational but for personal reasons (like being stressed). The different judgment of an "unfounded" and a "justified" slap indicates the importance of a legitimation. This allows the assumption that the teacher's slap in the face is only considered a form of violence because it is no longer allowed in Germany. The law obviously supplies one important justification.

55

Changes in Family Sanctioning Styles and the Impact of Abolishing Corporal Punishment

Figure 4: The Concept of Violence in Various Social Contexts Parents: Slap on the Bottom Parents: "Justified" slap Parents: Thrashing Parents: "Unfounded" slap Parents: Remaining silent for two days Peers/Children: Slap Teacher: Remaining silent for two days Teacher: Slap Superior at work: Slap 1 2 definitely no violence

6

7 defenitely violence

N = 2,953

Therefore, the medium of law functions exclusively by making a linguistic space available through its code, that is, a semantic, instrument that defines the interpretations and reality constructions of the targeted legal recipients (Esser, 1993, p. 517, 537). Thus, law can only be effective by achieving an influence on the reference system of the protagonists concerned. Law can shift their horizons, or the reference points of their perceptions. The impact of law can be demonstrated, in a simplification, by means of the media theory as follows: Law

Terms/Definitions

Attitudes

Behavior

On the basis of multiple regression analyses, which cannot be presented here in detail, this chain of relationships could be proved. On the other hand, the direct influence of the law on childraising behavior was, as expected, only weakly developed. Communication media, once introduced into the world, direct our communication from a very early stage. This communicative meaning of (criminal) law therefore becomes an important element in the argument for the abolition of the right to corporal punishment. The fact alone that certain actions are now part of a general prohibition of violence and can be defined as criminal offenses creates an orientation in the desired direction. The juridicial evaluations, that is, other definitions in communication and in the observations of activities as well, have succeeded. The impact of law on the perceptions of others can be read off from the subjective perceptions of adults regarding the legal position of children in our society. In our survey of adults, we posed questions about the legal rights of children and

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adolescents in various conflicts with adults (neighbors, teachers, department store detectives). It was interesting that a comparison of our four parental groups revealed that precisely the fourth sanction group granted children and adolescents the least measure of formal rights. This group regards children and adolescents as having no legal rights. One could say that they are here regarded as "social furniture " (Hurrelmann, 1989), not only within but also outside of the family circle. A connection is therefore established between the legal position of the children as perceived by their parents, and the familial level of violence. 4.5 Law as Discursive Resource The achievements of the law not only allow description on a dimension that is rather more based on the psychology of perception, but also with the development of conflicts. Conflicts, and thus expectations, can occur in different reference systems, and can be linked to different forms of discourse: to legal discourse and common social everyday discourse, or to other social systems such as family or religion (cf. Teubner, 1990, p. 134; see, also, Luhmann, 1987). Within families, according to the differential research of Tapp and Levine (1977) and Parke (1977), it is valid that children and adolescents should be able to claim their rights during interactions by articulating expectations with regard to permission and interdiction. In our key interviews, 76% of adolescents reported that they would indeed inform their parents about their rights in appropriate situations, if such legal prohibition of corporal punishment existed. In the case of a being hit by a teacher, almost all interviewees stated that they would make a complaint to their parents or school authorities. For this reason, one cannot preclude that the missing link between the children, and the validity of the law concerning corporal punishment, can be found in the lack of clarity and the lack of publicity for present legal regulations. The introduction of legal judgments cannot, in the end, prevent abusive attacks from parents, but it helps to make the justification of violence in childrearing more difficult. Even the possibility of being in the wrong can endanger the normative consensus within families (Luhmann, 1981, p. 58). The thematizing of legal limits or the prohibition of corporal punishment, but also the refusal to speak about such limits or name such prohibitions, demands justification (Tapp & Levine, 1977; Parke, 1977; Straus, 1991). If parents depart from the social and legal norms of their environments, they are put under pressure to defend themselves, which they would be unable to do by indicating external norms. Law, therefore, does not only weigh down conflicts; it also brings relief for all parties (cf. Luhmann, 1981, p. 104; see, also, below). A restriction on or, possibly, a complete abolition of the parental right to corporal punishment, can deny parents the right to justify their behavior, and can offer abused children a resource for argumentation in familial discourse (see, also, Luhmann, 1981, p. 62; Parke, 1977).

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4.6 The Problem of Acceptance and the Impact on the Primary Target Group On the basis of a media-theoretical understanding, one finally arrives at a different construction of the acceptance problem. Not all legal recipients, particularly, not all parent groups, must agree fully with an abolition of the right to corporal punishment. According to media theory, the acceptance of a legal norm in the traditional sense is not really important, but rather solely how the code is communicated. This effect can be made clear by giving an example using "money" as a medium. One can be critical of money, even rejecting or completely disapproving of it, and still be forced to deal with it in interactions with other protagonists and social systems in everyday life, and therefore, in this sense, have to accept it. The positive acceptance from the greatest possible number of protagonists is no longer relevant. It may therefore be sufficient if some of the conflict participants, in this case, abused children and adolescents, introduce this legal difference between permitted and prohibited forms of sanctions into family discussions. Just as it is difficult to block communication in general, so can family members functioning within the social system of family only with difficulty reject attempts to bring up the mention of legal measures and therefore of legal differentiations. This method would increase the chances for legal rights to penetrate into even those family discussions in the groups labeled as "conventional" and "abusive." Consequently, abusive parents would be forced to consider the abused child's broader legal definition of violence. The legal effects, therefore, would tend to be reinforced by the fact that people have a tendency to orient themselves toward the norms of their environments (Tapp & Kohlberg, 1977, p. 105), and it is here that we found an opportune starting point to begin our survey. Even when law cannot rely on support from the actual target group, as has been demonstrated here on different dimensions, one should not underestimate the subtle effect of legal reform. Additional drawbacks to the abolition of the right to corporal punishment are not present. The fear that children could, in the future, too quickly sue their parents when they "break the rules" is ungrounded, according to juridicial-sociological studies. These surveys prove that the tendency to file suit occurs much less often in permanent relationships (for companies, see, e.g., Macaulay, 1963). It is, of course, intended that abolishing the legal right to corporal punishment should break down the wall of silence. This effect will take root more strongly when grounded in and supported by alternative assistance agencies, protection centers, and counseling centers established and funded by law, such as battered children's shelters, child protection centers, and counseling services, as we have learned from juridicial-sociological studies on conflict development and conflict processes (Miller & Sarat, 1981). Miller and Sarat point to low "claim rates" with problems of discrimination against women and minorities (1981, p. 563), due to a lack of corresponding "remedies." Not every legal reform of the right to corporal punishment, however, has this the desired positive effect. Although a legal prohibition of child abuse as planned by the Federal Republic of Germany (so-called Prohibition of Abuse Law) would raise public consciousness, it would not reach the actual problem groups. The latter would require regulation, which reduces the leeway of interpretation to a

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minimum. The varying definitions of abuse are too different among the individual groups at present, (see, also, Straus & Donnelly, 1993, p. 425). As the first three sanction groups show a considerable consensus on the definitions of abuse, it is not surprising that precisely the abusive fourth group has a milder definition of abuse. For this reason, the children and the adolescents affected do not receive binding external criteria of evaluation, which in turn upgrades the validity of the parents' attitudes. The broad range of interpretation also leads to the fact that those groups of parents that the German government most strongly wants to reach and set limits for by drafting reform are precisely those that may feel themselves least affected. Also from their point of view, this legal reform may not mean any changes. Even if law wants first and foremost to be symbolic, precisely because it does not wish to invade the privacy of the child's bedroom by sending in the State Attorney, it must strive for clear legal limitations and not leave juridicial interpretation to the target group. References Aries, P. (1988): Geschichte der Kindheit. München. Bandura, A. (1977): Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs. Beck, U. (1986): Risikogesellschaft. Frankfurt/M. Berger, P. L. & Lucktnann, T. (1980): Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion von Wirklichkeit. Eine Theorie der Wissensssoziologie. Frankfurt/M. (orig.: The Social Construction of Reality. Garden City, New York, 1966). Bonfadelli, H. (1987): Die Wissenskluftforschung. In M. Schenk (Ed.): Medienwirkungsforschung (pp. 305-323). Tübingen. Daro, D. & Gelles, R. J. (1992): Public attitudes and behaviors with respect to children abuse prevention. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 7, 517-531. Drechsel, W. U. (1985): Aus der Geschichte der Schuldisziplin. In: Diskurs: Bremer Beiträge zu Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft; Thema: Schule, Erziehung und Gewalt, Vol. 9 (pp. 82-101). Bremen. Dutton, D. G. & McGregor, B. M. S. (1992): Psychological and legal dimensions of family violence. In D. K. Kagehiro & W. S. Laufer (Eds.): Handbook of psychology and law (pp. 318340). New York, et al. Ehrlich, E. (1913): Grundlegung der Soziologie des Rechts. Berlin. Elias, N. (1976, 1988): Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation. Vol. l und 2. Frankfurt/M. Engfer, A. (1986): Kindesmjßhandlung. Stuttgart. Esser, H. (1993): Soziologie. Allgemeine Grundlagen. Frankfurt/M. Festinger, L. (1957): A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford Frehsee, D. & Bussmann, K.-D. (1995): The impact of law within the family. Legal status of children and violence toward children. EuroCriminology, 8-9, 109-125. Frehsee, D. (1992): Die staatliche Förderung familiärer Gewalt an Kindern. Kriminologisches Journal, 37-49. Frey, D. (1979): Dissonanztheoretische Forschung: Ein Überblick. In S. Hormuth (Ed.): Sozialpsychologie der Einstellungsänderung (pp. 30-49). Königstein.

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Friedmann, L. M. (1972): Einige Bemerkungen über eine allgemeine Theorie des rechtsrelevanten Verhaltens. In M. Rehbinder, H. Schelsky (Eds.): Zur Effektivität des Rechts, Jahrbuch für Rechtssoziologie, 3 (pp. 206-224). Düsseldorf. Garbarino, J. (1977): The human ecology of child maltreatment: A conceptual model for research. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 33, 1, 721-735. Gelles, R. J. (1993): Family violence. In R. L. Hampton, T. P. Gullotta (Eds.): Family violence, prevention and treatment (pp. 1-24). Newbury Park, et al. Goode, W. J. (1971): Force and violence in the family. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 33, 1, 624-635. Habermas, J. (1985): Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Handlungsrationalität und gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung, Vol. l und 2. Frankfurt/M. Herrenkohl, E. C., Herrenkohl, R. C., & Toedter, L. J. (1983): Perspectives on the intergenerational transmission of abuse. In D. Finkelhor, R. J. Gelles, G. T. Hotaling, & M. A. Straus (Eds.): The dark side of families (pp. 305-316). Beverly Hills, et al. Herz, T. A. (1987): Werte, sozio-politische Konflikte und Generationen. Zeitschrift fur Soziologie, 56-69. Honig, M.-S. (1992): Verhäuslichte Gewalt, mit einem Nachwort zur Taschenbuchausgabe: Sexuelle Gewalt von Kindern. Frankfurt/M. Hunt, A. (1993): Law as a constitutive mode of regulation. In A. Hunt (Ed.): Explorations in law and society (pp. 310-333). New York, London. Hurrelmann, K. (1989): Gewalt in der Familie. Jugendschutz, 34, 10-18. Inglehart, R. (1971): The silent revolution in Europe: Intergenerational change in post-industrial societies. A merican Political Review, 991-1017. Inglehart, R. (1977): The Silent Revolution. Princeton. Inglehart, R. (1989): Kultureller Umbruch. Frankfurt/M., New York. Klages, H. (1985): Wertorientierungen im Wandel. Rückblick, Gegenwartsanalyse, Prognose. Frankfurt/M., New York. Künzler, J. (1989): Medien und Gesellschaft. Die Medienkonzepte von Talcott Parsons, Jürgen Habermas und Niklas Luhmann. Stuttgart. Lüdke, A. & Lindenberger, T. (1995): Die Sprachlosigkeit der rituellen "kleinen Gewalt" - ein Beispiel. In A. Lüdke & T. Lindenberger (Eds.): Physische Gewalt. Eine historische Kontinuität der Moderne. Frankfurt/M. Luhmann, N. (1981). Kommunikation über Recht in Interaktionssystemen. In N. Luhmann (Ed.): Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts, Beiträge zur Rechtssoziologie (pp. 53-72). Frankfurt/M. Luhmann, N. (1987): Closure and openness: On reality in the world of law. In G. Teubner (Ed.): Autopoietic law: A new approach to law and society (pp. 335-348). Berlin. Luhmann, N. (1991): Einfuhrende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie symbolisch generalisierter Kommunikation. In N. Luhmann: Soziologische Aufklärung; Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft 2 (pp. 170-192). Opladen. Macaulay, S. (1963). Non-contractual relations in business: A preliminary study. American Sociological Review, 28, 55-67. Mclntyre, L. J. (1994): Law in the sociological enterprise. A reconstruction, San Francisco, Oxford. Meinefeld, W. (1977) : Einstellung und soziales Handeln. Reinbek. Melton, G. B. (1992). Children as legal actors. In D. K. Kagehiro & W. S. Laufer (Eds.): Handbook of psychology and law (pp. 275-291). New York, et al. Meulemann, H. (1985): Wertwandel in der Bundesrepublik zwischen 1959 und 1980: Versuch einer zusammenfassenden Deutung vorliegender Zeitreihen. In D. Oberndörfer, H. Rattinger,

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& K. Schmitt (Eds.): Wirtschaftlicher Wandel, religiöser Wandel und Wertwandel (pp. 391411). Berlin. Meyn, H. (1990): Massenmedien in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Berlin. Miller, R. E. & Sarat, A. (1981). Grievances, claims and disputes: Assessing the adversary culture. Law and Society Review, 15, 525-566. Milner, J. S. & Crouch, J. L. (1993): Physical child abuse. In R. L. Hampton, T. P. Gullotta, G. R. Adams, E. H. Potter HI, & R. P. Weissberg: Family violence. Prevention and treatment (pp. 47-48). Newbury Park, et al. Münch, R. (1992): Recht als Medium der Kommunikation. Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie, 6587. Neidhardt, F. (1986): Gewalt - Soziale Bedeutungen und sozialwissenschaftliche Bestimmungen des Begriffs. In Bundeskriminalamt (Ed.): Was ist Gewalt? Wiesbaden. Newell, P. (1989): Children are people too. The case against physical punishment. London. Nunner-Winkler, G. (1992): Zur Moralischen Sozialisation. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 252-272. Parke, R. D. (1977). Socialization into child abuse. A social interactional perspective. In J. L. Tapp & F. J, Levine (Eds.): Law, justice and the individual in society. Psychological and legal issues (pp. 183-197). New York, et al. Parsons, T. (1980): Zur Theorie der sozialen Interaktionsmedien. Opladen. (orig. from 1975: Social structure and the symbolic media of interchange. In P. Blau (Ed.): Approaches to the study of social structure (pp. 94-120). New York). Pelton, L. H. & Trenton, N. J. (1978): Kindesmißhandlung und -Vernachlässigung: Der Mythos der Schichtunabhängigkeit. In Familiendynamik, 4, 303-317. (orig. from 1978: Child abuse and neglect: The myth of classness. American Journal ofOrthopsychiatry, 48, 608-617. Peters, B. (1991): Rationalität, Recht und Gesellschaß. Frankfurt/M. Popitz, H. (1980): Die normative Konstruktion von Gesellschaft. Tübingen. Radbill, S. X. (1978): Mißhandlung und Kindestötung in der Geschichte. In R. E. Helfer & C. H. Kempe: Das geschlagene Kind (pp. 37-65). Frankfurt/M. (orig. from 1968: The Battered Child. Chicago). Rehbinder, M. & Schelsky, H. (Eds.) (1972): Zur Effektivität des Rechts, Jahrbuch für Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie, 3. Düsseldorf. Reuband, K.-H. (1992): Veränderungen in den familialen Lebensbedingungen Jugendlicher seit der Jahrhundertwende. Eine Analyse auf der Basis retrospektiver Daten. Zeitschrift für Sozlalisationsforschung und Erziehungsoziologie, 99-113. Rottleuthner, H. (1989): The limits of law: The myth of a regulatory crisis. International Journal of Sociology, 77,273-285. Rottleuthner, H. (1992): Grenzen rechtlicher Steuerung - Und Grenzen von Theorien darüber. ARSP-Beiheft, 54, 123-139. Schneider, U. (1995): Gewalt in der Familie. Gruppendynamik, 26, 41-62. Schulze, G. (1993): Die Erlebnisgesellschaft, 4. Auflage. Frankfurt/M. Schumann, K. F. (1987): Jugendkriminalität und die Grenzen der Generalprävention. Neuwied, Darmstadt. Schumann, K. F. (1989): Positive Generalprävention, Ergebnisse und Chancen der Forschung. Heidelberg. Seagle, W. (1952): Law. The science of inefficiency. New York Six, B. (1980): Das Konzept der Einstellung und seine Relevanz für die Vorhersage des Verhaltens. In F. Petermann (Ed.): Einstellungsmessung - Einstellungsforschung (pp. 55-85). Göttingen.

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Steinmetz, S. K. (1977): The cycle of violence. Assertive, aggressive, and abusive family interaction. New York, London. Stocks, J. T. (1988): Feedback. Has family violence decreased? A reassessment of the Straus and Gelles data. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 50, 281 -291. Straus, M. A. & Donnelly, D. A. (1993): Corporal punishment of adolescents by American parents. Youth & Society, 24, 419-442. Straus, M. A. & Gelles, R. J. (1986): Societal change and change in family violence from 1975 to 1985. As revealed by two national surveys. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 465-479. Straus, M. A. (1991): Discipline and deviance: Physical punishment of children and violence and other crime in adulthood. Social Problems, 133-154. Sumner, W. G. (1906/1940): Folkways. A study of the sociological importance of usages, manners, customs mores, and morals. Boston. Tapp, J. L. & Kohlberg, L. (1977): Developing senses of law and legal justice. In J. L. Tapp & F. J. Levine (Eds.): Law, justice, and the individual in society. Psychological and legal issues (pp. 89-105). New York, et al. Tapp, J. L. & Levine, F. J. (1977): The dialectic of legal socialisation in community and school. In J. L. Tapp & F. J. Levine (Eds.): Law, justice, and the individual in society. Psychological and legal issues (pp. 163-182). New York, et al. Teubner, G. (1990): Die Episteme des Rechts. Zu erkenntnistheoretischen Grundlagen des reflexiven Rechts. In D. Grimm (Ed.): Wachsende Staatsaufgaben - sinkende Steuerungsfähigkeit des Rechts (pp. 115-154). Baden-Baden. Teubner, G. (1992): Regulatory law: Chronicle of a death foretold. Social & Legal Studies, J, 451-475. Willke, H. (1991). Systemtheorie. Eine Einführung in die Grundprobleme der Theorie sozialer Systeme. Stuttgart, New York. Yllo, K. A. & Straus, M. A. (1992): Patriarchy and violence against wives: The impact of structural and normative factors. In M. A. Straus & R. J. Gelles (Eds.): Physical violence in American families (pp. 283-299). New Brunswick, London.

B Attitudes and Discourses

Talking About Violence Heinz Steinert

Undoubtedly we live in a violent world, at the end of a violent century. But currently, brutality is first and foremost represented as entertainment and one rather "talks" about violence: Violence is attributed to undesirable groups of people. Certain states of the society are criticized by debigrating it as "violence". In public or private discussions violence appears as at least the second most important subject, turned to with pleasure. And even the violent actors "speak" through their violent acts - and they talk about them. In the following this diverse "discourse" shall be straightened out a little. First the "Fight against Violence" shall be analyzed. It will be shown how the citizens are reproached violence by the state and of what use this is within the competition of the political parties. The "strong state" and its populist mobilization are the price we pay for those political games. Then the rather private "Fight against Violence" will be acknowledged, especially by describing the factions into which it can be devided and their impetus. It seems that the issue here is a moral fight of the educated, and especially of the educated women, against the less educated and especially the men among them. To those lower-class men and their use and threat of violence is payed further attention. It turns out that they, too, employ violence and the talk about it as politics; that they obviously imagine the possibility of a coalition, within which they perform what the polititians just do not dare to do. There are two syndroms here: diffuse right-wing gangs of thugs that use violence expressively, and purposeful xenophobic single fighters who act rather instrumentally - "right-wing populists" on the one hand and "chauvinists of an affluent society" on the other. They are no losers of the modernization process, but rather relatively successful people who claim to represent the master race. But for both the acknowledgement of a rough and tough worker's manliness, that, with the devaluation of physical work in our type of society (and even more so in the ex-communist states) has lost its social meaning in comparison with women and the educated is at stake. Violence and xenophobia are attempts to enforce the reestablishment of this manliness. 1 The Fight Against Violence: The State From its very beginning the civil state has never been constructed in a pacifist manner: It does not abandon violence, it monopolizes it. When they "up there" moan about violence we should not take it too literally: Actually it is all about

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being in charge of violence - it should be with the state and defmetely not within the power of some private individuals. Of course, a certain problem has occurred here, especially for Germany: Ever since the Nazis the state has been especially suspicious, and, in addition, all kinds of nonstate-violence are equally suspicious. At the core of this problem lie the different interpretations of the Nazi-Regime: On the one hand it was the excess of statepower, on the other it was its usurpation by "private" violence and brutality. Accordingly, on the one hand state-violence has to be controlled and reduced, whereas on the other hand it has to be strong enough to suppress all private violence. All this is unfortunately connected with another difference within the problem of identifying the actual location of the danger of violence: For some this danger lies with the Know-Nothings and the New Right that are special advocates for a strong state, for others it lies with the chaotic dogmatists who want to weaken the state with anti-authoritarism and who are alternately either "remotecontrolled" or used as "fine idiots", but anyway, from and by "the other side". Nowadays, after the dissolution of "the other side", the "organized crime" fullfills this lack. One can easily imagine what happens when these two positions towards violence are negotiated: one group wants to oppose it massively and as early as possible and for that reason they have to expand the concept as to provide the possibility for "strong" reactions. Exactly this actually happened: For a long time in Germany, "sitting" on railroads and in front of military buildings has been regarded as "violence" and the use of a crash helmet to protect oneself from police nightsticks as "passive arming". This has nothing in common any more with the usual meaning of "violence". To others those kinds of definitions of the monopoly of violence, easily perceivable as being rather arbitrary, confirm, together with their performances, what they had been afraid of: Statepower hypertrophies. Ever since the "Notstandsgesetze" and the dissolution of political opposition through the great coalition, the reaction to this has been the panic attempt to prevent the threat of a state predominance by establishing a strong extraparliamentary opposition. To the other side, in return, this becomes a proof of the fact that the statepower is too weak and that there are dangerous movements out there preventing it from becoming stronger. So one has to put extra energy in expanding its functions and means. Above that one has to fight those movements, one has to defame and to criminalize them by reproaching them with "violence", one has to turn especially the pacifists into sympathizers and ideological precursors of violence. - This discourse of violence is bound to create trouble. It has always been part of a populist resentment to locate the strangers and dissidents in the upper class, to identify them with "intellectuals, "Jews", "Freemasons" on the one hand, with "usurers and exploiters" or, today, "dealers" and "pimps" on the other, in short: to regard them as corruptionists with a thick wallett who never worked hard for it (which in our country seems to be the only normal way to a thick wallett). The frustrating part of this resentment is the fact that it starts with definitely real disadvantages and offendings that keep nurturing it, but that it turns its anger towards weak and helpless people - or at least that it can be turned that way very easily by populist agitators. This resentment is further characterized by a will to impose a certain lifestyle on "others" rather than to

Talking About Violence

change its own. This often means that the (imagined) freedom of others, a freedom oneself never had, is to be taken away from them. A spured resentment, once gone crazy, also leads to (collective) actions that imitate state actions (as punishments, executions, Police actions), thereby gaining a certain claim to legitimacy. Usually these actions are in need of at least an imagined, but in most cases even realistic authorization. 2 The Fight Against Violence: Morally Entrepreneurial Among the groups that are especially engaged in the fight against public representations of sex and violence one can identify two major variations: The "social educators" and the "resentment faction". The social educators treat the public representation of sex and violence first of all in a reductive way: What and how much of it is reasonable for people to see? In this context it is acknowledged that the world is full of horror and lecherousness, but that is not considered to be a reason for going into it or informing about it more than necessary, nor for representing it in a shocking way, because that would add an imaginative sadness tothe real one. The real sadness is too big as to expose oneself to it in any other than a serious, rational and tragic way. The next step is a fear that people might start enjoying the subject through its representation and developing a wish to try it by themselves, which would spur them to perform less controlled actions. Thus this faction is the classic client of media research. The social educaters are concerned but they are philantropists. Mostly they are also "liberal": No more prohibtions than necessary. And their main goal is to protect the people and not to punish them. They want to protect first of all the lower classes, kids and the young, especially the girls or maybe women in general, all in all the disadvantaged and the weak. Also, they do not want to drive out the arts. Thus the question of where to draw the lines and limits is very important for them. In those fine differentiations between acceptable or even valuable art (for the educated) and trash (from which the less educated have to be protected), it becomes even clearer that the moral entrepreneurs, who - either based on philantropy or on resentment - enforce prohibtions of everything explicitely sexual or violent, in fact refuse the lower classes, the (not just sexually) unfit, the less educated who depend on their corporality the possibility of masturbation. The social educators - usually well educated people and often educated women, turn against the rough manners of not educated men. They fight a moral class- and gender struggle from the point of view of the winners. These philantropic people sometimes find themselves in a shocking coalition with the more aggressive members of the resentment faction, who also identify a tendency towards filthy things among the educated, the rich and the beautiful, for example within what they call "art". Violence is a good point of agreement within this coaltion, although one group thinks rather about sexual violence whereas the other group has belligerent violence in mind. But apart from that difference: Who would ever defend violence? (Whereas sexuality might still have some friends.) It

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is also easy to agree on the "mere profiteer" (preferentially called the "unscrupulous profiteer") as being the real enemy. And, because adults can be excluded from any restrictions, it is also easy to agree on the "protection of the (innocent) youth" that can be hardly critcized and thus helps to legitimate prohibitions. Quite interesting is a third faction: the apocalyptists. They deal with the same issues as the social educators and the resentment faction, but without a practical intention: Rather these issues are discussed in order to show how depraved this society is and that it will soon face its decline. In this context violence shall neither be abandoned nor silenced, but rather violence is considered as the inevitable outcome of the basic mistake within the social organization and thus its symptom. The result is a strong interest in first maintaining such a wide and vast concept as "violence" and then dramatizing it in the same way as the resentment faction does. Despite all surface competition: The creation and deployment of such trivial a category as "violence" is the meeting ground of all the different factions. This wide category, the uselessness of which is due to the fact that it incorporates absolutely different phenomena within one concept, is for this very reason so highly useful: Because everybody thinks of violence in a different way and associates with it everthing that just seems to fit into it, wide and usually unstable coalitions can be built upon that concept: for example within the women's movement between the housewives and the educated carreer girls; or between all democrats in terms of the defense of the basics of a state order (which usually creates very different and cintradictory interests); or for already a long time between all anti-fascists, which leads to the nivelation of those delicate differences between Stalinists, trotzkyists and anarchists that had been established for a good reason; or between all the undoubtedly loyal parties against the extremists that are located beyond the margins of the political spectrum; or between "us" (Germans, Austrians, Middle-Europeans) against the not so civilized people who float in from the outside, joined by a religion we do not have much knowledge about. Ever since its origin in the reactions to the student movement of the 60ies, the terminology of an abstract "violence" has proved to be worthwhile on all levels of discourse and for all factions. It makes an uncontrolled moralization possible and thus avoids a "hard" analysis of the everydayness of violent actions. It has sensational effects, which is quite important within the public sphere of the culture industry, and, due to its abstractness and vagueness, it covers up usually unbridgable contradictions of interest. 3 The Private Politics of Violence Of course there is another way of speaking about violent episodes: enthusiastically and with glowing eyes while rolicking around, laughing and competing in keenness and agitation, often supported by alcohol and male bonding. One needs only to go in lower class bars or to enter (with caution) the appropriate "scenes" in order to get imposed extensively by this kind of "speaking about violence". We

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experienced this in a condensed way in 1992 during a research project on the experiences of violence among young people in Vienna, in which we also enforced group dicussions in youth centers and dormitories. In those discussions the important role of the discourse of violence is less narrated then performed. Groups of young people do not differ, for that matter, so much from other kinds of social bonding, especially if supported by and through the media: Violence is entertainment. It is hardly ever experienced directly, but it is still a constant issue (spoken, printed, represented) - in most cases without the claim to correspond to some current reality. Among the lower class youths the talk about experiences of violence is immediately connected to the issue of "foreigners". One has to be strong because one gets into conflict with the foreign youths or even attacked by them. This is the usual pattern, well known also in the "big politics": "Aggressive" are always the others, and one has to get armed just because the others did it first. In violent talks hierarchy is established - which all too often does not work in the real fights. The jokes and sayings are also necessary to cover up and neutralize those failures and defeats and to be able to maintain one's own superiority regardlessly. Representing oneself as being "violent" works in such a way that it gains as much respect as to replace its actual proof. Representing oneself as being xenophobic has an expressive function and thus should rather be called a contempt for strangers. The higher educated youths, on the contrary, know exactly that one should not make xenophobic remarks in public - and this is precisely what makes the difference to the lower class: Better educated young people have less experience with actual violence (and do not know how to deal with the experiences they have), and they refuse violence as a means of accomplishment and manly selfrepresentation just as they refuse violent sayings about foreigners. There are two very different kinds of "youth" lived and experienced by young people and there are rare overlappings between them. What becomes obvious here is a polarization whose validity is proved by many other indications: Whereas in the working classes the old pattern of aggressive and violent manliness is still maintained, in the educated classes, growing in size and domination and devaluating old kinds of manliness, the sensitivity towards violence increases. Here, we can observe what is really changing in our society: The gender relations are shifting in favor of women with the result of a univef salization of competition. Simultaneously the class relations are shifting in favor of the educated. Within both processes the fitness of the worker and the powerful manliness which goes with it become culturally devaluated. The resentment of the men and especially of the lower class men as well as the potential of conflict nourished by those insults, should not be underestimated. What presents itself as right wing extremism is for a good part the "show down" of this older manliness, the claim for its acknowledgment, which is to ΐ>ε enforced violently wherever it is absent.

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4 Violence and Xenophobia as Representations of Manliness The ability and willingness to use physical violence so as to succeed while risking one's own and other's freedom from bodily harm, is in our culture a sign of manliness. (Accordingly femininity is socially constructed as the concern about and care for the freedom from bodily harm.) Of course this is not untouched by class relations, but rather becomes obvious especially wherever the social position depends upon the physical ability and performance: among the manually working lower classes. (The willingness to use physical violence is highly dependent upon the question whether one has ever learned to risk the integrity of the body. This attitude towards one's own and other's integrity of the body is determined to a large extent by the demands of one's job.) A special hatered against violence exists where education is the work for a living, i.e. among the intellectually working middle classes and especially among women in those positions. Indeed, the category in which right wing populists and pure xenophobists differ most significantly from the "tolerant" is the question of who is entitled to state (and communal) welfare services. In both cases [populists and xenophobists] welfare services are not considered as being for everyone in this country, but only for Austrians or even only for "real and respectable Austrians". Thus the issue here is the welfare state, presented as being in danger for too long, and the competition about its services. The "tolerant" do not see the welfare state endangered and are still faithfull that there is enough for everyone. The "chauvinists of affluency" identify a possible overtaxing of the welfare state because of foreigners and want to insulate it against them. The right wing populists, going a step further, see a general necessaity for a strong order in the state, of which rigerousness towards foreigners is just a part. It is of advantage to differentiate between these two kinds of right wing positions. They could also be called "individualist" and "collectivist", according to the forms of violence they perform: (Single-) fighters and (group-) thugs. In both cases the personal advantage and superiority is at stake, the phenomena of master race attitude and increasing one's selfimportance at the expense of foreigners. This, however, is embedded in the framework of individual competition on the one hand, and in the declaration of a subcultural belonging on the other. Both is not at all just a reaction to one's own particularly disadvantaged social position; nor is the individualist chauvinism of affluency to be explained in this way: These are people who have prospects, who expect their professional success, who do not have to separate themselves from foreigners for reasons of their own poverty and contempt. That is also a significant element in this context: The contempt for foreigners has a lot to do with the contempt for poverty. Explicit and - in the narrow sense of the word - racist slogans hardly meet general approval. The difference between us and the foreigners (in Vienna speak: the turks) is first and foremost an economic difference: "They" didn't do very well in their country and now they come here to participate in our affluent society. To avert this threat the chauvinists of affluency demand a rigoerous policy of exclusion whereas the right wing populists rather demand the amalgamation of the "Volksgemeinschaft" (national community).

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5 Talking and Doing Talking, too, is social action. Thus it is rightly acknowledged - maybe even a little dramatized - that violent and nasty sayings about foreigners can already be a part of a politics of expulsion or at least the internal agreement over the desirability of it. It is already an understatment, if it would be just about the clarifications of hierarchy. Indeed, bodily fights are not only attempts of exclusion. It is possible, after all, to communicate through this bodily manliness above and beyond linguistic barriers. In these cases a first step of acknowledgement is taken, even though antagonistcally; an acknowledgement which is withold in nasty street car remarks or in the allocation of humiliating jobs. Of course it depends on the actual character of those fights. (The point is not to agree or disagree with violence, but to undertsand the social meaning of certain kinds of struggles.) Assassinations and arson attacks do definetly not represent any kind of appreciation, nor does a group attack on a single weaker person; a fight between gangs works probably more in that way, and a fair duell is already very close to an appreciation, if it does not even presuppose it. There are situations in which the violent act is less hurtful than contemptuous sayings. The terminology of violence makes us unable to take those differences of meaning seriously. It is also another, more abstract expression of the devaluation of physical work and the powerful and accordingly violent manliness that goes with it; a devaluation that characterizes the current state of the service society (third sector society) enforced by the educated and especially by the educated women. The transformation of the character of the worker's movement (if we not better talk about its end) is especially important in this context. These are all social processes with very substantial material origins. But it is on the other hand not the case that this working class manliness has become obsolete. Agriculture and industrial work are declining sectors, however, still the half of all jobs, one can estimate, have to do with manual work. Life does not go on entirely in electronic simulations yet, nor is physical culture just a matter of sunbeds. The manliness, hyostatized through "violence", returns even more destructively as instrumental reason, now invoking also sadisms.

Violence and Society - Violence in Society: Changing Conditions and Perspectives Heinz Sünker

\ Introduction To talk about violence often means to go on to dangerous ground, because experiences with violence and manifestations of violence tempt us to search for clear, unequivocal, determinable reasons. For some, violence is explained by the malignity/badness of the human being, whereas, for others, violence is explained by the badness of social relations or structures. Other important problems that have to be explained are the questions what one understands by the the term "violence" and when one starts speaking of violence. Although there are some great differences between the U.S.A. and Germany (up to now), I want to start my considerations with some reading experiences in the U.S.A.: In the beginning of January this year I read the following headlines: The Palm Beach Post wrote: "Nation's schools battle 'epidemic of violence'" and in the U.S. News, one could read: "The truth about violent crime - what you really have to fear!" In the first week of April 1994, I read in the New York Times two headlines close to our topic: "A Fight for Peace on Chicago's Streets" and "Student, 16, Is Shot to Death In Subway After An Argument." In the first mentioned article from April 4 - there was a subtitle heading "Looking for Alternatives" and it was said: " Our children see no longer hope,' said Janette C. Wilson, the executive director of PUSH, a civil rights organization. 'All across the country we're building prisons and closing schools. Coupled with the truce, there have to be alternatives.' " 2 The Impact of Education, Intergenerational Relations, and Structural Conditions To remove a little of the possible confusion while dealing with the topic "violence," I want to introduce three considerations that all deal - in my opinion directly or indirectly with that subject: pedagogy/education, intergenerational relations, and structural conditions. At the end of the 18th century, Kant formulated in his lectures Über Pädagogik (about pedagogy), that education hid the "great secret of the perfection of human nature" (Kant, 1964, p. 700); for "it is precisely good upbringing from whence all

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the goodness in the world arises. The seeds that lie in persons must only be developed increasingly. For the causes of evil are not to be found in the natural estate of humanity" (Kant, 1964, pp. 704-705). If, as Kant maintains, education is the greatest and most difficult problem given to humanity, he nonetheless also holds that, "children should not be reared to the present but to the possibly better states of the human condition in the future; that is, to the idea of humanity and appropriate to its complete determination" (Kant, 1964, p. 704). At the beginning of the 19th century, Schleiermacher - one of the fathers of modern pedagogics - formulated, also in his lectures "about pedagogy," that education has to be based in the intergenerational relationship, and concluded that "the younger generation should be delivered to the great communities of life in which it has to act autonomously." Schleiermacher particularly uses the tension that could be observed between community life and free self-activity to derive his perspective for applying the tasks of "protecting" and "changing" to deal with the following generation (Schleiermacher, 1983, p. 94). In the last third of the 20th century, Galtung presented an influential definition of "violence": "Violence is presented when human beings are manipulated in the way, that their actual somatic and intellectual realization is more restricted than their potential realization" (Galtung, 1975, p. 9). To counteract a narrowly composed term of violence, violence as a direct action, Galtung pleads in an - often overlooked - subtly differentiated way for an enlarged definition of violence that leads to the wellknown expression of "structural violence." In his discussion of violence, Galtung associates the problem of social justice in the society, the question about one's "life chances," the potentiality of every human being. He discusses the relationship between the individual and society and reflects on individual persons who are at the mercy of violent social relations. One can add a more concrete definition as Salmi has put it in his study Violence and Democratic Society: "Most people think of violence in a narrow context, equating it with images of war, murder or riots. But violence comes in many forms. The range of phenomena that could be included under this label is quite extensive. If one accepts the notion that any act that threatens a person's physical or psychological integrity is a form of violence, then one needs to consider that occurrences as diverse as racism, polution or poverty can be symptoms of violent situations." (Salmi, 1993, p. 16)

Complementary to the approach by Galtung, one can mention Elias, who also historically and systematically observed the relation between the individual and the society with a particular concern for the subject of violence in his essay The Civilizing Process. He says: "For this reason, this study also inquires into the sociogenesis of the state. There is, to take one aspect of the history of the state's formation and structure, the problem of the 'monopoly offeree.' Max Weber pointed out, mainly for the sake of definition, that one of the constitutive institutions required by the social organization we call a state is a monopoly in the exercise of physical force. Here the attempt is made to reveal something

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of the concrete historical processes that, from the time when the exercise of force was the privilege of a host of rival warriors, gradually impelled society toward this centralization and monopolization of the use of physical violence and its instruments. It can be shown that the tendency to form such monopolies in this past epoch of our history is neither easier nor more difficult to understand than, for example, the strong tendency toward monopolization in our own epoch. And it is then not difficult to understand that with this monopolization of physical violence a the point of inter-section of as multitude of social interconnections, the whole apparatus which shapes the individual, the mode of operation of the social demands and prohibitions which mold his social make-up, and above all the kinds of fear that play a part in his life are decisively changed." (Elias, 1978, pp. XVXVI)

3 Violence: Discourses and Contexts To talk about violence is difficult though, especially in a time in which we are daily confronted with news and reports about violence and - the more this happens and the further away we are from such events - the more we get used to it. On the one hand, violence is a daily experience. On the other hand, actions like sexual maltreatment/abuse of children - attain another quality when they are depicted in the context of violence. Violence obviously is not a descriptive term. While talking about violence, we also come inevitably to a judgment - a dividing line is drawn between the perpetrator and the victim. And when violence seems to be indispensible, there is a need for justification. If one looks at the discussions during the last 30 years, then - not only in Germany - the different contexts and conjunctions become more obvious when we use the term "violence." One mentions political, progressive, revolutionary, conterrevolutionary, liberating, and legitimate violence as well as the state's violence and the use of violence by a state monopoly. And there was - even if not extremely often - a discussion about "structural violence." There were multiple discourses about the violence integrated into the debates on fascism, Stalinism, imperialism, and terrorism. Other forms of violence were also discussed, like violence against children, women, foreigners, disabled persons, and marginal groups; like violence committed by youth gangs, right-wing radicals, and leftwing radicals; as well as violence against objects. The range of what is included is both complex and "massive." Therefore, it has to be put in concrete terms and analyzed each time. All these contexts show that the discourse about violence is a contested terrain in relation to the current socialhegemonial debate. We must remember that 10 years before Los Angeles/Watts, Zürich burned. Thirty years before the murderous clash in former Yugoslavia, the Vietnam war started. Violence is inseparably connected with sociohistorical processes - not only in our century. I want to point out that I do not believe in a so-called "instinct of aggression," that is, attempts to make the state of human nature the natural origins of all evil in the world (cf. Lumsden, 1970). The definition of violence, and therefore its judgment, is not possible without a manifestation of

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violence that goes beyond the framework. The framework is constituted by society, by social relations, by the question of the connection between social structures and the individual acting out on the acting level. In addition to what I have said before and as a possible connection to social work, Galtung's definition of structural violence seems to me most important. The definition is fundamental, but has been misunderstood many times. Galtung once more: "Violence is presented when human beings are manipulated in the way, that their actual somatic and intellectual realization is more restricted than their potential realization."

Galtung puts the subject of violence into a context that has a central, prominent meaning for social work: It is a question about social justification and its consequences for the life of all humans. With the subject "violence," therefore, the question about social justification is on the agenda as well. In our daily "living together," the question about violence is also a question about order, disorder and subordination. Some years ago, the sociologist H. Pross (1986) wrote in a newspaper article that: "To talk together or to fight each other is the alternative between order and disorder for many, but the disorder irritates more than the subordination." What possibilities do we have to confront this alternative with something definite, faced with real violence in so many spheres of life. Obviously I am against the demonization of violence. This means I seek to examine violence and violent actions firstly in terms of nationalism, racism, sexism and so forth. Especially in the face of recent German history (Otto & Sünker, 1992; cf. Sünker, 1993) it seems to me an important, urgent thing to do. And I also do not want to forget the violent history of the U.S.A. However, German history in this century is a special culmination of acts of violence, especially if one makes a direct connection between the Shoa and the fire-bombing of the synagogue in Lübeck. Let us question again the concrete alternatives between talking to and beating someone. To analyze the conditions of a beating, or other acts of violence, obviously seems to be much easier than to analyze the conditions of talking together or coming to an understanding. - By the way it is interesting that "to understand" and "to come to an understanding" are different terms in the German language. Walter Benjamin, one of the most outstanding German intellectuals in the Weimar Republic, committed suicide at the French-Spanish border while escaping from the fascists in 1940. He wrote a significant essay called About the critcism of violence. He talks about "the culture of the heart" as something opposite to the way of violence. What he wrote sounds very idealistic. Even if his thoughts produce no clear methods, I think they demonstrate an essential perspective if we use it for our topic. In answer to the question of how far conflicts and their relations to private persons could be solved, Benjamin points out that a "nonviolent agreement is always to be found where the culture of the heart is the pure way of agreement to the human. Politeness of the heart, tenderness, the love of peace and confidence

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are subjective conditions." And he continues - decades before Habermas spoke about 'communicative action' - that the "nonviolent agreement cannot be realized only in discussion, but the substantial elimination of violence can particularly be verified on a significant relation: the nonpunishment for lying .... That shows that there is a certain point of a nonviolent sphere that is absolutely unattainable by violence: The actual sphere of understanding, the speech" (Benjamin, 1966, p. 55, translated). Even if it seems to be difficult in the present circumstances of power, there is obviously no possibility of a nonviolent solution of conflicts beyond understanding. But understanding is only possible under the condition that humans show mutual recognition (cf. Sünker, 1989, 1993a). But it only has a chance if the opposite person receives adequate respect as a fellow human. That does not mean that such processes of communicatively arranged nonviolent understanding are without conflicts and contradictions. But the point is the perspective that human beings are only able to find their realization as human beings in a nonviolent and liberated society. Social work is always - not just today - confronted with several forms of violence. From the view of an affected person, it is - in several ways not possible not to use violence itself. It is not the - so-called - intimate manifestation of violence, by which social work is irritated, for example, violence in families and against children, women, and weak persons. It is especially those actions of violence that are politically motivated or embedded in a special political context that create a feeling of helplessness. Social work often is in a dilemma: Social work has to have solutions for constellations of problems that are mostly outside of its sphere of influence; it has to practice the so-called famous fire-extinguisher function (cf. Sünker, 1992). When violence is brought into line with pedagogics in the shape of pedagogization, this actually blocks our view of the social reasons underlying violence. This is a pertinent argument, especially when we refer to the discussion about youth gangs: "The idea that gang members are more likely to suffer from some psychiatric disorder (particularly sadistic behavior) than other members of the society is another fallacy. ... A more accurate interpretation rests on the understanding that gang members grew up and live in communities in which the socioeconomic environment has produced a great deal of aggressive and violent behavior; thus a given gang member's display of aggressive traits or his involvement in violent exchanges is not necessarily pathological; rather it is appropriate behavior in an environment whose socioeconomic conditions are pathological." (Jankowski, 1991, p. 312; cf. Huff-Corzine, et al., 1991)°

4 Analyzing Violence To observe societal relations/circumstances in terms of their consequences for the relation between an individual and society, means to work out in a first and general meaning the consequences of the capitalist mode of societalization and the consequences of the social organization of labor (cf. Sünker, 1994a). Generally, this concerns the contradiction connected with the pattern of sozialization between the production and the destruction of the social; sociality comprises a

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well-known reason for actual debates between communitarians and liberals. This attempt also shows that the cause of violence is not restricted to youth studies (cf. Sünker, 1993b). Violence grows out of the center of society; it is therefore mostly a problem that comes from the world of the adults. I also want to argue that we take the contradiction between production and destruction of sociability as a reason to talk of segmentation when discussing the development of the societally made potential for violence and potentials of understanding. Against this background, it is possible to mark societal, structural and individual dimensions, that which are relevant when analyzing the relations and conditions of violence. These are: 1. Economy: wealth, prosperity, deprivation, unemployment, poverty; but also conditions at the working place, industrial relations, labor relations, participation, power. 2. Social dimension: families, peer groups, networks, neighborhoods, organization, gangs. 3. Cultural dimension: education, mass media, intellectual atmosphere, mentality 4. Political-cultural dimension: comprehension of democracy, public, public opinion and discussion, national identity, dealings with foreigners, interethnic relations/conflicts, willingness to go to war, culture of violence, politics of prejudice, human rights relevance. For example, over 30 years ago, the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services formulated the following: "Realistically, all wars have been for economic reasons. To make them politically and socially palatable, ideological issues have always been involved. And possible future war will undoubtedly conform to historical precedent" (Lumsden, 1970, p. 408). 5. Individual dimension: personality education, self-esteem, political socialization, reaction repertoire, psyche, individualism, reactions as a gang member, special likings and aversions with regard to humans and objects, readiness toward violence, or love of peace. 5 Conclusion It is reasonable to conclude that no possible case can be made for monocausal, one-dimensional explanations of violence in the context of individual actions and societal structures. Therefore the challenge is still on the agenda. The interaction of different dimensions regarding the conditions for the genesis of the readiness for violence and also acts of violence still has to be deciphered. To act in a political and professional way, certainly the question remains wether the culture of violence and weapons supported by the dominant powers can be confronted by a professional culture of pedagogics and social work oriented toward social justice and respect for all humans. } This idea is certainly based on a "culture of hope " an ideal education - in a peaceful structured society - as formulated by Kant ) or as is worked out in the analysis of the contradiction between education and power by Heydorn (cf. Sünker, 1994b). It is necessary to build up new social

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movements that confront the experiences of violence in all variations of life with alternative experiences and possibilities of life. But that also means to make it possible for all of us to live and experience democracy in daily life and in institutions (cf. Bowles & Gintis, 1987) - like the family, school, and youth work. Furthermore, principles of universalization and reciprocity, developed within the context of social and political theory, may then serve as the basis for reflections about "relational reason" (Geyer-Ryan & Lethen, 1987, p. 69) and "interethical relations" (Fleischer, 1986, p. 1286) incorporating the opposite to violence. Perhaps it will then also become possible to extend the explication of an extensive concept of reason (in the context of a relativization of social systems and ways of life) to prevent reductionism of all kinds. Heller's discussion of the problem has revealed the strained relationship between social theory, everyday life, and ethics. - And we can add: "the state of the art of violence." - She has argued that "the world in which the meaningful life is to be lived must be one which permits this. The more alienated the social relations the greater the need for some 'gift of fortune'" (Heller, 1984, p. 258). For her, the art of living was opposed to a meaningful life (i.e., those with an individualizing and atomizing focus embodied the aristocratic principle, whereas the meaningful life encompassed the democratic principle). A clear understanding of universality provided a basis for identifying tasks facing "those individuals who today lead meaningful lives." As Heller (1984) concluded: "to create a society in which alienation is a thing of the past: a society in which every man has access to the social 'gifts of fortune' which can enable him to lead a meaningful life. ... True 'history' is pregnant with conflict and continually transcending its own given state. It is history consciously chosen by men and molded to their design that can enable all men to make their everyday lives 'being for them' and that will make the earth a true home for all men." (Heller, 1984, p. 269)

In defending this position, intellectuals are the keepers of political culture in a democratic tradition and meaning, because, inter alia, they have to fight violence. It includes the idea of "self-" regulation and "self-" responsibility of all men and women, the idea that all are potentially reasonable, as Adorno expressed it in a dispute with his counterpart Gehlen, a German mandarin (cf. Brunkhorst, 1990, pp. 38-40). This means that, against the (neo-)Aristotelian tradition, not last a few people are able to reflect, to carry the burden of reflection and responsibility, but all are able to do so. It includes, today, the task to (re-)construct "the public and therefore, the political culture in a participatory model. Within this approach the public sentiment which is encouraged is not reconciliation and harmony but rather political agency and efficacy, namely the sense that we have a say in the economic, political and civic arrangements which define our lives together, and that what one does makes a difference." (Benhabib, 1989, p. 389)

And Benhabib continues in a way that is very important for the "violenceproblem":

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"This can be achieved without value homogeneity among individuals, and without collapsing the various spheres into one another. Of course, it is likely that a very atomized society will undermine one's options and motivation for politial agency, while a vibrant, participatory life can become central to the formation and flourishing of one's selfidentity. Equally, while the prevelance of certain kinds of public value systems will make the participationist option more less likely, an increased sense of public-political agency and efficacy will contribute to the revitalization of certain kinds of values." (Benhabib, 1989, pp. 389-390) Consequently, the development of political culture unites with the development of real and realized individuality (cf. Sünker, 1993, 1993a).4) Both processes may include the possibility of overcoming violence in individual actions and societal conditions or structures. For that reason, real social consciousness and agency have to be diametrically opposed to the logic of a capitalist social development that aims for domination, and one in which particularization, individualization, and the expropriation of competence are its primary accomplishments.

Notes We can refer to another consideration: The United States, which often prides itself as the bastion of individualism, has produced a pure form of its own individualism: a person of staunch self-reliance and self-confidence whose directed goals match those of the greater society and whose toughness and defiant stance challenge all who would threaten him. Ironically, in the defiant individualist gang member, American society has found it difficult to control its own creation. (Jankowski, 1991, p. 313). Regarding time diagnosis, I want to stress this argument with reference to a consideration made by Kilian (1971) in his study "The expropriated consciousness": The social techniques and the forms of human socialization that determine the appearances of the ruling culture have largely forfeited their function as order factors in the current phase of historical development. The process of organizing the social techniques of the ruling structure is beginning to invert into a disorganizing process in which it is precisely the factors that previously served to maintain order that become factors of disorder and destruction. Vice versa, it becomes clear that the unfolding of the free ability to communicate in the broadest sense of the word, which was previously "underdeveloped" through habitual unconscious repression, has become the hardly recognized cultural goal of the present generation, and it is possible that the chance for humanity to survive in the near future depends on its widescale realization, (pp. 273-274) This approach includes a discussion and analysis of the conditions of children's lives and the state of the art of childhood today (cf. Sünker, 1993c). For Theunissen (1989), any alternatives that arose did not proceed at once from isolated subjects, but rather from societies and their political organization. They were not based on abstract obligation, but rather demonstrated the internal norms of historical reality itself. He also said this led to a critique that judges real conditions on the basis of their appropriateness in respect to their own real historical constitution and demands the realization of their inherent claims, just as Hegel measured civil society against the ideals of the French Revolution, and Marx measured capital against the state of productive powers it released, (p. 87, translated).

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Sünker, H. (1994a). Alienation, reproduction and the social organization of work. In W. Ehlert, R. Russell, & G. Szell (Eds.): Return of work, production and administration to capitalism (pp. 101-110). Frankfurt/M. Sünker, H. (1994b). Pedagogy and politics: Heydorn's "survival through education" and its challenge to contemporary theories of education. In S. Miedema (Ed.): The politics of human science. Brussels. Theunissen, M. (1989). Möglichkeiten des Philosophierens heute. Sozialwissenschaftliche Literatur Rundschau, 12, 77-89.

War and Communal Violence: Challenges for Children's Development Kathleen Kostdny and James Garbarino

1 Introduction In the course of normal development, children face many challenges in their daily life - as a student, a friend, a family member, and a citizen. In situations of war or communal violence, children must often take on additional challenges - as a soldier, a refugee, or a victim, for example. Chronic violence affects the child's task of acquiring the basic skills of life in his or her community and his or her culture in many ways. It may increase the difficulty of becoming competent by adding a whole new set of issues - for example, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Or, it may change dramatically the child's roles - for example by displacing "student" in favor of "soldier." In this chapter, how children respond to these challenges will be examined in terms of their representations of the world, the accumulation of risk factors in their lives, and the presence of ameliorating factors leading to resiliency and coping. 2 Social Maps A child's development includes the process by which the child forms a picture, or draws a map of the world in his or her mind, and his or her place in it. While a child's development encompasses diverse domains - physical, cognitive, affective, and linguistic - these domains come together in the child's representation of the world, or "social maps." These social maps reflect the cognitive competence of the child knowing the world in the scientific sense of objective, empirical fact, but they also include the child's moral and affective inclinations about the world. For example, we asked an 11-year-old Palestinian girl in a West Bank refugee camp to describe what it was like where she lived. "The soldiers come into our home at night" she replied. "What happens when the soldiers come at night?" we asked her. "The little ones are frightened," she answered. "And you?" we asked. "Are you frightened?" "No," she responded bravely. "Only the little ones." "And what do you do then?" we continued. "I comfort them," she said. "I tell them the soldiers are human too. That they have children themselves. That they do what they do because they have their orders."

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Fear is a common theme for children living in war zones or situations of communal violence: wrestling with it, denying it, dealing with it. Fear is thus a fact that must be dealt with in their social maps. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" we asked a 10-year-old Nicaraguan boy. "I don't know ... . It doesn't matter ... . I'll probably be killed like my father," he replied sadly.

Future orientation is a frequent casualty among children in war zones, particularly for those who have experiences of severe personal loss. "Terminal thinking" is the result when the probability of death takes the place of an expectation of life. A child's social map is consequently altered profoundly. The child's social map is initially the result of his or her experiences - a working conclusion about how the world functions. However, these social maps increasingly become the cause of the child's experiences as well. For example, by creating expectations ("I am surrounded by enemies"), it stimulates behavior ("I must trust no one"). By recognizing patterns ("My comrades will protect me"), it creates motives to act ("Loyalty to the group is most important"). In a war zone or situations of communal violence, young children must contend with dangers that are not nearly so relevant to adults. First, the physical immaturity of children places them at risk for physical injury from things that would not hurt larger and more powerful adults. Second, while adults have developed mechanisms for self-regulation, children are more vulnerable in their response to arousal (van der Kolk, 1987). Brain stem development, for example, is not mature until age 8 or 9, and this physiological underdevelopment creates vulnerability to overwhelming arousal. How do children make sense of such threats, particularly given their immature cognitive capacities? Experiences that are cognitively overwhelming and produce overwhelming arousal may evoke a process in which understanding these experiences may force a child trying to cope with traumatic events to develop patterns of behavior, thought, and feelings that are themselves abnormal when contrasted with those of the untraumatized child. Their social maps may become distorted by this process of coping with trauma. Children are particularly vulnerable to the trauma caused by threat and fear. For example, in a study by Davidson and Smith (1990), those children exposed to trauma before age 10 were three times more likely to exhibit Post Traumatic Stress Disorder than those exposed to trauma after age 12. Children and youth exposed to acute danger may require processing over a period of time to fit these experiences into existing schema (Pynoos & Nadar, 1988). Furthermore, if the traumatic stress is intense enough, it may leave permanent "psychic scars" (Terr, 1990, 1993). This is particularly true for children made vulnerable because of disruptions in their primary relationships especially with parents. These effects include excessive sensitivity to stimuli associated with the trauma and diminished expectations for the future (Terr, 1990). But chronic danger imposes a requirement for developmental adjustment, or accommodation. These are likely to include persistent Post Traumatic Stress

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Disorder, alterations of personality, major changes in patterns of behavior, or ideological interpretations of the world that provide a framework for making sense of ongoing danger (Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, & Pardo, 1992). This is particularly true when that danger comes from the violent overthrow of day-today social reality, as is the case in war and communal violence. 3 The Accumulation of Risk Factors in Producing Negative Developmental Outcomes For children, especially children growing up with chronic violence, an important developmental concept is that risk accumulates, but opportunity ameliorates (Garbarino & Abramowitz, 1992). Children are capable of coping with one or two major risk factors in their lives. But when risk accumulates - the addition of a third, fourth, and fifth risk factor - developmental damage results (Sameroff, et al., 1987). For most children experiencing war or community violence, their experience takes place within a larger context of risk. Such children often are poor, live in disrupted families, contend with parental incapacity due to depression, are raised by parents with little education or employment prospects, and are exposed to domestic violence (Garbarino, et al., 199la, b; Kotlowitz, 1991). This constellation of risk by itself creates enormous challenges for young children. For them, the trauma of war or community violence is often literally "the straw that breaks the camel's back." This is a crucial issue in war zones around the world and among the approximately 20% of American children who live with this sort of accumulation of risk. The problem of violence is a tremendous problem with far-reaching implications for child development. 4 The Palestinian Intifada as a Case Study In our research on Palestinian children in the West Bank during the Palestinian Uprising (Intifada), we investigated the way in which the accumulation of risk due to political violence and family negativity affects the presence of behavioral problems. The accumulation of risk was assessed in two domains: (a) the experience of threat, trauma, and loss associated directly with the political violence of the Intifada (i.e., witnessing a violent event, personal injury, or arrest of a family member); and (b) negative conditions in the family (i.e., physical violence to the child by the mother or other family member, physical violence to the mother by the father, verbal aggression to the mother by the father, maternal depression, and maternal sense of incompetence). Behavioral problems were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist (Total Problems Score). The results found that the relationship between the accumulation of risk and behavioral problems was significant. For children with 0 risk, the mean Total Problems Score was 53.7 (near the standardized mean of 50), and one risk increased scores only moderately (56.4). However, children with two risks had

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mean scores of 62.6, children with three risks had scores of 66.0, and children with four or more risks had scores of 71.1 - in the clinical range (i.e., scores above 67). Figure 1 plots accumulated risk against Total Problems Score for the sample of 150 children and youth. While children with three risks (e.g., all three political violence risks, all three family risks, or some combination of political violence and family risks) had total problem scores below the clinical threshold (66.0); children with four or more risks had scores above that threshold (71.1). Thus, the accumulation of risks pushed children's Total Problems score into the clinical range. The trend is clear and statistically significant, even though the number of children with four or more risk factors was small (N = 8). Moreover, under conditions of high risk (three or more accumulated risk factors), boys manifest significantly more Total Problems (M = 70.7) than did girls (M= 62.2). Under conditions of relatively low risk (0-1 risk factors), there was no significant difference between the Total Problems Scores of boys and girls. A similar pattern was evident for the impact of age on vulnerability. With a high accumulation of risk factors (3 or more), younger children (age 6-9) displayed significantly more Total Problems (M = 70.3) than older children (age 12-15) (M= 64.8). hi contrast, at the low end of the risk accumulation continuum (0 or 1 risk factors), there was no difference (M= 55.4 vs. M= 55.1). Thus, the number of risk factors a child experienced was significantly related to the amount of behavioral problems the child manifested. As the number of risks related to political violence and family negativity increased, the level of child symptomatology also increased significantly. Political violence exerts a significant effect, but family negativity exerts a greater influence, and, when coupled with political violence, reveals a very serious clinical impact. Both gender and age emerged as significant moderators of the consequences of risk accumulation for child symptomatology. Boys and younger children appeared to be more vulnerable to the accumulation of risks; being female and older moderated the effects. Given the overall correlation between family dysfunction and lower socioeconomic status observed in most societies, we can predict that these most vulnerable children - young boys in dysfunctional families - are most likely to be found among low income populations. Furthermore, based upon our field experiences in war zones around the world, we are forced to conclude that in most societies, these children are the least likely to receive special services and compensatory support, as the insidious discrimination of the social class system tends to continue, or even intensify, during times of social upheaval. 5 Ameliorating Factors Leading to Resiliency and Coping Conversely, as opportunity factors accumulate, resilience increases (Dunst & Trivette, 1992). Convergent findings from studies of life-course responses to stressful early experiences suggest ameliorating factors that can be applied to children growing up in war zones: actively trying to cope with stress, cognitive competence, experiences of self-efficacy, and temperamental characteristics that

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favor active coping attempts and positive relationships with others (Losel & Bliesener, 1990). However, other ameliorating factors involve the adults who have the task of dealing with the effects of war and community violence on children - parents and other relatives, teachers, and counselors. These factors are: 1. A stable emotional relationship with at least one parent or other reference person. 2. An open, supportive educational climate and parental model of behavior that encourages constructive coping with problems. 3. Social support from persons outside the family (Losel & Bliesener, 1990). However, these adults take on this task facing enormous challenges of their own. Whether it be in war zones around the world or in American communities, we have found that human service professionals and educators working in high violence areas are often themselves traumatized by their exposure to violence. In one study in Chicago, we found that 60% of the Head Start staff members surveyed had experienced traumatic events connected with violence (Garbarino, et al., 1992). For these individuals, efforts to create a "safe zone" in the school are crucial to their ability to perform their important functions in the lives of high risk children. For this safe zone to help children focus on their school work, it must exist as part of their "social maps," a tremendous challenge given their social isolation. Adults are crucial resources for children attempting to cope with chronic danger and stress. Generations of studies focusing on the experience of children living in war zones testify to the importance of adult responses to danger as mediating factors in child response (Freud & Burlingham, 1943; Garbarino, et al., 199la, b). When adults take charge of themselves and present children with a role model of calm, positive determination, most children can cope with a great deal of stress associated with war and community violence. They may indeed by traumatized by their experiences, but the adults around them will be able to serve as a resource and support the child in rehabilitative efforts. An important result from our research on Palestinian children concerns the centrality of family functioning in understanding the impact of political violence on children. It has long been a basic tenet among those who study or serve children in situations of man-made or natural disaster that nothing is more important than family support and parental well-being to children experiencing such stress. Our data both affirm that insight and extend it still further. While political violence represents a threat to children, it tends to be a manageable threat when children face that danger in the context of healthy family functioning and parental well-being. However, the threat poses a critical developmental danger in a context of family dysfunction and violence. Children with the full accumulation of Intifada-related risk (i.e., personal injury, witnessing a violent political event, and arrest of a family member), on average, still fall below the clinical range on the Total Problems score if they face these risks in the context of a functional family system. However, if such children experience family negativity in addition to Intifada-related risk, it is generally

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enough to put the child over the threshold into the clinical range on the Total Problems Score. Thus, once adults begin malfunctioning, decompensating, and panicking, children suffer. This is not surprising, given the importance of the images of adults contained in the child's social maps. Traumatized children need help to recover from their experiences (Terr, 1990). Emotionally disabled or immobilized adults are unlikely to offer the children the emotional support they need. Such adults are inclined to engage in denial, to be emotionally inaccessible, and are prone to misinterpret the child's signals. Messages of safety are particularly important in establishing adults as sources of protection and authority for children living in conditions of threat and violence. In the case of acute trauma (a single horrible incident that violates the normal reality of the child's world) the child needs psychological first aid in the form of help in believing that "things are back to normal." This therapy of reassurance is a relatively easy task. But the child who lives with chronic trauma - war or community violence - needs something more. This child needs help redefining and refraining the world in moral and structural terms. The child needs assistance in "processing" the existing world if he or she is to avoid drawing social and/or psychologically pathogenic conclusions: "the world is a hostile and dangerous place," "adults have lost control of the world," "kill or be killed," "don't trust anyone," "my enemies are less than human." Here the role of the adult is crucial for the well being of the child and for the well-being of the community in which that child is to be a citizen. Our efforts to understand the impact of chronic community violence on children and youth around the world highlight several concerns - unmet medical needs, the corrosive effects of the co-experiencing of poverty and violence on personality and on academic achievement, and so forth. But from our perspective, the most important of these is that the experience of trauma distorts the development of values. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder represents the wound that is "narrowly" psychological, and may extend to other specifically psychological effects (Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, & Pardo, 1992). However, as our discussion of social maps implies, there is a second wound, the philosophical hurt that may arise from the experiencing of trauma, particularly chronic trauma related to war and community violence. Victims of trauma who are protected from the philosophical wounds can manage the psychological symptoms. They may carry permanent symptomatology, but they are able to organize their behavior effectively in prosocial patterns as coworkers, citizens, and family members. Thus, they function, albeit with an emotional limp (Garbarino, et al., 1986). However, those who suffer from psychological symptoms and suffer the philosophical wounds of distrust, terminal thinking, and antisocial hostility are likely to end up as "emotional cripples," unable to function. War and community violence reverberates throughout the child's world. There are direct effects on development (e.g., the psychological impact of trauma) as well as indirect effects (e.g., through the loss of key relationships). Furthermore, traumatized children are likely to be drawn to groups and ideologies that legiti-

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matize and reward their rage, their fear, and their hateful cynicism unless ameliorating experiences are provided. These are environments in which violent peer groups - such as gangs and militia - flourish, and community institutions deteriorate. In order to combat the negative influences of such environments, we must reach children and youth with healing experiences and offer them a moral and political framework within which to process their experiences. References Davidson, J. & Smith, R. (1990): Traumatic experiences in psychiatric outpatients. Journal of Traumatic Stress Studies, 33, 459-475. Dunst, C. & Trivette, C. (1992): Assessment of social support in early intervention program. In S. Meisels & J. Shonkoff (Eds.): Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention. Cambridge, England. Freud, A. & Burlingham, D. (1943). War and children. New York. Garbarino, J. & Abramowitz, R. A. (1992): Children and families in the social environment (2nd Ed.). New York. Garbarino, J., Dubrow, N., Kostelny, K., & Pardo, C. (1992): Children in danger: Coping with the consequences of community violence. San Francisco. Garbarino, J., Guttmann, E., & Seeley, J. (1986): The psychologically battered child. San Francisco. Garbarino, J., Kostelny, K., & Dubrow, N. (199la): No place to be a child: Growing up in a war zone. Lexington, MA. Garbarino, J., Kostelny, K., & Dubrow, N. (1991b): What children can tell us about living in danger. American Psychologist, 46, 376-383. Kolk, B. van der (1987): Psychological trauma. Washington, DC. Kotlowitz, A. (1991): There are no children here. New York. Lösel, F. & Bliesener, T. (1990): Resilience in adolescence: A study on the generalizability of protective factors. In K. Hurrelmann & F. Lösel (Eds.): Health hazards in adolescence. New York. Pynoos, R. & Nadar, K. (1988): Psychological first aid and treatment approach to children exposed to community violence. Research implications. Journal of Traumatic Stress Studies, lt 445-473. Sameroff, A, Seifer, R, Barocas, R., Zax, M, & Greenspan, S. (1987): Intelligence quotient scores of 4-year old children: Social-environmental risk factors. Pediatrics, 79, 343-350. Terr, L. (1990): Too scared to cry. New York. Terr, L. (1994): Unchained memories. New York.

Social Change and the Trends in Approval of Corporal Punishment by Parents from 1968 to 1994 Murray A. Straus and Anita K. Mathur

1 Introduction Corporal punishment of children by parents, such as spanking and slapping, has been an almost universal part of the childhood experience of American children. Research up to about 1980 shows that more than 90% of parents used corporal punishment on toddlers, and just over half continued this into the early teen years (Straus, 1994; Straus & Donnelly, 1993) Since then the rate has deceased, but it is still extremely high (Daro & Gelles, 1992; Straus, 1994). When a behavior is this prevalent, there is likely to be a set of social norms that encourage or at least legitimate it. Correspondingly, if structural changes in the society bring about a change in the behavior, cultural norms are likely to be recast to reflect and justify the new reality, as happened, for example, in the case of paid employment of middle-class mothers. Regardless of which occurs first, and despite many exceptions, over time, cultural norms and actual behavior tend toward consistency. A major structural change in American society has been the shift toward a postindustrial economic system. Employment in manufacturing has declined drastically, as has the demand for unskilled manual workers. There is an increasing demand for professional, technical, and clerical workers. These are positions that, at a minimum, demand literacy and computational skills. A large proportion of these jobs also demand interpersonal and managerial skills. Kohn and others (Kohn, 1969; Kohn & Schooler, 1983; Straus, 1971) have argued that corporal punishment is inconsistent with the maximization of interpersonal and managerial skills. Consistent with that, Straus and Mathur (1994) found that corporal punishment was linked to a lowered probability of college graduation. Moreover, of those who did graduate from college, Gimpel and Straus (1992) found that corporal punishment decreased the probability of being in the top fifth of the U.S. occupation/income distribution. Kohn (1969) suggests that parents who expect their child to attend college and be employed in nonmanual work occupations tend to avoid using corporal punishment, and thus provide anticipatory socialization for social roles in which what is needed is information and negotiation skills rather than physical strength and compliance with the rigid routines of the assembly line. To the extent that this is correct, the norms and practices of American and other postindustrial societies should be moving away from use of corporal punishment in childrearing.

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1.1 Cultural Norms Supporting Corporal Punishment Although cultural norms supporting corporal punishment of children may be changing, there is abundant evidence that these norms are deeply rooted and pervasive (Greven, 1991; Straus, 1994). One of the most fundamental ways in which cultural norms supporting corporal punishment are expressed is in the criminal law on assault. In every state of the U.S., hitting a child for purposes of correction or control is exempt from the crime of assault, usually with the proviso that it is limited to "reasonable force." In practice, that includes the right to hit with belts and paddles, provided the child is not injured. In the 1960s, every state in the US passed legislation designed to protect children from physical abuse and to provide services for abused children. Ironically, in order to garner sufficient votes to pass the child abuse laws, it was typically necessary to include a provision declaring that parents continued to have the right to use corporal punishment. As a result, legislation intended to protect children from physical abuse contained provisions that further legitimated a practice that increases the risk of physical abuse (Straus & Yodanis, cited in Straus, 1994). Cultural norms supporting corporal punishment may also be observed through public opinion surveys asking respondents whether they approve of spanking. A 1968 survey commission by the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence found that 94% of the population approved of spanking a child who misbehaves (Stark & McEvoy, 1970). The normative support for corporal punishment goes well beyond mere permission to hit children. It is a morally correct action, and parents who do not use corporal punishment are often thought of as bad parents who's children will "grow up wild." Carson (1986) found that nonspanking parents come under considerable pressure to spank from relatives, friends, and neighbors. 1.2 Trends in Approval of Corporal Punishment A number of surveys of attitudes toward spanking have been done since the late 1960s. All have found very high rates of approval; the percentage who approve of spanking has varied considerably from study to study. However, for the most part, these studies cannot be compared to determine if there has been a change in support for corporal punishment, because the questions used are so different. In addition, several different and noncomparable types of populations have been surveyed. For example, a 1975 survey of a national sample of parents found that 77% believed that slapping or spanking a 12-year-old who misbehaved is normal and necessary (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980). The 1986 General Social Survey found that 84% percent agreed that "It is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good hard spanking" (Lehman, 1989). A survey of pediatricians found that 77% supported use of corporal punishment (White, 1993). Although the studies just cited cannot be compared to determine trends in cultural norms concerning corporal punishment, there is evidence that actual use of corporal punishment is decreasing (Daro & Gelles, 1992; Straus, 1994). Such a change is also consistent with the theory that parents tend to socialize children in

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ways that will help them fit into the social environment that the parent perceives the child will experience as an adult, and specifically, as indicated above, a postindustrial society. Both the actual changes in use of corporal punishment and the presumed underlying changes in the social structure, make it seem likely that there has also been a corresponding change in cultural norms. A decrease in approval of spanking was therefore the first of the two hypotheses tested. This hypothesis could be tested because we were able to acquire data files for seven studies that used identical or similar questions to determine approval of corporal punishment. Moreover, all seven studied nationally representative samples of adults. 7.3 Definition of Corporal Punishment Most surveys, including the surveys analyzed for this paper, operationalized corporal punishment by asking whether the respondent approves of "spanking." If one takes this literally, then the present papers are about spanking, that is, hitting a child on the buttocks. However, many parents use "spanking" to mean any form of corporal punishment that is not severe enough to be classified as physical abuse. Thus, one mother who had slapped her child's hand during the course of the interview, told the interviewer "Sometimes, spanking is the only way to stop him." We believe that most of the respondents in the surveys we analyzed used corporal punishment as a general term to refer not just to spanking, but also to other legal and socially permissible forms of corporal punishment. Consequently, to reflect the broader meaning that we think our respondents intended, we shall often refer to the data analyzed in this paper as "approval of corporal punishment." A detailed conceptual analysis of corporal punishment is given in Straus (1994). For purposes of this paper, we define corporal punishment as: An act by a parent or other caretaker that is intended to cause physical pain, but not injury, for purposes of correction or control. /. 4 Group Differences in Approval of Corporal Punishment The second purpose of the study was to examine whether different socio-cultural groups in American society differ in support of corporal punishment, and if there are differences between groups in the trend over the 26 year period of this study. The evidence on this issue is contradictory. Flynn (1994) analyzed the 1988 General Social Survey and found that approval of corporal punishment varies among different regions of the United States. The West, Midwest, or the South had more favorable attitudes to corporal punishment than the Northeast. Flynn also found that blacks are more likely than whites to favor spanking, and that low education, being male, and belonging young are also more likely to approve of corporal punishment. However, the 1968 survey by Stark and McEvoy (1970) found no difference on any of these variables. The fact that Flynn found differences between regional and other groups, and Stark and McEvoy did not, is puzzling since both were national surveys. Therefore, one of the objectives of the

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study was to reexamine these group differences. With seven different surveys available, it might be possible to uncover the reason or reasons for the discrepancy. However, for purposes of the statistical analysis, the second hypothesis predicts no statistically significant difference between socio-cultural groups and no difference between groups in the trend from 1968 to 1994. 2 Method 2.1 The Samples 2. L l Merged Data Set To carry out the study, we merged data from seven different surveys into a single data file. The year of each survey was one of the variables in this merged file. In order to do this, the data sets had to be edited to make the variable names, variable labels, and coding system identical. The merged data set and the statistical analyses were carried out using the program SPSS/PC. The merged file has an N of 6,794. Each of the surveys in the merged file is described below. 1968 National Violence Survey The 1968 National Violence Survey was designed by Rodney Stark and James McEvoy III. The survey was conducted by the National Family Violence Commission. Louis Harris Associates carried out face-to-face interviews with a national probability sample of persons age 18 and over (N = 1,160). Additional information on the survey may be found in Stark and McEvoy (1970), the Commission Reports (1969), and in Owens and Straus (1975). The data file used for this paper was obtained from the Interuniversity Consortium For Political And Social Research at the University of Michigan. 1986-1991 General Social Surveys The General Social Survey (GSS) is a yearly omnibus survey of a national probability sample of persons 18 and over (Davis & Smith, 1992). Each year had the following number of cases: 1986 N = 1,460; 1988: N = 978; 1989: N = 994; 1990: N = 917 and 1991: N = 283. The 1987 GSS survey was not included in the study because it lacked questions concerning corporal punishment of children by parents. 1994 Gallup Survey This survey was designed by David Moore and Murray A. Straus. The survey was conducted in January 1994 by the Gallup Organization using telephone interviews. The subjects were a national probability sample of persons age 18 and over (N = 1,002). Additional information on this survey may be obtained from the Gallup Organization.

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Comparability of Surveys The three surveys differ on several characteristics: the size of the sample (from 283 to 4,632 per year) the method of interviewing (face-to-face vs. telephone), the organization conducting the survey, and the context in which the approval of violence questions were asked (a survey on violence, an omnibus survey, and a political opinion survey). The confounding of the year of the survey with these differences raises questions about the appropriateness of analyzing them as a single data set. In addition, as explained below, the question on approval of corporal punishment was slightly different in 1968. However, as will be shown, the findings follow consistent pattern over time, which suggests that the findings are probably not the result of confounding with one or more of the differences just discussed. 2.2 Measures 2.2.1 Approval of Corporal Punishment The following question was asked in the five General Social Surveys and the 1994 Gallup Survey: "Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree that it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good hard spanking?". A somewhat different question was used in the 1968 National Violence Survey which asked: "Are there any situations that you can imagine in which you would approve of a parent spanking his or her child assuming the child is healthy and over a year old?" Respondents in this survey could answer only Yes or No rather than a give a four category response. In order to make all seven surveys more congruent, the General Social Survey and Gallup Survey answers were dichotomized by combining Strongly Agree and Agree into Agree, and combining Disagree and Strongly Disagree into Disagree. 2.2.2 Independent Variables The year in which the survey was conducted was the independent variable for testing the hypothesis concerning changes in approval of corporal punishment by parents. The variables to investigate group differences in approval of corporal punishment were the race of the respondent, the region the respondent lived in, and the gender of the respondent. Control variables for age, income, and education were also included in the form of Z scores. The data for these three variables were transformed to Z scores before creating the merged data set. This was necessary because the various studies used different class intervals to code the data. Z scores makes them comparable in the sense that all express the score for each respondent as the number of standard deviations above or below the mean of all respondents in that survey.

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2.3 Statistical Analysis 2.3.1 ANCOVA The hypotheses were tested using a 7 x 2 x 3 x 4 analysis of covariance with three covariates. The seven category variable is year (1968, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994), the two category variable is gender of the respondent, the three category variable is race (Euro-American, AfricanAmerican, Other), and the four category variable is region (North East, North Central, South, West). The three covariates are age, income, and education The six sociodemographic factors in the analysis enable us to test the hypothesis that these groups do not differ significantly in approval of corporal punishment. In addition, their inclusion addresses the question of whether trends in approval of corporal punishment reflect a change in cultural norms per se, or a change in the demographic structure of American society. For example, the average age of the population has been increasing. If people aged 18 to 25 are more favorable to corporal punishment, the overall level of approval could decrease because there are fewer people in that age group, even though there might be no change in the extent to which 18- to 25-year-olds approve of corporal punishment. Thus, if the hypothesized decrease is found after controlling for these six demographic variables, it is plausible to infer that the decrease reflects a change in cultural norms rather than a change in demographic composition. 3 Results 3.1 Trends

Figure 1: Percent Approving Spanking 100 |

Percent who agree

1968

1986 1988 1989 1990 1991 1994

adjusted rates

unadjusted rates

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Figure 1 shows an overall decrease in approval of corporal punishment from 1968 to 1994. The black bars show the rate of approval after adjusting for overlap with the six demographic variables. The gray bars are the unadjusted rate. Both bars reveal a decrease from 1968 to 1994, despite some minor deviations from this overall downward trend in 1990 and 1994. Table 1 shows that the relationship between year and approval of corporal punishment is significant at the .001 level. As noted previously, the corporal punishment question in the 1968 survey was somewhat different than the question used from 1986 on. The extremely high rate of approval of corporal punishment in 1968 may be partly due to the wording of the question that year. But since the pattern continues down at about the same rate per year, from 1986 on, the rate shown in Figure 1 for 1986 may be correct. Table 1: Analysis ofCovariance of Approval of Corporal Punishment (N = 8,477) Source Variation Main Effects Year Gender Ethnic . Region 2-way Interactions Year gender Year ethnic Year region Covariates Age Income Educ Explained Residual Total Year Gender Ethnic Region Age Income Educ

Regr. Coef.

.783 .122 -.306

Sum of

DF

squares 574,435.808 12 361,073.162 6 53,834.017 1 55,619.047 2 66,280.103 3 175,211.069 47 43,286.514 6 19,565.840 12 67,693.330 18 71,120.117 3 7,426.471 1 1 148.161 48,973.442 1 820,766.994 62 9,346,222.690 6,335 10,166,989.684

6,397

Mean Square

F

47,869.651 60,178.860 53,834.017 27,809.524 22,093.368 3,727.895 7,214.419 1,630.487 3,760.741 23,706.706 7,426.471 148.161 48,973.442 13,238.177 1,475.331

32.447 40.790 36.489 18.850 14.975 2.527 4.890 1.105 2.549 16.069 5.034 .100 33.195 8.973

Signif. ofF .001 .001 .001 .001 .001 .001 .001 .350 .001 .001 .025 .751 .001 .001

1,589.337

= Year of the study = Gender of respondent (0 = Male, 1 = Female) = Ethnic group of respondent (1 = Euro-American 2 = African-American 3 = Other) = Region of respondent: Four census regions = Age of respondent, z score, 5 categories = Income of respondent, z score, 5 categories = Education of respondent, z score

In view of the deeply embedded nature of the belief that corporal punishment is sometimes necessary, and the clear legal and informal norms approving use of corporal punishment, the decrease of 26 percentage points from the high of 94% in 1968 to 68% in 1994 is a remarkable cultural change. Since controlling for changes in the demographic composition of the population made no difference in

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the downward trend, it seems likely that the decrease represents a change in culture rather than a change in demographics. 3.2 Group Differences Since adjusting the rate of approval of corporal punishment made no important difference, the graphs showing differences in trends by gender, race, and region show the original data, that is they are not adjusted for covariates or other independent variables. However, the tests of significance in Table 1 take these factors into account. 3.2.1 Gender The row for Gender in the Main Effects part of Table 1 shows that the difference between men and women in approval of corporal punishment is statistically significant. Examination of the rates themselves shows that although the difference is significant, it is not very large: 83% of men approved of corporal punishment compared to 76% of women. Figure 2: Gender of Respondent and Approval of Spanking 100

Percent who agree

1968

1986 1988 1989 1990 1991 1994

Women

Men

Figure 2 shows that approval of corporal punishment decreased for both men and women. However, the F test in Table 1 for the interaction of year and gender is significant. Examination of Figure 2 reveals the nature of the interaction effect: In 1968 slightly more women than men approved of corporal punishment (95% vs. 92%). However, by 1994 this had reversed and fewer women than men approved of corporal punishment (61% vs. 76% of men). Thus the effect of year on approval of corporal punishment to some degree depends upon whether the

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respondent is a man or woman. Men have held on to the old values concerning corporal punishment somewhat more than women. 3.2.2 Race Respondents were divided into three ethnic categories: Euro-American, African-American, and Other. The row labeled ETHNIC in Table 1 shows that the difference between ethnic groups in approval of corporal punishment is significant at the .001 level. The highest rate of approval is for African-Americans (91%) followed by Euro-Americans (90%), and the lowest approval percentage is for the Other category (78%). Figure 3: Ethic Group of Respondent and Approval of Spanking 100

Percent who agree

1968

EuroAmericans

1986 1988 1989 1990 1991 1994

African-

Other

Trends for each ethnic group are shown in Figure 3. It shows large decreases in approval of corporal punishment for both Euro-Americans and Others over the 26 year period. African-Americans clearly do not follow the same trend. African-American respondents decreased in their approval of corporal punishment only 14 percentage points over the same period, whereas Euro-Americans and Others decreased about twice that amount (32 percentage points for Euro-Americans and 26 percentage points for the Other category). As a result of the nearly identical pattern for the Euro-American and Other groups, the F test for Ethnic Group, shown in Table 1, does not reach an acceptable level of significance. However, since Figure 3 clearly shows that the decrease in approval of corporal punishment was much less among African-Americans than the rest of the population, it seemed appropriate to retest the hypothesis after combining Euro-Americans and Others into a single category. The results from that

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ANCOVA showed a significant interaction of Year with Ethnic Group (F =2.99, P 3.2.3 Region The row for Region in the Main Effects part of Table 1 shows that there is a significant difference between regions in approval of corporal punishment. The region of the United States with the largest percentage approving corporal punishment is the South. The regions with the lowest rate of approval of corporal punishment are the North East and the West. The approval rates for the four regions are: 75% in the North East, 77% in the West, 81% in the North Central, and 85% in the South. Figure 4: Region of Respondent and Approval of Spanking 100

Percent who agree

1968

i NorthEast

1986 1988 1989 1990 1991 1994

NorthCentral

South

West

The trend lines in Figure 4 show that respondents from all four regions decreased in approval of corporal punishment over the 26 years of this study. However, respondents from the South generally had the highest rate of approval of corporal punishment at each time point and decreased less than the other regions form 1968 to 1984. The North East started out in 1968 as having basically the same percent approval of corporal punishment as the South. By 1994, however, the North East was approximately 17 percentage points lower than the South in approval of corporal punishment. The North East decreased a total of 35 percentage points from 1968 to 1994, whereas the South decreased only total of 21 percentage points during the same time interval. The regions thus grew more different from each other in the proportion approving corporal punishment mainly because the South did not decrease as much as other regions. These differences between regions in trends are reflected in the significant F test for the interaction of year and region in Table 1.

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3.2.4 Age Age was included in the ANCOVA as a covariate rather than an independent variable because including age as an additional independent variable would have resulted in many empty cells. The row for AGE in Table 1 shows that age is significantly associated with greater approval of corporal punishment. Table 1, however, cannot provide information on whether the trend from 1968 to 1994 was the same for all age groups. To investigate trends by age of the respondent, and also trends by income and by education (the other two covariates), we computed an analysis of variance with these three variables categorized so that they could be used as blocks in the design. The other independent variables were year of the study, gender of the respondent and region. We classified the age of the respondents into quintiles. The results for age were again significant (F= 4.067, p = .003), but inspection of the approval rates for the four age groups showed that the differences are not large: the maximum difference between any two age groups is only 6%. As for trends, inspection of the trends within each of the five age groups showed that all five followed the general downward trend over the 26-year period.

3.2.4 Income There was no significant relationship found between income and approval of corporal punishment, and all five age groups followed a similar downward trend in approval of corporal punishment from 1968 to 1994. 3.2.5 Education For purposes of examining trends within educational groups, the respondents were classified into four groups: more than one SD (standard deviation) below the mean, up to one SD below the mean, up to one SD above the mean, and more than one SD above the mean. The results of the ANOVA show that with increasing amounts of education, there is a consistent decrease in approval of corporal punishment. This relationship between education and approval of corporal punishment is significant at the .001 level (F = 12.632). The percent approving corporal punishment for the four educational groups are: 75% (highest education), 80%, 82%, and 84% (lowest education). All educational groups decreased in approval of corporal punishment over the 26-year period, but the highest education group decreased at a faster rate. In 1968, the highest educational group had about the same level of approval as the other educational groups (the rates in 1968 ranged from 95% (highest education), 97%, 93% to 88% (lowest education)). However, by 1994, the highest education group had a somewhat lower rate of approval than the other education groups: The rates in 1994 ranged from 64% (highest education group), 69%, 72% to 68% (lowest education group). Although the larger decrease for the highest education group is important, all education groups decreased, and the differences between education groups in 1994 are not large.

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4 Discussion A 1968 national survey found that 94% of the U.S. population approved of spanking by parents. Except for the obligation to provide for the basic needs of a child, it is hard to think of any other aspect of childrearing on which there was or is such consensus. However, as argued in the introduction, corporal punishment interferes with children acquiring the skills and values needed for advancement in the labor market of a postindustrial society. This assumption, together with studies that found a decrease in use of corporal punishment by parents in recent years (Daro & Gelles, 1992; Straus, 1994) led to the hypothesis that cultural norms supporting use of corporal punishment have eroded. The findings from the analysis of national surveys from 1968 to 1994 reported in this paper confirm that hypothesis. The percent of the U.S. population who approve of corporal punishment declined over the 26 year period from 94% in 1968 to 68%. 4.1 Decline in Consensus The findings also show that within this general decrease there are differences in the rate of decrease that have altered the former normative consensus on the necessity of corporal punishment. The decline in approval of corporal punishment has been greater in certain parts of the population and smaller in others. These differences have produced a widening gulf in attitudes toward the appropriateness of spanking children. For example, although the South decreased in approval since 1968, the decrease was smaller than in other regions of the United States, so that by 1994 the South was more favorable to corporal punishment than other regions. Similarly, approval of corporal punishment by African-American declined less than in other ethnic groups. As a result, norms supporting corporal punishment are now stronger among African-Americans than other ethnic groups. Also, approval of corporal punishment by men has decreased less than approval by women. Therefore, men have emerged as being more approving than women. Similarly, approval of corporal punishment has declined less for people with lower education and for older age groups. As a result, less educated and older people are now more approving of corporal punishment than better educated or younger persons. These differences in the rate of change have resulted in a greater differentiation in norms between different sectors of American society. 4.2 The Backlash A decrease from 94% approval of corporal punishment to 68% is a major social change, as is the decrease in consensus on this aspect of childrearing. A change in a normative principle as deeply embedded as the idea that corporal punishment is necessary to properly socialize the next generation is likely to be threatening to many. This may be one of the reasons for the "backlash" against child protective service agencies that have responsibility for enforcing the legislation intended to protect children from physical and other abuse. An example of the backlash is the

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legislation before the Florida legislature in the spring of 1994. It would have prohibited child protective services from ruling that a child had been abused if the only evidence was that the parents used corporal punishment and the child exhibited welts or bruises. The bill was passed overwhelmingly but was vetoed by the governor. However, the reason for the veto was not a disagreement with the purpose of the bill; it was because the governor believed it would create administrative problems (Gainsville Sun, 7/24/94, p. 1; Miami Herald, 5/7/94, p. 1A). 4.3 Policy Implications The backlash and the widening gulf between socioeconomic status groups in respect to corporal punishment is a source of concern. Ignoring these problems could interfere with the transition to new norms that prohibit rather than require corporal punishment. It could exacerbate class and race conflict if efforts to end corporal punishment are seen as an attempt to control and limit the lives of the underprivileged. Such a perception would be ironic because of the evidence suggesting violent socialization in the form of frequent use of corporal punishment reduces the probability of upward social mobility (Gimpel & Straus, 1992; Straus & Mathur, 1994). To help avoid either extreme - failing to take steps to end a practice that harms children and the society, or the perception of cultural imperialism - it is essential that educational programs to reduce corporal punishment among disadvantaged groups be designed and implemented by members of those groups. Despite the recent backlash, approval of corporal punishment by parents has decreased drastically since 1968. A related change is occurring in corporal punishment in schools. In the 40-year period from 1940 to 1980, only four states made the practice illegal. Since 1980, such legislation has been passed at an accelerating rate, so that by 1993, just over half the states of the U.S. prohibited corporal punishment in the schools (Hyman, 1990). The decrease in the rate of approval and actual use of corporal punishment by parents, together with the dramatic decrease in the number of states that permit corporal punishment in schools is encouraging given the evidence that corporal punishment is no more effective than other methods of discipline for young children, that it is less effective than other methods with older children, and that it increases the probability of many harmful side effects (Straus, 1994). Among the harmful side effects are a greater risk of the child being violent and delinquent and engaging in crime as an adult (Straus, 1991, 1994), and decreased probability of upward social mobility. Moreover, the greater adherence to corporal punishment by low socioeconomic status groups suggests that the shift away from corporal punishment among the majority, and the lesser change among low socioeconomic status groups, is likely to have important consequences for social stratification: children of the majority are likely to suffer fewer psychological problems, and that will facilitate their occupational success; whereas children of the minority who continue to be frequent users of corporal punishment are likely to suffer still further impediments to their ability to be upwardly mobile, and social class differences are therefore likely to increase.

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4.4 Legislative Approaches Legislation to prohibit spanking or other form of corporal punishment was enacted in Sweden in 1979. It is important to note that this legislation does not include a criminal penalty. It is purely for purposes of educating and assisting parents. Since then the other Scandinavian countries and Austria have enacted legislation prohibiting corporal punishment by parents. However, in the United States, even among those who are opposed to corporal punishment, all but a few doubt the possibility of such legislation for many years. Moreover, there is a fear that attempts to enact a no-spanking law at this point would further exacerbate the backlash. But social change is notoriously difficult to predict. Although the decrease in normative support for corporal punishment has not yet progressed far enough to have the issue raised in any of the 50 state legislatures of the U.S., the time may be closer than either the critics or the advocates of legislation believe. If the trends described in this paper continue, the United States may not be far from the day when state legislatures in the United States will be considering laws that are alinost the opposite of the Florida legislation mentioned above, that is legislation to prohibit corporal punishment by parents. Such legislation can contribute to the well-being of children, and also contribute to reducing social inequality by avoiding the impaired opportunity for social mobility that occurs when lower socioeconomic status groups socialize their children using corporal punishment. Note This paper is part of a research program on corporal punishment at the Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824. A program description and publications list will be sent on request. The University of New Hampshire Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program provided a summer stipend for Anita Mathur. The work was been supported by National Institute of Mental Health grants R01MH40027 and T32MH15161.

References Carson, B. A. (1986). Parents who don't spank: Deviation in the legitimation of physical force. Durham, NH. Ph.D dissertation. University of New Hampshire. Daro, D. & Gelles, R. J. (1992). Public attitudes and behaviors with respect of child abuse prevention. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 7, 517-531. Davis, J. A. & Smith T. W. (1992). The general social surveys, 1972-1991: Cumulative codebook. Chicago. Flynn, Clifton P. 1994. Regional differences in attitudes toward corporal punishment. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56 (2), 314-324. Gimpel, H. & Straus, M. A. (1992). Corporal punishment and economic achievement: A theoretical model and some preliminary data. Paper presented at the 1992 meeting of the American Sociological Association. (An abbreviated version is in Straus, 1994, Chapter 9.) Greven, P. (1991). Spare the child the religious roots of physical punishment and the psychological impact of physical Abuse. New York.

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Hyman, I. A. (1990). Reading, writing, and the hickory stick: The appalling story of physical and psychological abuse in American schools. Lexington, MA. Kohn, M. L. (1969). Class and conformity: A study in values. Homewood, IL. Kohn, M. L. & Schooler, C. (1983). Work and personality: An inquiry into the impact of social stratification. Norwood, NJ. Lehman, B. A. (1989). Making a case against spanking. The Washington Post. Thursday, March 23, 1989. D5. Owens, D. & Straus, M.A. (1975). The social structure of violence in childhood and approval of violence as an adult. Aggressive Behavior, J, 193-211. Also in Corporal Punishment in American Education: Readings in History, Practice, and Alternatives, edited by I. H. Hyman and J. H. Wise. Philadelphia, 1979. Stark, R. & McEvoy III., J. (1970). Middle class violence. Psychology Today, 4, 52-65. Straus, M. A. & Donnelly, D. (1993). Corporal punishment of teen age children in the United States. Youth and Society, 24, 419-42. Straus, M. A., Gelles, R. J., & Steinmetz, S. K. (1980). Behind closed doors: Violence in the American family. Anchor, NY. Straus, M. A. & Mathur, A. K. (1994). Corporal punishment by parents and later occupational and economic achievement of children. Durham, NH. Straus, M. A. (1971). Some social antecedents of physical punishment: A linkage theory interpretation. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 70 (2), 658-663. Also reprinted in S. K. Steinmetz & M. A. Straus (Eds.), Violence in the family (pp. 159-166). New York. Straus, M. A. (1994). Beating the devil out of them: Corporal punishment. American Families. Lexington, Mass. White, K. (1993). Where pediatricians stand on spanking. Pediatric Management, September, 11-15.

Public Attitudes Toward Corporal Punishment in Canada Joan E. Durrani

1 Introduction" Physical punishment is the second most-used childrearing technique worldwide for children of both genders and all· ages (Levinson, 1989). It has been estimated that 85% to 90% of American parents (Straus, 1991) and 75% of Canadian parents (Durrant, 1992) use physical discipline in their attempts to control or change their children's behavior. This frequent use persists despite mounting evidence indicating that physical punishment may result in negative effects on the child. For example, a linear relationship has been found between the frequency of spanking and the frequency of aggression toward siblings and parents among samples of preschoolers (Larzelere, 1986), school-aged children (Eron, 1982), and adolescents (Larzelere, 1986). Research conducted by Straus (1991) has demonstrated positive relationships between the frequency with which individuals are physically punished as children and their likelihood of committing acts of assault in their youth and adulthood. In addition to these effects on the behavior of the child, physical discipline has repeatedly been demonstrated to be related to child abuse. It has been estimated that physical punishment is responsible for the majority of child abuse cases, because as parents who set out to discipline a child lose control of their anger or underestimate their strength (Zigler & Hall, 1989). The power and strength imbalance between an adult and a child can result in severe injuries when a parent hits, spanks, or shakes a child. Infants are at particular risk for severe injury and even death due to their small size and physical vulnerability. Abuse is a particularly likely outcome when parents use physical punishment to teach children to control behavior that is, in fact, not under their control due to their levels of cognitive and/or physical development. As punishment is unlikely to be effective at such times, parental anger is likely to increase and punishment to escalate to increasingly severe levels (Reid, Patterson, & Loeber, 1982). This finding is particularly important in light of the fact that physical punishment is most frequently used by parents of toddlers and preschoolers (Straus, 1991) who are the children most limited in self-control and cognitive, language, motor, and social skills. Such findings have led researchers, child advocates, and professional organizations in North America, as in Europe, to call for the abolition of corporal punishment in schools and families as the most important measure in child abuse

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prevention (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1983; American Psychological Association, 1975; Gelles & Cornell, 1990; Gelles & Straus, 1988; Gil, 1974; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1985; Zigler & Hall, 1989). However, despite decades of research that has overwhelmingly supported the elimination of corporal punishment, the Canadian government has been reluctant to abolish its use. The reason for this reluctance is most likely to be found in longstanding attitudes toward parental rights, children's status, and acceptance of violence as a means of conflict resolution. 2 Canada's Law on Corporal Punishment In Canada, as in most other countries once ruled by Britain, the use of corporal punishment in schools and homes is legally sanctioned. Section 43 of the Criminal Code states that "every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child ... if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances." (Greenspan, 1993) This law is derived from English Common Law and dates back to the 1780s when it was legal for employers to strike their employees and for husbands to beat their wives. It protects teachers and parents from prosecution if they use physical force that is deemed to be "reasonable under the circumstances." In many of Canada's 10 provinces, foster parents and child care workers are prohibited from using physical force against children. However, in only one province (British Columbia) is corporal punishment prohibited in the schools. In other provinces, individual school districts have developed their own policies regarding discipline. Many districts have banned the use of corporal punishment, but many others have not. For example, of 42 Manitoba school districts that responded to a survey of their policies, 55% explicitly prohibit corporal punishment, 29% explicitly permit it, and the remainder have no written policy in this regard (Schellenberg, 1993). However, it is important to note that even in those districts that have prohibited the use of physical force, Canadian teachers are protected from prosecution by Section 43 which takes legal precedence over local guidelines and regulations. 2.1 Reasonable Force Section 43 permits the use of "reasonable force" by parents and teachers in the course of "correction" of a child. This wording presents at least two major difficulties for the courts, as well as for children. First, it implies that a degree of physical force is to be expected in the raising and educating of children, thereby normalizing the use of corporal punishment, inhibiting early intervention, and making it difficult for charges to be laid. In a 1984 ruling, a judge stated that the

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use of physical force is justified because Section 43 "considers such an action not wrongful but a rightful one" (McGillivray, 1992). Second, the definition of reasonable force is not a clear one. Even the presence of visible injury is not sufficient to determine that excessive force was used. "If in the course of the punishment the pupil should suffer bruises or contusions it does not necessarily follow that the punishment is unreasonable" (Campeau v The King, 1952, 14 C.R. 262 Que. C.A.). In 1987 alone, there were four acquittals of parents or other caretakers who used implements to hit children (two with belts, one with a stick, and one with an extension cord) (Robertshaw, 1994). Two more recent cases illustrate the breadth of judges' discretion with regard to the definition of reasonable force. In 1992, a mother left welts on the body of her 11-year-old daughter when she hit her with a belt 10 to 15 times. In the judge's ruling, he stated that "parents are entitled to use a belt, given the circumstances. There are welts but I guess you expect to find welts when you use a belt." This judge found the mother to be technically guilty of assault, but not deserving of punishment (Burns, 1993). In a 1993 case, a father repeatedly kicked, slapped and punched his 8-year-old son, leaving bruises across his buttocks and shoulder. While the provincial court found the father guilty of assault and ordered him to receive counseling, the provincial court of appeal overturned this verdict. The judge stated that the punishment administered was "well within the range of what has been accepted by parents in this province" (R v K (M), 1992, Manitoba Court of Appeal, Suit no. AR 91-30-00546). An application was made to challenge this ruling to the Supreme Court, but the father died and the Supreme Court dismissed the application on the grounds that it was not of sufficient importance in view of the defendant's death. 2.2 Current Status of Section 43 Such decisions have fuelled a growing controversy in Canada about the role of corporal punishment in education and childrearing. Nongovernmental organizations, such as the Canadian Coalition on the Rights of Children and the Institute for the Prevention of Child Abuse, have been outspoken regarding the harmful effects and risks associated with corporal punishment, as well as invoking the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in defending children's rights to physical integrity. Moreover, 13 government-sponsored reports submitted over the past 18 years have recommended that Section 43 be repealed (Robertshaw, 1994). At the present time, the Department of Justice and the Children's Bureau are reviewing Section 43 and appear to be considering seriously its amendment or repeal. They are currently preparing a public discussion paper and expect its release by the end of the year. It should be noted that the Canadian government is not considering legal prohibition of corporal punishment, but rather the removal of Section 43 as a legal excuse. At the same time, the primary professional organization of teachers, the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF), has taken a stand in opposition to the repeal of Section 43. While the CTF is opposed to the use of corporal punishment in

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principle, it is concerned that teachers will lose their right to self-defence or to restraining children who are causing harm to themselves or others. This organization is one of the few serving children that has taken this stand. They have equated the repeal of Section 43 with "criminalizing care", and have stated that it could lead to increased violence and assaults by students, increased demands on police, increased provocation of teachers by students, redirection of resources from counseling and education to paying lawyers and, finally, to a backlash against children (Canadian Teachers' Federation, 1994). Until recently, very little has been known about the attitudes of the Canadian public at large toward the use of corporal punishment by parents. While some parent educators have voiced support for repeal of Section 43, parents' groups have not been particularly vocal on this issue. A systematic study has been needed of Canadians' views on the abolition of corporal punishment and their beliefs about its acceptability and value. 3 Canadians' Beliefs About Corporal Punishment In 1992, I conducted two surveys of attitudes toward corporal punishment. One was carried out in Toronto, Ontario through the Toronto Area Survey, an annual survey conducted by the Institute for Social Research at York University. The other was carried out in Winnipeg, Manitoba through the Winnipeg Area Study, an annual survey conducted by the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba. Both cities are large urban centers: Toronto is the capital city of Canada's most heavily industrialized province, while Winnipeg is the largest city in the prairie provinces. Both samples were randomly selected and were representative of the larger populations. The Toronto and Winnipeg samples were composed of 299 and 528 respondents aged 18 and older, respectively. For the purposes of this study, physical discipline was defined in its mildest form, as spanking. First, respondents were told that "physical discipline, such as spanking, is one method that some parents use to try to improve their children's behavior." Then, they were asked a series of questions pertaining to their beliefs about the use of physical discipline with children. 3.1 Abolition of Corporal Punishment In order to assess levels of support for the abolition of corporal punishment, the Winnipeg sample was told that in 1979, Sweden passed a law that makes it unlawful for parents to spank or use any other mild form of physical discipline with their children. They were then asked a) whether Canada should pass a similar law, and b) whether Canada should pass such a law if research shows that the Swedish law significantly reduces cases of physical injury to children (Deley, 1988). As Figure 1 indicates, a minority (30.4%) of the Winnipeg respondents agreed that Canada should pass a Swedish-style law. However, as shown in Figure 2, if

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Figure 1: Agreement with Abolition Percent of Winnipeg Sample 50

strongly agree

somewhat agree somewhat disagree strongly disagree Response % Females; N = 285

% Males; N = 226

% Total; N = 501

the Swedish law were shown to reduce injuries to children, a majority (65.4%) of respondents would support the passage of such a law in Canada. These findings suggest that public education regarding the risks of injury associated with corporal punishment may elicit the support of a majority of Canadians for its abolition. However, current levels of support for abolition are low, indicating that Canadians feel that its use is appropriate under at least some Figure 2: Agreement with Proven Law Percent of Winnipeg Sample 50

strongly agree

% Males; N = 220

somewhat agree somewhat disagree Response % Females; N = 281

strongly disagree

% Total; N = 501

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circumstances. The Winnipeg and Toronto samples, therefore, were asked to identify those misbehaviors for which they believe corporal punishment to be an acceptable response. 3.2 Acceptability of Corporal Punishment To permit an examination of the types of misbehaviors for which Canadians believe corporal punishment to be acceptable, respondents were asked to indicate whether or not they believed physical discipline to be appropriate for each of nine behavioral transgressions. These misbehaviors were selected to represent the following categories (Turiel, Killen, & Helwig, 1987): (a) physical harm to self or others (breaking a rule that could endanger the child, hitting another child, hitting a parent); (b) violation of property rights (stealing, purposely breaking another child's toy); (c) causing psychological harm (calling another child names); (d) not committing prosocial acts (not helping another child in distress); and (e) breaking a convention that does not have a moral imperative (refusing to eat supper). Respondents were also given an opportunity to state that they believe that corporal punishment is never appropriate. Approximately onefourth of the Winnipeg sample believed that physical discipline is never appropriate, which is approximately the same proportion as those who would support abolition. Surprisingly, only one Toronto respondent agreed that physical discipline is never appropriate. Figure 3 contains the percentage of respondents endorsing physical discipline Figure 3: Appropriateness of Physical Discipline

Self-endangerment Hitting a parent Hitting a child Stealing Breaking other's toy Calling child names Not helping a child Refusing supper 0 10 20 30 40 50 Percentage Endorsing Physical Discipline

Winnipeg; N = 526

Toronto; N = 289

60%

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for each of the behavioral transgressions presented. The distributions of endorsement within the Winnipeg and Toronto samples were very similar. Behaviors that threaten physical harm to self or others or that violate property rights were seen as those most deserving of physical punishment. Committing psychological harm to others and not committing prosocial acts were much less likely to be seen as warranting physical punishment. Physical discipline was viewed by virtually all respondents as an inappropriate response to a breach of convention. These findings suggest that even among supporters of physical discipline, distinctions are drawn between transgressions mat are and are not deserving of this type of punishment. Preventing physical harm to the child, other people, or objects is clearly viewed as the primary reason for using physical discipline. Interestingly, but not surprisingly given the findings of other studies, more than onethird of respondents believe that hitting a child is an appropriate way in which to teach that child not to hit others. What is it that they believe is accomplished through the use of physical discipline? And how reliable do they believe it to be as a method of behavior change? 3.3 Value of Physical Punishment In order to answer these questions, interviewers asked respondents how often they believe that physical discipline of a child leads to desirable outcomes, namely obedience to parents, respect for parents, and learning of acceptable behavior. In an attempt to assess the degree to which Canadians believe that physical discipline "hurts me more than it hurts you," they were asked how often they believe that it results in feelings of guilt or regret in the parents. As shown in Figures 4 and 5, beliefs about the value of physical discipline were similar in the two samples. The least likely outcome was believed to be respect for the parent. Approximately onehalf of each sample indicated that respect is rarely increased through the use of physical discipline. The reasons for which physical discipline is ostensibly undertaken, namely increasing obedience and learning of acceptable behavior, were believed to occur at least sometimes by a majority of the respondents; but only about onefifth of each sample viewed these outcomes as occurring reliably; and about onethird of each sample believe that they rarely occur. The most frequent outcome was believed to be guilty feelings in the parents: 89.7% of the Winnipeg sample and 81.5% of the Toronto sample indicated that parental guilt occurs at least sometimes as a result of the administration of physical discipline. Therefore, high rates of use or support for maintaining corporal punishment do not necessarily imply unquestioned belief in the value of this method.

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Figure 4: Expected Outcomes of Physical Discipline Frequency - Winnipeg

70 60

obedience

learning respect for parent Outcome

frequently

sometimes

parental guilt rarely

Among these Canadian respondents, then, physical discipline is not seen as a particularly reliable method of teaching children how to behave or as a particularly effective means of increasing children's respect for their parents. Rather, it seems to be viewed as a strategy that has sufficient drawbacks to make parents feel very uncomfortable about its use. And yet, a majority of respondents would not support its abolition. Together these findings may suggest that Canadians wish to maintain the right to use corporal punishment despite its acknowledged inadequacies as a method of behavior change. However, if Canadians were to be convinced that its use is related to injury in children and that such injuries could be reduced through abolition, a majority would be willing to relinquish the right Figure 5: Expected Outcomes of Physical Discipline Frequency - Toronto

obedience frequently

learning

respect for parent Outcome sometimes

parental guilt rarely

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to use it. The degree to which parental guilt is assumed to result from the use of corporal punishment may be linked to a suspicion that children can be harmed by it or a feeling that parents resort to this method in moments of fear or frustration. At the same time, Canadians may be frightened by the idea that they could be prosecuted for reacting emotionally and therefore resist more protective legislation. 4 Conclusion The Canadian government is not currently considering explicit prohibition of corporal punishment, but simply removal of Section 43 from the Criminal Code. Such a legislative change may not fully accomplish its goal of protecting children as, according to Peter Newell (1994): "Unless there is a very explicit ban, the practice of hitting children in the home has seldom been effectively challenged. Simply stating that the criminal law on assault applies equally to physical punishments of children ... is not enough, given the prevailing social attitudes to children." (p. 1)

His argument has been supported by the decisions of the Nordic countries and Austria to pass legislation abolishing corporal punishment several years after removing the excuse from their Penal Codes. However, some measures could be taken to increase the likelihood that the repeal of Section 43 would have a substantial effect. In Sweden, the success of the corporal punishment ban appears to be largely attributable to the public education campaign that accompanied it (Burns, 1992). On the basis of the findings of the present study, public education in Canada should target three primary issues. First, as a majority of Canadians would actually support abolition if it were demonstrated to reduce injuries to children, public education should focus on the link between corporal punishment and child abuse. Information should be made widely available that documents the increase in child abuse risk facing parents who use corporal punishment (Zigler & Hall, 1989) and the processes underlying it. Second, Canadians already seem to be somewhat aware of the ineffectiveness of corporal punishment as a teaching strategy and many are ambivalent about its use. They are therefore likely to welcome information about alternative childrearing strategies that would increase skills while reducing guilt. Findings of research on human learning (e.g. Martin & Pear, 1988; Walters & Grusec, 1977) and effective parenting (e.g. Baumrind, 1971; Lytton, 1980) should be offered on a mass scale. Third, the social acceptability of a practice that violates the basic human right to security of the person needs to be questioned on a societal level. The guilt and regret that are believed to follow parental use of corporal punishment so frequently may reflect an awareness of the fundamental injustice of this practice. An increased focus on this aspect of the issue may help parents to clarify their own positions, for even if corporal punishment was effective, it would still violate children's rights to physical integrity (Newell, 1994).

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Under the terms of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the state has a responsibility to institute proactive policies, not only in protecting children, but in assisting parents to facilitate children's psychological development and selfdetermination. By ratifying this document in 1991, Canada has committed itself to protecting the child's right to physical integrity (Article 19, Section 2), providing "guidance for parents" (Article 24, Section 2f), and ensuring children the "highest attainable standard of health" (Article 24, Section 1). While the Convention does not specifically address corporal punishment, the UN Committee has stated that it will attend to the issue in its examination of States Parties' reports (Newell, 1994). In addition, the Canadian legal principles of the "child as a person before the law" and the "best interests of the child" (Thomlison & Foote, 1987, p. 234) provide a legal foundation for the repeal of Section 43. Section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights guarantees protection from "cruel and unusual punishment and treatment" and Section 15 guarantees equal protection under the law without discrimination based on age. Together, these legal provisions should lay a sound foundation for enshrining the rights of children to health, dignity, and physical integrity. In reality, however, Canada's record on protecting children's well-being is not unblemished. At 18.2%, Canada has the second-highest rate of child poverty in the industrialized world (National Council of Welfare, 1994). Licensed child care is available for only 13% of the children who need it (National Council of Welfare, 1988). Many aboriginal children live in appalling conditions and have a suicide rate five to six times that of nonaboriginal children (Health & Welfare Canada, 1991). Canadian children still occupy a low status, economically and politically, and in these years of deficit reduction, their needs continue to be addressed inadequately. The current economic climate only serves to reaffirm their status as a group whose needs must wait until times of prosperity. At the same time, as poverty and youth violence increase, calls are being made for tougher anticrime measures, and fears of losing control over children are growing. Public discussion of Section 43 during such a period may serve to raise the needs of children in the public consciousness and its repeal would be a significant achievement. Note

ι

This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of David Forde, Director of the Winnipeg Area Study, and John Pollard, Promotions Coordinator of the Toronto Area Survey.

References American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Psychological Aspects of Child and Family (1983): The pediatrician's role in discipline. Pediatrics, 72, 373-374.

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American Psychological Association (1975): Policy statement of the American Psychological Association. American Psychologist, 30, 632. Baumrind, D. (1971): Current patterns of parental authority. Developmental Psychological Monographs, 4 (1, Pt. 2). Burns, N. (1993): Legislative and attitudinal comparison of western countries on corporal punishment. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, Chicago, IL. Canadian Teachers' Federation (1994): Toward ending the physical punishment of children: Assessing the "Section 43" strategy. Unpublished report to the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, Section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada Deley, W. W. (1988): Physical punishment of children: Sweden and the U.S.A. Journal of Comparitive Family Studies, 19, 419-431. Durrani, J. E. (1992): Canadians' attitudes toward the physical discipline of children. Unpublished raw data. Eron, L. (1982): Parent-child interaction, television violence, and aggression of children. American Psychologist, 37, 197-211. Gelles, R. J. & Cornell, C. P. (1990): Intimate violence in families (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, NJ. Gelles, R. J. & Straus, M. A. (1988): Intimate violence: The causes and consequences of abuse in the American family. New York. Gil, D. G. (1974): A socio-cultural perspective on physical child abuse. In J. E. Leavitt (Ed.): The battered child (pp. 164-169). Morristown, N. J. Greenspan, E. L. (Ed.). (1993): Martin 's criminal code. Aurora, ON. Health and Welfare Canada (Medical Services Branch Steering Committee on Native Mental Health) (1991): Statistical profile on native mental health. Ottawa. Larzelere, R. (1986): Moderate spanking: Model or deterrent of children's aggression in the family? Journal of Family Violence, 1, 27-36. Levinson, D. (1989): Physical punishment of children and wife beating in cross-cultural perspective. Child Abuse & Neglect, 5, 193-195. Lytton, H. (1980): Parent-child interaction: The socialization process observed in twin and singelton families. New York. Martin, G. & Pear, J. (1988): Behavior modification: What it is and how to do it. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. McGillivray, A. (1992): R. v. K. (M.). Legitimating brutality. Criminal Reports, 16C.R. (4th), 125-132. National Council of Welfare (1988): Child care: A better alternative. Ottawa. National Council of Welfare (1994): Poverty profile 1992. Ottawa. Newell, P. (1994): Violence within the family: Anti-spanking legislation - a matter for the EU? Paper presented to the Radda Bamen Conference on Children and the European Union, Stockholm. Reid, J. B., Patterson, G. R., & Loeber, R. (1982): The abused child: Victim, instigator, or innocent bystander? In D. J. Bernstein (Ed.): Response structure and organization. Lincoln, NB Robertshaw, C. (1994): Notes for a presentation to the Canadian coalition for the rights of children, section 43 of the criminal code of Canada. Unpublished manuscript. Schellenberg, D. (1993): A survey of Manitoba school districts' policies on corporal punishment. Unpublished raw data. Straus, M. A. (1991): Discipline and deviance: Physical punishment of children and violence and other crime in adulthood. Social Problems, 38, 133-154.

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Thomlison, R. J. & Foote, C. E. (1987): Children and the law in Canada: The shifting balance of children's, parents' and the state's rights. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 18, 231245. Turiel, E., Killen, M., & Helwig, C. C. (1987): Morality: Its structure, functions, and vagaries, hi J. Kagan & S. Lamb (Eds.): The emergence of morality inyoung children. Chicago, IL. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1985): Surgeon general 's workshop on violence and public health: Report (HRS-D-MC 86-1): Rockville, MD. Walters, G. C. & Grusec, J. E. (1977): Punishment. San Francisco Welsh, R.S. (1988, August): Physical punishment: Correction or root of delinquency and other problems. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta, GA. Zigler, E. & Hall, N. W. (1989): Physical child abuse in America: Past, present, and future. In D. Cicchetti & V. Carlson (Eds.): Child Maltreatment: Theory and research on the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect (pp. 38-78). Cambridge.

C Formal and Informal Social Control

Sexual and Physical Abuse of Children: Public Attitudes and Legal Issues Wiebke Horn

I Introduction

The widespread attention given to violence toward children has emerged from the child abuse movement in the mid-1970s (Arbeitsgruppe Kinderschutz, 1975). In contrast to the evolution of physical child abuse as an international social problem, which has its origins in the "battered child syndrome" (Kempe, et al., 1962), the interest in child sexual abuse started initially in the United States and has been "discovered" with a delay of some years in Germany by the women's movement (Armstrong, 1978/1985; Brownmiller, 1975; Kavemann & Lohstöter, 1986). The topic of sexual abuse seems to be replacing the problem of physical abuse as an issue for social work (Conte, 1982, p. 1). As in other European countries and the United States, the problem of child sexual abuse has also led to the establishment of a number of prevention and intervention projects in Germany, which mainly have their origins in private and feminist circles rather than in the state youth welfare system. In this context, handling child maltreatment has taken a more legalistic approach, and the criminal prosecution of child maltreatment has gained, at least in theory, increasing favor in recent years (Myers, 1985, p. 149; Tjaden & Thoennes, 1992, p. 807). As in those countries in which the problem of sexual abuse first became a focus of public and professional attention, the German debate at the moment is culminating in the discussion of "abuse of abuse" (cf. for the United States: Hechler, 1989; for Great Britain: Report of the inquiry into child abuse in Cleveland, 1987; for Germany: Duve, 1994). In these cases, professionals were accused of overreacting and suspecting child sexual abuse everywhere; of starting their own investigation after attending a prevention program at which they had gained ideas about how to disclose sexual abuse. The international examples suggest that some professionals come into conflict with their subjective attitudes and ideologies when it comes to acting "in the best interest of the child." There is no empirical evidence on how to deal with cases of sexually abused children adequately and which approach seems to be appropriate. There may well be no other subject that provokes such emotional arguments among professionals than the sexual abuse of children. Whilst there is a high degree of consensus in cases of physical child abuse that the family should be kept together, there is a strong controversy in the field of

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sexual abuse concerning whether offenders ought to be treated or punished and whether the family should be reunited or not (Harshbarger, 1987, p. 108; Newberger, 1987, p. 112; Rennefeld, 1993, p. 104). This controversial debate is a result of different theoretical approaches, namely the family-oriented and the feminist and victim advocacy approach. A survey conducted by Finkelhor, et al. (1984, p. 209) has indicated a high level of disagreement among professionals on the appropriate approach to handling cases of sexual abuse (cf. Kelley, 1990, p. 46). A few words are necessary in order to clarify different conventional approaches to intervention in cases of child abuse and child sexual abuse by the German child welfare system. Professional reactions in handling child maltreatment have turned, at least in theory, from a punitive to a treatment-oriented intervention in abusive families (Arbeitsgruppe Kinderschutz, 1975; Wolff, 1992, p. 162; cf. Hege, this volume). The conceptual framework, which refers mainly to the Dutch model of the Confidential Doctors Bureaus, has emphasized separating the traditional connection between law enforcement and social work in this field (cf. Montefoort, this volume). Ever since the topic of sexual abuse of girls was established by feminists as a social problem in the 1980s, these strategies have shifted again toward a more traditional and repressive approach (Enders, 1990, p. 138; Fegert, 1993; Marquardt, 1993). In this context, there is also a controversial debate about establishing a mandatory reporting law in line with the American child protective system where, throughout the 1970s, state legislatures passed laws that obliged professionals to report cases of suspected child abuse (Besharov, 1993, p. 257; Faltermeier, 1992, p. 159; Finkelhor, 1993, p. 273; Remschmidt, 1989, p. 75). Several American studies have indicated that many professionals fail to report suspected child abuse due to the dysfunctional aspects of the mandatory reporting law, and the need for a more flexible reporting law is being discussed (Faller, 1985, p. 63; Finkelhor & Zellmann, 1991, p. 335). The sexual and physical abuse of children are punishable offenses, but in the German system, no professional is obliged to report a case of suspected child maltreatment. This contribution analyzes the willingness of the public to accept social intervention in cases of child maltreatment and child sexual abuse in the family, and to what extent the law provides a framework for professional interventions. 2 Method The professional sample currently contains 42 social workers, professionals working in private and public child protection organizations, daycare workers, and teachers. The sample for the general public survey comprised 3,000 adults and 2,400 juveniles (13- to 16-year-olds) selected at random. In addition, 68 interviews are being carried out with 12- to 16-year-old students from a local school. This article presents preliminary results of the study.1} We were also interested in finding out whether people (adult survey) knew of cases of physical and/or sexual abuse and whether they would report them to an agency. To compare different attitudes, we asked people in our representative

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adult survey about their reaction to a hypothetical case of child (sexual) abuse, whether they knew of a real case of child maltreatment, and how they reacted to it. To get an impression of popular opinion in this debate, we also asked people for reasons why children might be physically and sexually abused. 3 Results 3.1 Public Opinion About Child Maltreatment In line with the prevention programs and public awareness process in the United States, educational efforts have been started by the women's movement in the past 10 years in Germany, and a series of prevention materials have become very popular in professional circles (Braun, 1989; Cooper, et al, 1985). Prevention efforts are implemented with the rationale that informed and empowered children will be better able to protect themselves (cf. Plummer, 1993, p. 288; Wurtele, 1987, p. 483; for criticisms, see Gilbert, et al., 1989; Reppucci & Haugaard, 1993, p. 306). These prevention efforts have also focused on uncovering the popular myths about the problem, for example, that in most cases of sexual abuse, the perpetrator is a stranger or that the reasons why people sexually abuse children are individual and a mental health problem of the perpetrator (for a detailed description of prevention programs, see Nelson & Clark, 1986). Therefore, people in the adult survey were asked about the reasons why children are sexually abused. A list of common popular explanations was given, and the results were compared with a comprehensive survey carried out by Finkelhor, etal. (1984, p. 93). Figure 1: Reasons why People Sexually Abuse Children. Comparison of the Boston Survey and the German Adults Survey Mental illness Loneliness and isolation Alcoholism Not enough sex from their partners Children act in a sexy way ("Blaming the victim")

10 Boston Survey 1981 (N=518)

20

30

40

50

60

70%

Adults Survey 1994 (N=1,244)

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In spite of the high public attention to child sexual abuse as a social problem, it is quite remarkable that public opinion still defines sexual abuse mainly as a problem of mental illness in both the German (61%) and the Finkelhor survey (62%). In the German study, loneliness and social isolation of the family seems to be an important reason (46%) to abuse children sexually, whereas only 22% of the American sample chose this answer. Compared to the individual reasons of the offender, only a small but remarkable percentage of German respondents blame the child if sexual abuse occurs (14%), whereas the American sample is much more reluctant to blame the children (5%). Another popular myth is supported by the fact that in the German survey, 56% of respondents viewed sexual abusers as alcoholics compared to only 12% of the American respondents. These results indicate a high degree of individualization and pathologization of the problem rather than blaming societal structures like social inequality between men and women, between adults and children, as well as the weak legal status of Figure 2: Reasons why Parents Abuse Children Physically „Physical abuse is due to circumstances that..." Parents have abused themselves when they were young Parents have disturbed personality Parents have social burdens Childrens do not have any rights in our society There are no clear laws prohibiting physical abuse Others do not like to interfere to family problems

10

20

30

40

50

60

70%

German Adults Survey 1994 (N = 1,244) children in society. This tendency in public opinion was similar when people were asked about the reasons why children are physically abused by their parents. 3.2 Public Reaction to Child Maltreatment Adults In line with the theory of the autonomy and isolation of the family as well as the widespread public reluctance to get involved in family affairs, the following

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results indicate a low willingness to intervene in a hypothetical case of child maltreatment. Figure 3: Apprehension About Intervening in a Hypothetical Case of Child Maltreatment (Frehsee/Bussmann, 1995, p. 118) Do not want to interfere in people's affaires Do not want to be regarded as a snooper One could get into contact with authorities Have legal apprehensions to interfere

j

20

exactly true / rather true

44.8

3 .S •° lVl '

40

partly true

Λ.Λ.Ι

60

80

100%

N = 2,963 rather not/ not true

People were asked to report their apprehensions about consulting the Youth Welfare Department (comparable with the American Child Protection Service, CPS) or a private child protection agency in a hypothetical case of child maltreatment. It was found that 41.7% did not want to interfere with the family's privacy (cf. Finkelhor, 1984, p. 105), and more than one third (37.2%) were apprehensive about doing so. More than one third (35.2%) were afraid of being regarded as snoopers. In contrast, only a quarter of the respondents (24.5%) were afraid of getting in contact with state authorities. These results support the assumption that the high degree of family autonomy and intimacy makes people hesitate to intervene even in severe cases of child maltreatment. On the other hand, the results also indicate that the primary problem is the reluctance to intervene in family affairs in any case - independent of the public awareness campaigns carried out by the child protective movement that encourage people to meddle in a family if cases of maltreatment occur. Due to these apprehensions, we anticipated that a real reaction could be excluded.

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Figure 4: Comparison of Intervention in Cases of Sexual Child Abuse/Child Maltreatment

No Intervention

Direct Intervention

Sexual child abuse; N=164

Informal Intervention

Formal Intervention

Child maltreatment; N=440

Against our assumptions, the results showed different patterns of reaction. In cases of child maltreatment or child sexual abuse that came to the knowledge of respondents, only a minority (20%) did not intervene at all. The pressure to act immediately in a real case of child maltreatment might increase the willingness to intervene. An interesting result is shown by the comparison of different intervention strategies between child maltreatment and child sexual abuse. The intervention strategies are divided into "formal" and "informal" intervention. "Formal intervention" comprised contacting private child protection agencies as well as state authorities such as the Youth Welfare Department or the police. "Informal intervention" meant contacting friends or neighbors; and "direct intervention," contacting the family or the child him- or herself. In cases of sexual abuse, formal intervention was much more frequent than in cases of physical abuse. On the other hand, informal reactions to physical child abuse were more common. The next figure shows different agencies to which parents had reported a case of sexual abuse. The majority of respondents (31%) had contacted the public welfare department, whereas 13% made a report to the police. Since our preliminary results of interviews with police officers indicate that only a small amount of sexual abuse cases by family members came to their attention, we assume that these reports may include strangers or nonfamily members. Studies have shown that the probability of contacting the police increases if the perpetrator is a stranger (Baurmann & Schädler, 1991, p. 171)

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Figure 5: Agencies to Which Parents had Reported a Case of Sexual Abuse Police

Child protective agency Child abuse hotline Counseling agency Private child protective agency No intervention

On the basis of these results, it seems reasonable to assume that increasing sensitivity and public awareness toward the topic of child sexual abuse has led to a greater willingness to intervene in concrete cases. But also due to different societal moralities, the results suggest more pressure to act quickly in cases of sexual abuse rather than in cases of physical abuse. Juveniles In the other representative survey, juveniles were asked about their opinion in a case of child maltreatment of a friend. A majority of the respondents did not agree with the opinion "I can only do little," but more than the half of the juveniles felt helpless and answered "she/he has to cope with it somehow." When juveniles experienced severe violent situations in their family, they generally talked to their best friend. Professionals played only a marginal role (less than 1%). These results are supported by the results of the focused interviews with students from a local school. The friends of affected students were widely informed about the violent situations in their families, but they avoided talking about it and hardly ever asked for help. When asked which agency they could contact in a hypothetical case of child maltreatment, they would prefer to contact the Youth Welfare Department rather than a private child protection agency since they do not know any. Remarkable in this context is - as far as juveniles are informed about child protective agencies or other institutional alternatives - that they would not contact any of them. They did not differentiate between public and private institutions, because they experienced both forms of institutions as a state authority with negative consequences for themselves and their family. The helplessness in cases of child maltreatment is supported by the fact that juveniles have only little knowledge about professionals and child protection

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agencies. We found that 58% of respondents could not mention any person or institution to talk to in severe cases of family violence. The telephone hotline ranged predominantly (13.9%), followed by child protective agencies. In contrast to juveniles, adults had more knowledge about professionals and institutions, but even one third (37.6%) could not mention any agency dealing with family problems. These results show, on the one hand, the importance of supportive reaction by adults in the social environment. On the other hand, they may also support our initial assumptions on why only a minority of victimized children themselves came to the attention of child protective agencies. 3.3 Professional Reactions: The Impact of Law in Institutional Practice The main interest in the professional study refers to the impact of the law on regulating family violence. The questionnaire for the professional sample included questions on the following areas: 1. Intervention strategies in child maltreatment 2. Institutional cooperation 3. Knowledge of law 4. Pros and cons of law 5. Attitudes about mandatory law reporting. As we assumed, the increasing public and professional attention given to the topic of sexual abuse has raised the degree of confrontation with the problem in practice in the last 5 years. In the realm of child sexual abuse, however, most institutions state that mainly third parties (teachers, child care workers, mothers) contact their institution to get information and counseling on this topic. Contacts made by children as victims of violent family situations are extremely rare (cf. Burger & Reiter, 1993). Only a minority of physically and sexually abused children come to the attention of social service providers. Professional reactions in handling child abuse have turned more to a treatmentoriented approach in abusive families (see above). Despite these tendencies, which seem to be more theoretical, with the exception that community projects are occasionally introduced to support families (cf. Hege, this volume), the criminal prosecution of child maltreatment, particularly in cases of sexual abuse, has gained increasing attention in recent years. It seems that the primarily therapeutic approach has done little to ameliorate the problem (Harshbarger, 1987, p. 108). On the other hand, perpetrators seem to be more likely to comply with courtordered treatment plans when they are combined with the threat of criminal sanctions. But little empirical evidence is available. The child protective system is still torn between criminal prosecution and support of the family (Kaufmann, 1990, p. 1). Given this background, one of the main interests in the professional study refers to the question of how far the law can regulate family violence and to what extent the law can provide a framework for institutional intervention in cases of child sexual abuse and physical child abuse. Due to the increasing attention given to child sexual abuse and due to different societal moralities toward both forms of child maltreatment, we assumed

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that the law has a more important impact in the realm of child sexual abuse than in the case of physical abuse. The results of the professional study indicate a highly symbolic function for the law, even though the criminal law to regulate abusive families is expressed in ambivalent terms. None of the respondents have ever brought a charge against an offender, whereas more than one half agreed with criminal prosecution. Because of the dysfunctional aspects surrounding legal intervention, for example, the length of court proceedings, they hesitate to contact criminal justice. Even the reaction to family violence in the practice of the private child protective system is predominantly treatment-oriented: To act according to the principle of "help instead of punishment" is problematic in cases of severe abuse. With regard to the protection of the child, the majority of respondents contacted the Child Protective Service. According to our results, the threat of legal interventions is common among professionals, and the involvement of state authorities becomes necessary if families do not comply with the principle of voluntary participation, which is one of the basic concepts of the organizations, and if it is uncertain whether or not the child will be safe. To focus on the principle of voluntariness would mean to endanger the child. In addition, therapeutical intervention with the whole family in a case of child abuse was rejected when the perpetrator does not feel responsible, which is a basic precondition for treatment. One third of respondents refused a therapeutical approach with offenders in their institution, because they considered that reuniting the family should not be supported in these cases. The preliminary results of the professional survey indicate a trend that is moving away from acting according to the principle of "help instead of punishment" and more toward a principle of "help and punishment," not only in cases of child abuse but also in cases of severe child maltreatment. The results also permit the interpretation that the impact of law in abusive families is stronger - in terms of its normative and symbolic function - than respondents are willing to accept due to their perceptions of the dysfunctionality of criminal law to regulate family violence. As mentioned above, most professionals avoid confronting a perpetrator with criminal charges by themselves. On the one hand, they referred to the public image of their institution as not being a state authority. On the other hand, they do not want to be an accomplice of the judicial system. Several studies carried out in the United States have indicated that many professionals fail to report suspected child abuse even when it is mandatory according to the statewide reporting law (Finkelhor, et al., 1984, p. 200; Warner & Hansen, 1994, p. 12; Wurtele & Schmitt, 1992, p. 385; Zellmann & Antler, 1990, p. 30). Professionals who favor the victim advocacy approach refer to the opportunity to engage the criminal justice system, and they also provide assistance in dealing with judicial institutions. In this context, we raised the question of the advantages and disadvantages of the criminal law, since all respondents expressed their ambivalent attitudes to legal intervention. Table 1 shows the most frequently mentioned aspects that were viewed as the pros or the cons of criminal law in regulating family violence.

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Table 1: Pros and Cons of Criminal Law Against criminal law

In favor of criminal law

Public stigmatization of family Reproaches by members of the family, the family gets destroyed Feelings of guilt, self-reproach Too much focused on the criminal The credibility of the victim is questioned Length of the proceeding, most often proceedings are abandoned No justice

Spatial separation from the criminal Therapeutic effect for the victim if criminal convicted A sharpening of consciousness of the problem in public Marking function (normative) The criminal has to justify him- or herself

These results provide information on why professionals refuse a mobilization of criminal law. There is a high degree of consensus that child abuse victims who participate in legal proceedings may be seriously damaged (cf. Davidson, et al., 1981), but, on the other hand, they also indicate why we are not able to do without the laws normative and symbolic function. No professional wanted to do without criminal law, but in cases of severe child maltreatment, they favored civil law in terms of child custody for protective purposes. As assumed, the criminal law provides a normative framework for the child protection system to deal with a serious social problem that provokes strong emotional reactions in the public and professionals. Notes Interviews with the public Child Protective Service, shelter for girls, police officers, state attorneys and pediatricians are carried out at the moment.

References Arbeitsgruppe Kinderschutz (Eds.) (1975): Gewalt gegen Kinder. Kindesmißhandlungen und ihre Ursachen. Reinbek. Armstrong, L. (1985): Kiss daddy goodnight. Aussprache über Inzest. Mit einem Nachwort von Alice Miller. Frankfurt/M. Original work published 1978. Baurmann, M. C. & Schädler, W. (1991): Das Opfer nach der Straftat - seine Erwartungen und Perspektiven. BKA-Forschungsreihe, Vol. 22. Wiesbaden. Besharov, D. J. (1993): Overreporting and underreporting are twin problems. In R. J. Gelles & D. R. Loseke (Eds.): Current controversies on family violence (pp. 257-272). Newbury Park, CA. Braun, G. (1989): Ich sag' nein. Arbeitsmaterialien gegen den sexuellen Mißbrauch. Mülheim/ Ruhr. Brownmiller, S. (1975): Against our will: Men, women and rape. New York.

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Burger, E. & Reiter, K. (1993): Sexueller Mißbrauch von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Intervention undPrävention. Schriftenreihe des Bundesministeriums für Familie und Senioren, Vol. 19. Stuttgart, et al. Conte, J. R. (1982): Sexual abuse of children: Enduring issues for social work. Journal of Social Work & Human Sexuality, I (1/2), 1-20. Cooper, S., Lutter, ., & Phelps, K. (Ed.)(1985): Strategies for free children. A leader's guide to child assault prevention. (3rd ed.) Columbus, OH. Davidson, . ., Horowitz, R. M, Marvell, . ., & Ketchum, 0. W. (1981). Child abuse and neglect litigation: A manual for judges. Washington, DC: National Legal Resource Center for Child Advocacy and Protection, American Bar Association. Duve, T. (1994): Hexenjagd in Deutschland. Anmerkungen zum Fall "Montessori". In K. Rutschky & R. Wolff (Eds.): Handbuch sexueller Mißbrauch (pp. 233-241). Hamburg. Enders, U. (Ed.) (1990): Zart war ich, bitter war's. Sexueller Mißbrauch an Mädchen und Jungen. Köln. Faller, K. C. (1985): Unanticipated problems in the United States' child protection system. Child Abuse & Neglect, 9, 63-69. Faltermeier, J. (1992): Gewalt gegen Kinder. Anmerkungen zur Sozialgeschichte der Kindheit und zum Stand der Theorie- und Praxisdiskussion in der Bundesrepublik. Blätter der Wohlfahrtspflege, 6, 159-164. Fegert, J. (1993): Sexuell mißbrauchte Kinder und das Recht. Vol. 2. Köln. Finkelhor, D. & Strapko, N. (1992): Sexual abuse prevention education: A review of evaluation studies. In D. Willis, E. Holden, & M. Rosenberg (Eds.), Prevention of child maltreatment: Developmental and ecological perspectives (pp. 150-167 ). New York. Finkelhor, D. & Zellman, G. L. (1991): Flexible reporting options for skilled child abuse professionals. Child Abuse & Neglect, 15, 335-341. Finkelhor, D. (1984): Child sexual abuse: New theory and research. New York. Finkelhor, D. (1993): The main problem is still underreporting, not overreporting. In R. J. Gelles & D. R. Loseke (Eds.): Current controversies on family violence (pp. 273-287). Newbury Park, CA. Finkelhor, D., Gomes-Schwartz, B., & Horowitz, J. (1984): Professionals' responses. In D. Finkelhor (Ed.), Child sexual abuse: New theory and research (pp. 200-215). New York. Frehsee, D & Bussmann, K.-D. (1995): The impact of law within the family. Legal status of children and violence toward children. EuroCriminology, Vol. 8-9, pp. 109-125. Garbarino, J. (1992): Children and families in the social enviroment. (2nd ed ). New York. Gilbert, N., Berrick, J., Le Prohn, N., & Nyman, N. (1989): Protecting young children from sexual abuse: Does preschool training work? Lexington, MA. Harshbarger, S. (1987): Prosecution is an appropriate response in child sexual abuse cases. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 7, 108-112. Hechler, D. (1989): The battle and the backlash. The child sexual abuse war. Lexington, MA. Kaufmann, F. (1991): Die Jugendhilfe im Spannungsfeld zwischen Strafverfolgung und Erziehungshilfe. Rechtsfragen im Zusammenhang mit Straftaten, an denen Minderjährige als Täter oder als Opfer beteiligt sind Zentralblatt für Jugendrecht, 77, (l), 1-44. Kavemann, B. & Lohstöter, I. (1986): Väter als Täter. Frankfurt/M. Kelley, S. J. (1990): Responsibility and management strategies in child sexual abuse: A comparsion of child protective workers, nurses, and police officers. Child Welfare, LXIX, (1), 43-51. Kempe, R. S. & Helfer, R. E. (1962): The battered child. Chicago, London. Marquardt, C. (1993): Sexuell mißbrauchte Kinder und das Recht. Vol. 1. Köln.

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Myers, J. E. B. (1985): The legal response to child abuse: In the best interest of children? Journal of Family Law 24, (2), 149-269. Nelson, M. & Clark, K. (Eds.)(1986): The educator's guide to preventing child sexual abuse. Santa Cruz, CA. Newberger, E. H. (1987): Prosecution - a problematic approach to child abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 7, 112-117. Plummer, C. A. (1993): Prevention is appropriate, prevention ist successful. In R. J. Gelles & D. R. Loseke (Eds.): Current controversies on family violence (pp. 288-305). Newbury Park, CA. Remschmidt, H. (1989): Epidemiologie, Erscheinungsformen und Begleitumstände sexueller Kindesmißhandlungen. Juristische Interventionen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. In H. Olbing, K. D. Bachmann, & R. Gross (Eds.), Kindesmißhandlung. Eine Orientierung für Ärzte, Juristen , Sozial- und Erzieherberufe (pp 71-76). Köln. Rennefeld, B. (1993): Institutionelle Hilfen für Opfer von sexuellem Mißbrauch. Ansätze und Arbeitsformen in den U.S.A. Bielefeld. Report of the inquiry into child abuse in Cleveland 1987. Short version extracted from the complete text presented to Parliament by the Sectretary of State for Social Services by command of her Majesty July 1988. London. Reppucci, N. D. & Haugaard, J. J. (1993): Problems with child sexual abuse prevention programs. In R. J. Gelles & D. R. Loseke (Eds.): Current controversies on family violence (pp. 306-322). Newbury Park, CA. Tjaden, P. J. & Thoennes, N. (1992): Predictors of legal intervention in child maltreatment cases. Child Abuse & Neglect, 16, 807-821. Warner, J. E. & Hansen, D. J. (1994): The identification and reporting of physical abuse by physicians: A review and implications for research. Child Abuse & Neglect, 18, 11-25. Wolff, R. (1992): Hilfe ohne Kontrolle. Der "Neue Kinderschutz" als Pionier für zeitgemäße Konzepte sozialer Arbeit. Blätter der Wohlfahrtspflege, 6, 165-170. Wurtele, S. K. & Schmitt, A. (1992): Child care workers knowledge about reporting suspected child sexual abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 16, 385-390. Wurtele, S. K. (1987): School-based sexual abuse prevention programs: A review. Child Abuse & Neglect, 77,483-495. Zellmann, G. L. & Antler, S. (1990): Mandated reporters and child protective services: A study in frustration. Public Welfare, 48, 30-37.

Community Work: Networking, Activation, Cooperation Marianne Hege

1 Neighborhood Work: An Answer to the Problem of Coping With At-Risk Families The experiences presented in this paper are part of a report on a 3-year project on "Improving the integrated intervention concept of the general social service (Allgemeiner Sozialdienst, ASD) for 'violence in families.' " The approach taken in the project was to gain experiences, to reflect on them, to conceptualize them within the workgroup, and to discuss them with external partners. The research concept was developed specifically within an action-theory framework in order to make an active contribution to the reform of occupational action concepts and the current organizational structure of the general social services (ASD). The guiding principle of the project was Garbarino's thesis that families in which child neglect and physical abuse occur are nearly always vulnerable families. This thesis has been supported by an empirical study on violent families carried out by the city of Munich. The first phase of the project was dedicated to the study of individual cases. The confrontation with violence, particularly where parents and children are concerned, causes strong dismay in both the persons concerned and institutions. Hence, the first step of "crisis intervention" in cases of escalating violence is to tackle this dismay (Hege & Schwarz, 1992, pp. 112-160). Beyond crisis intervention, we also wanted to develop a more preventive and long-term approach to work with at-risk families (Hege & Schwarz, 1992, pp. 164-249). Therefore the main question guiding our work was: How can at-risk families be strengthened? What kind of resources may be discovered, awakened, and developed? 2 Activating Social Support in the Community Every kind of social work aiming at cooperating constructively with its clients in solving their problems has to work out, specify, and implement a plan of assistance within joint discussions. This also applies to assistance in cases of violence. When we start from Garbarino's hypothesis that violence is often caused by a lack of support for "vulnerable" families from their social environment, the most important task for professional social work is to establish, develop, and activate adequate support systems in the community.

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In an overview, the following will depict the systems of resources and assistance systematically on three different levels. However, this does not provide a set program that can be implemented point by point as a guideline for case work. The diagnosis of the causes of violence and the activation of personal, material, and organizational resources in a social support system is an interactive process that successfully activates that particular amount of information and sources of support that corresponds with the particular level and load-bearing capacity of the relationship between social worker and client (comparable with dynamic diagnosis in case work). The proposed levels for the diagnosis and activation of resources in the sense of social help and support systems are: 1. Strengthening personal resources: "client-empowerment." This means, for example, to help clients to solve financial or health problems, to gain a realistic perception of conflicts, improve their ability to cope with problems, and so form. On this individual psychological level, such social work provisions have to be made available to all members of the family system involved in the conflict or problem who are indispensable for its solution. 2. Strengthening the system of the family and relatives and the personal networks of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues: "family empowerment" through adequate support programs that enable parents to manage and organize their own lives and the lives of their children. 3. Improving living conditions in the community through "community empowerment": that is, trying to work together with the active members of a neighborhood in setting up a network of assistance services and provisions in order to improve cooperation in crises and coordination between social services. 3 Natural Networks One of the social worker's tasks is to activate the "natural support systems" among relatives, neighbors, and friends; that is, to integrate them as far as possible into the assistance concept after thorough examination and counseling. The professional approach labelled "natural network counseling" calls for a high degree of sensitivity and initiative in dealing with an unknown circle of persons whom the social worker wishes to recruit for cooperation. Experiences so far have shown clearly that the "wait-and-see attitude" of institutions that simply wait for people to come to them does not meet the goals of counseling within familial and neighborhood networks. In most cases, the initiative and the first steps toward one another have to be taken by social workers. It is also their job to stabilize the relationships developed and to strengthen their ability to cooperate. This requires a particularly careful approach, because the newly gained relationships might not just be received positively, but may also cause disruption and establish new dependencies. Feelings of guilt and embarrassment may be provoked if the person receiving assistance is unable to return it (lack of reciprocity). Furthermore, the contact persons in the social environment with their precarious roles as intermediaries between client and social worker, cannot be integrated into professional

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strategies at will, but may sometimes develop a momentum of their own or develop a critical distance toward the other persons involved in the assistance process (Kardorff & Stark, 1987). 4 Artificial Networks When it is not possible or meaningful to work with a "natural network" of relatives and neighbors, the next step is to try to initiate and develop "artificial networks" together with the clients. According to the ASD, the group of single-parent mothers is also increasing in Munich and is affected particularly strongly by economic difficulties and the "new poverty" (Münchner Armutsberichte, 1987, 1990). Half of all single-parent mothers depend on social welfare and live on a monthly net income of less than 1,200 DM (ca. $700). Financial problems are joined by difficulties at work, in job seeking, and in looking after their children. Any illness can turn into a mediumsized catastrophe; there are not enough day care centers, and their opening hours are not coordinated with factory and office shifts. Invitations from friends and acquaintances become less frequent or have to be turned down. Long-time friendships break up because of prejudices and reproaches; fear of loneliness increases. The most urgent need of these women and mothers is relief from childcare, at least on an hourly basis, in order to make important visits to government offices, to be able to work on a hourly basis, or even just to recuperate. In these and similar cases, the ASD as a professional service could take on the following tasks: 1. providing contacts with nurseries or "mother and child groups"; 2. finding or arranging preschool places; 3. promoting a childminder or grandparents service and arranging for "emergency" mothers; 4. looking for accommodation for parent centers and providing them with funding; 5. organizing cooperation between the ASD, schools, and daycare centers; helping to set up professional assistance for school students and supervision of homework; 6. establishing hotlines and discussion groups for single mothers; 7. supporting citizens' initiatives for playgrounds, local traffic-free zones, green spaces, protection of the environment, and local health policy; 8. taking part in neighborhood and summer carnivals and publicizing the ASD in the neighborhood. 5 Network Activities - Neighborhood Work - Community Empowerment A series of recent studies has emphasized the great importance of social support systems in avoiding or coping with family crisis (Keupp & Röhrle, 1987; Nestmann, 1988). Those seeking assistance prefer nonprofessional institutions

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because they are generally closer to their clients in social and emotional terms than professional services. Many families try to cope with their problems by themselves right up to the end, and it is only at the last minute, if at all, that they seek external help. During critical life events such as birth, illness, or death, it is predominantly partners, parents, children, kin, friends, and colleagues who are asked for advice and support (Nestmann, 1988). Informal help is particularly frequent among relatives in underprivileged families, who also give each other mutual financial support. It is members of the middle class who tend to consult professional services, although they are also turning increasingly into self-help experts, particularly where health is concerned. Dealing with the informal networks and support systems confronts professional systems with some consequences and difficulties. Simplistic ideas about integrating and networking clients are just as inappropriate as excessive and unrealistic expectations regarding any rapid successes of network activity in the community. On the basis of research on social networks in urban sociology and environmental psychology, one can make the following summary: 1. Social networks are related to both the environment and persons. In other words, their function and impact depend not only on the sociospatial environment but also on the persons who are active in that social environment. Social networks can either reduce or strengthen the impact of the negative influences of the environment that place a strain on or bring relief to persons processing critical life events. 2. Size and density of communities, their architecture, their design, and increasing pollution impact on the form and strength of social networks: the bigger the city and the more urban the living conditions, the fewer contacts between people and the weaker the social networks. 3. Social networks are dependent not only on spatial closeness but also on public and private availability of space for communal activities, discussion, and planning. Communities without such free or cheap space generate anonymity, crime, and vandalism. 4. Persons base their perception, use, and design of social networks on their individual patterns of information processing, judgment, and decision-making. They only recognize, test, and evaluate specific social provisions in terms of their personal utility, and this forms the background for their decisions on meaning and purpose, on acceptance or denial. 5. In other words, even an adequate provision of social assistance in the community will not be accepted by everybody, and it will be used only in particular cases. Those who possess fewer social skills and are less socially active, helpless, and in need of assistance are not as able to take advantage of the available services as others. This particularly applies to the aged and impoverished families. They have fewer external contacts, their networks are smaller, and the social competence needed to use them is lower. As a result, it is particularly these people in need who receive the least support or have to seek the support they need by themselves.

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For the ASD as a service provision and the most important body in local social administration, these points make it necessary to derive consequences and conclusions regarding: 1. its location and networking within the community as well as how well-known it is; 2. its hierarchical organization structure as an authority; 3. its bureaucratic work structure (working hours, responsibilities, opening hours, legal mandate, etc.); 4. its cooperation with other professional services and nonprofessional aid systems in the neighborhood; 5. its image and attractiveness as a social service; 6. the quality and effectiveness of its public relations work. 6 Opening Up the ASD to the Community The first step in improving acceptance in the neighborhood is to dismantle or at least reduce the deterrents, thresholds, and access barriers of the ASD. It has to consider how it may "open" itself to visitors and turn into a "social meeting place" (e.g., by opening a cafe) that encourages people to come in and talk. Counseling requires pleasant surroundings and an attractive atmosphere, a "milieu" in which people seeking advice can feel good and self-confident. As social work is turning increasingly into qualified counseling, it has to drop its "official" character, and its external appearance must also create conditions that encourage people to talk. Another necessary step is to shift the professional counseling and care work of the ASD, its institutions, and its staff as far as possible into the everyday life and social world of its clients (Straus, Höfer, Buchholz, & Gmür, 1987). Thus, visiting people at home should be preferred to summoning them to visit an office. If clients reject this, meetings can be arranged at a more neutral location such as a cafe. Social work in general and the work of the ASD, but also the work of the youth office, has to free itself from the continued dominance of its administrative orientation and should strengthen its relation to the life-world and everyday problems of its clients. 7 Community Orientation and District Analysis A precondition for familiarity of ASD staff with the problems of its clients seeking help is a very precise and continually up-dated knowledge of their local community. Recognizing its function and significance as a "life-world" is crucial for working out assistance concepts. Knowing and tracking the living conditions, problem structures, and crisis development of the district is an indispensable basis for professionally qualified decisions and an important tool for social workers. The necessary socioeconomic, demographic, and infrastructural data on jobs, housing conditions, population structure, as well as the available social provisions

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or social and cultural deficits and so forth can be obtained from several sources such as: 1. The ASD's own statistics and evaluations, official statistics, social administration planning departments, local authorities, district committees, the chamber of industry and commerce, welfare associations, action committees, self-help groups, and so forth. 2. Talks with local experts, so-called "key persons," citizens and clients (as "experts on their own behalf1), interviews, "action surveys," exchange of information with colleagues, and so forth. Their own studies and small-scale surveys are an important tool for local social workers. They need to be developed and applied because sufficient and current information is frequently not available. Social studies on the level of neighborhoods or districts are rare and largely neglected in research on social policy and local policy. 3. Local social workers can obtain information on local developments through regular reading and evaluation of the local press and community newspapers. Their own contributions and information about the problems and work of the ASD in the form of public relations can improve the local image of the ASD and make it more well-known in the community. 8 Institutional Cooperation and Networking According to educators, social workers, teachers, and other cooperation partners in the community, information deficits on the provisions, concepts, and working methods of the ASD in cases of violence can be overcome by the following activities and measures: 1. Some institutions, colleagues, and parents/families are not familiar with the ASD, its functions, and provision of assistance. By participating in parents' evenings and other informative events, the ASD should publicize itself and provide information about the support it can provide. Concrete proposal: The ASD should participate in parents' evenings. 2. The ASD does not know enough about how other institutions and colleagues tackle the problem of violence; vice versa, these institutions and colleagues do not know enough about the working methods of the ASD. These information deficits lead to misconceptions, mistrust, and conflicts in the cooperation between the ASD and other institutions. The needed cooperation requires an exchange of concepts, experiences, and procedures. This has to be organized. Concrete proposal: The ASD hands out invitations for discussions and a regular exchange of information in the district. 3. Many families, parents, and children have had negative prior experiences with the ASD/municipal youth office and refuse to cooperate with it. This also makes cooperation more difficult for colleagues working in voluntary institutions who depend on the confidence of their clients and do not like to jeopardize this carelessly. As a result, the ASD is often consulted only as a last resort when it cannot "be avoided any longer. This situation can be changed only by

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building up personal contacts and overcoming the lack of trust in the "official" ASD. Concrete proposal: Local activities and public relations should work to overcome the inhibitions, prejudices, negative experiences, and so forth that lead clients to distance themselves from the ASD. 4. The personal experiences, feelings, and fears of colleagues in other social institutions also play an important role for cooperation with the ASD. Those who want to cooperate with an official body in the difficult area of violence with its strong personal involvement themselves have to develop the confidence that they recommend to their clients. Thus the decision to cooperate with the ASD depends strongly on one's own positive experiences in the past, on the knowledge of concepts and procedures for dealing with cases of violence, and on the personal trust in the colleague at the ASD. "Who do I work with in the ASD, and what is going to happen to the client I have been entrusted with when I consult the service?" This important question, which is decisive for any willingness to cooperate, has to be answered positively from the perspective of the colleague referring a client to the ASD. She or he wants to know what will happen to the child referred and is interested in feedback. Concrete proposal: Work on making contacts and gaining confidence should not just start during a crisis, but has to be developed and maintained continuously, independent of any current individual case. 5. Many experience reports agree that the achievement demands of "ambitious parents" are becoming an increasing burden on children. These parents need instruction and information that could be provided by experts at preschool or nursery parent meetings. It is hard for preschool teachers to intervene in the parents' childrearing practices, and they need the support of experts whose professionalism is acknowledged by the mothers. Concrete proposal: Informative talks on what it means to be a child. 6. It is extremely difficult to get access to the fathers and mothers of children showing symptoms of experiences with violence (bruises, withdrawal, lack of distance, bed wetting etc.), because they respond in completely different ways: They either justify themselves at every opportunity, they seek help, or they withdraw. Which is the most meaningful and effective procedure has to be discussed openly and decided in every single case by the institutions and persons involved. This makes it necessary for the ASD to develop a more sensitive approach to dealing with cases of violence in other institutions. A precondition of successful cooperation is to tolerate differences of opinion and accept other points of view. In this context, there have been requests that colleagues at the ASD should accept qualified opinions when they are given by preschool teachers, and not just those of psychologists or physicians. On the other hand, ASD staff want to be listened to by other institutions and called in before it is too late. Concrete proposal: Regular and timely conferences with assistants and discussions of case reports.

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7. A realistic assessment of the family situation and an early assessment of child abuse is often very difficult. In addition, it is often the case that the child becomes increasingly important for the mother when she is faced with an accumulation of problems and difficulties: the greater the difficulties, the more important the child becomes for the mother, and the greater her fear that her child might be taken away from her. The position and the decision of the social worker caught between the fears of the parents/mothers and the best interests of the child becomes very precarious and calls for open, supportive discussion and qualified support. Concrete proposal: Talks among the team, conferences with assistants, and institutional relief from normal local social work. Many colleagues working with social institutions in the district are very interested in a close cooperation with the ASD and in coordinating their own work with a network concept based on the principles discussed above. There is an urgent need to establish the preconditions for this and to remove obstacles. This situation can be summarized as follows: 1. The widespread lack of knowledge about the existence, workfields, and assistance provisions of the ASD has to be counteracted through adequate measures in community work and public relations. 2. The anonymity and the widespread negative image of the ASD as an official institution have to be overcome by establishing and developing personal contacts with members of other institutions in the district. 3. The strongly bureaucratic nature of some action concepts and procedures has to be replaced by a cooperative work style. 4. The ASD's desire for cooperation with other local institutions requires longterm familiarization processes and the building up of confidence between the parties involved. The necessary organizational, staff, and conceptional preconditions must be established immediately. 9 Dealing With Cooperation Partners The self-image of the ASD as a service prepared and willing to cooperate with other organizations is not shared by outsiders. Indeed, the opposite is the case! Discussions have revealed a clear criticism that the ASD as an institution, but also some staff members (though far from all of them), assigns little attention and importance to cooperation with other institutions and colleagues. Although cooperation is often very good and there are good personal contacts, there is a widely held impression that the ASD considers itself to be particularly qualified for solving problems and that it fails to recognize such competence in staff at other institutions. Requests and wishes for cooperation with the ASD are sometimes dealt with quite hesitatingly, and information about its own intentions and measures is conveyed only insufficiently. The desire for more comprehensive information and more intensive communication when children or families are referred to the ASD has been expressed repeatedly. Frequently, the experience and the knowledge of colleagues who have worked with the child or family before

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has not been acknowledged, and hardly any feedback is given after cases have been taken over by the ASD. The existing interest in cooperation with the ASD is rebuffed by such reactions. The common practice, which has hardly been reflected on within the ASD, namely to collect children who are being separated from their families at preschool or nursery and not at home - in order to avoid trouble and attention - has been mentioned as a particularly drastic example of what "cooperation" should not be like. Such a procedure severely neglects the legitimate interests of children and parents. Furthermore, colleagues in other institutions have to deal with the consequences of this procedure, and, thirdly, it emphasizes the ASD's interest in performing its actions with as little conflict as possible. Cooperation cannot look like this or be practiced in this way. There is a widespread belief among ASD staff that the referral of the child or family means that responsibility has also been transferred, and that the referring institution or colleague does not want to be "bothered" any longer. On the other hand, they are also uncomfortable when other institutions want to tell the ASD what to do and use the ASD merely as a helper for realizing their own intentions under the motto "The others make a diagnosis and we are supposed to act." Conferences with assistants are not always just productive and constructive. They often have more to do with self-display than cooperation; discussions lack structure and moderation; and those attending lack motivation when they have been ordered to participate. Knowledge of and interest in the concepts and working methods of others is low; there is often a lack of topics; and the main concern is often demarcation disputes and reciprocal control. Instead of a qualified exchange of opinions, statements are issued; often the purpose remains unclear as well as what has to be arranged and who is responsible. Reciprocal blockages in self-perception and the perception of the other hinder the aim of cooperation. Personal discussion (telephone calls do not suffice) is needed if joint action is to be developed on the basis of shared responsibilities, and this requires time and motivation. 10 What Does Cooperation Mean and What Does it Require? All discussions came to the unanimous conclusion that cooperation is more than an occasional meeting with noncommittal conversation and a friendly exchange of thoughts. Cooperation is hard work on the contents, concepts, and methods of one 's own profession through a constructive exchange of opinions and perspectives. It presupposes the following individual and institutional qualifications: 1. Professional competence, identity, and self-esteem in the participants. 2. The professional qualification, legal competence, and legal authority to participate in developing and deciding upon joint concepts and problem solutions. 3. The ability to dismantle prejudices, to overcome reservations, and to produce openness. Rivalries between people and institutions have to be discussed, and the time factor has to be taken into account with all cooperation partners.

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4. The ability to listen to different points of view, to tolerate different ideas, but also to defend, to check, and, if necessary, to correct one's own point of view. 5. To bear in mind the interests of all persons involved, particularly the children and families, to develop professional concepts, and to achieve sound compromises. 6. The readiness to support jointly developed solutions even when they do not correspond in every detail with one's own views, as well as the possibility of getting them past one's superiors. 7. Organizational qualifications, such as prior agreement on procedures, deciding who will take the chair and be responsible for coordination, making protocols, realistic agreement on aims and deadlines, continuity in developing systems of cooperation, and so forth. 11 Networking the Case in the Community: The Subjective Factor in Networking After discussing the networking of local institutions, we shall now return to casework. The methodological steps and ideas serving the networking of a case in the community will be presented. Building networks is an autonomous methodological stage within the professional activity of local social workers. It calls for knowledge about possible resources in the community and in professional services as well as a careful diagnosis of the potential support available, and, in addition, the diagnosis of which systems will be accepted by the client. Last but not least, successful networking depends on the degree of sound relations with other persons and departments on the community and professional level. Particularly in high-risk cases in which immediate action might be required, such a network of relationships is indispensable. Contacts with institutions in the community (artificial networks) have shown that clients and their problems - in this case, the problem of violence - are also perceived by other institutions, and that their specific difficulties are responded to in a range of different ways. The way children and families are perceived depends on the concept, the goal, and the working method of the particular institution (creche, preschool, school, daycare center). The perspective is also dependent on the personal attitude and work style of individual social workers, teachers, and so forth - as within the ASD. If the aim is to network the community, the first concern is to understand the pedagogic concepts of other institutions in order to estimate how they work with the child and how the child is supported and promoted. Building a network first means to amalgamate the different action strategies for the benefit of the child. When looking for sources of assistance, the social worker also finds sources of disruption in the natural and artificial networks. The fact that many families with children live together in one house does not automatically mean that the isolation of the family can be overcome. Particularly when families live very close together, there are "enmities" between them because of, for example, their different childrearing styles. The goal of networking is not to reinterpret reality

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into a euphoric view of the intended support of the family and the child by the social environment. It is certainly an illusion to believe that networking in individual cases or in the community may completely overcome stigmatization when, for example, a family has a "bad reputation" at school. However, it is legitimate to hope that cooperation and opening may weaken this tendency. Networking follows the same principle as single-case assistance - one works with the strengths. It is a good idea for social workers to first make contact with the institutions that are interested in the case and open to cooperation. If one or two institutions support the families and children at risk of violence within the community, then the influences and effects of stigmatization can be weakened. But it would be a waste of time and energy to work only against resistance. It is necessary to link up with the positive forces - also on this level of the field. 12 Networks Among Professionals: Inquiring, Including, Sharing, Referring, Coordinating The integration of a case into "artificial networks," that is, cooperation with other institutions working with "violent families," places new demands on social workers. They have to discriminate between the administrative responsibility set by law and their educational responsibility as providers of assistance. These two areas have to be discriminated in order to eliminate unnecessary competition from the outset. The fact that it is finally the ASD that has to apply for and introduce measures does not free school teachers or creche staff from their responsibility for the child. Successful cooperation calls for an understanding of how the individual professionals see their task in a specific case of violence. Which educational concepts guide the diagnosis? How is each colleague embedded in his or her institutional framework? It also has to be assumed that colleagues fulfill their function within their work task in any cooperation. Teachers, creche staff, social workers, and pediatricians have had a different professional socialization and apply different standards and concepts in their diagnoses. Their specific professional perspectives form the basis of their individual assessments. For every professional social worker - and certainly for other professionals in the educational and medical field as well - the focus is on the child or client. At the same time, they also believe that their own professional concepts are the right and necessary basis for assistance. This is why the professions differ in their assessment of cases of violence. When the complex situation of "violent families" confirmed in empirical studies is taken into consideration, such differing points of view may well help the work of the ASD. Cases of violence tend to encourage a rapid response and demand comprehensive measures. This means that every person providing assistance feels obliged to act beyond their specific area of competence or call in other professionals. For example, teachers visit the family although this does not belong to their actual area of responsibility. Because these activities could lead to rivalry between helpers, the division of tasks and the help concept have to be coordinated. Particularly when several professionals are working with one family, a clear coordination and demarcation is necessary. However, it also has to be considered

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whether such coordinated plans actually benefit the helpers, or whether they place the network on a short leash and make clients feel bossed around. In every individual case, it is necessary to decide who currently has the best access to the family and who should carry out the different tasks. In any case, one of the professional helpers has to coordinate the individual measures. This is usually the local social service, but the job can also be delegated. However, then the delegation has to be clear, and dates have to be set for feedback. The best form of cooperation is discussions. However, social workers cannot assume that the official form of contact, namely, asking persons to visit them during office hours, is appropriate for cooperation partners. Partners in daycare centers and creches, pediatricians, or teachers must be visited at times that fit into their timetable. Case discussions can be arranged after these individual contacts. Here as well, the different ways that cooperation partners work have to be taken into account. Although the responsible AS D staff member can chair a case conference, it would be better to give the chair to a colleague, a superior, or to an outsider if she or he is actively involved in the case herself, and if her diagnosis differs from that of the partners. This makes it easier to participate in the discussion without creating the impression of wanting to impose her or his view of the case. 13 From Helpers to Partners The professional competence of social workers is defined to a great extent within the framework of the "helping professions." Providing assistance is linked closely with the concept of the client, that is, the most important partner in the social worker's profession is defined as somebody who is in need of the social worker's help. The client is dependent, at least situationally, on the social worker who commands resources that can be made available to the client (material help, personal attention, understanding, therapeutic treatment). The interaction is therefore one-sided, but this should not become a burden on the client, because the goal is to show clients how they can learn to help themselves. This terminology and the concepts drawn on it stem from psychology and psychoanalysis and are modified to fit the professional field of the social worker. The main professional attitudes are based on therapeutic concepts. Particularly in counseling, acceptance and understanding have become a professional attitude an attitude that clients regularly experience as being very helpful. According to C. W. Müller (1982), these methods and basic attitudes function as an instrument for coping with the anxieties of social workers and therapists when faced with other peoples' problems. Accepting the client means that professionals try to see the clients "as they really are," that, is, their reality should be perceived and their actions and attitudes should not be judged in a moralizing manner. There can be no doubt that the second basic attitude of understanding, that is, the development of empathy, is of immense importance for professionals working with people. It provides access to others' behavior, it creates contacts, and additionally expands the personal and professional competence of the social worker. The "other" is no longer threaten-

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ing; when it is "understood" it can be integrated into one's own views; understanding broadens the mind and increases knowledge. Thus all concepts that facilitate "understanding" are of great value. This is also why psychoanalytic findings are particularly fascinating. They make it possible to understand the other, the incurable, and the pathological. This understanding is initially an advantage to the client. But it also encourages the motivation in social workers to repeatedly tackle these problems and their solutions. In this respect, there is a personal gain for the helper even in stressful situations and actions. The threat of exercising power through help does not need to be discussed here. This attitude of understanding and acceptance is trained and practiced in detail in courses for helpers. Training focuses on learning a basic empathic attitude of "wait and see," of adjusting to the process of the other, of holding back one's own verbal utterances, and maintaining professional distance. This is the only way to draw a distinction between one's own state of mind and that of the client. Verbalizing states of mind, being open for other peoples' emotions, sensitivity, sensing problems that cannot yet be put into words, and affirmation also characterize the interactions between helpers, that is, they form a specific sort of communicative culture. Closeness becomes possible through identifying with the problems of others. Helpers are socialized to question their own judgements and feelings as part of the problem. Above all, they learn to adjust themselves to the pace of development of the client. Intervention, advice, and help can be accepted only when the client is ready for them. Because of their long professional socialization in this role of the helper, social workers tend to transfer this role behavior to other sorts of communication. This leads to problems with their partners. If they are not part of the "helpers' culture," they initially appreciate the cautious and friendly attitude. However, this also raises their expectations. If these are not met, they will be offended and retreat. The role of the helper is not appropriate for communication with cooperation partners, even though it may initially seem to make communication easier. Cooperation among people can develop and form only they apply their different competencies, but also reciprocal respect of the activities and opinions of the other, to a joint problem. Social workers have to explain their own professional task and how they work to the cooperation partner. They cannot do this in the same way as they present themselves to their clients, who are assumed to be dependent on help and express their needs by themselves. When helpers want to cooperate, they have to approach the others actively and solicit their cooperation. They cannot wait and see. They get to know other views of the case that they have to respect as the other's opinion, but they do not have to do this in a sensitive and understanding way. They can encounter opinions that enrich them and attitudes that they can agree with and support. But they also encounter other positions that call for explanation and distance. Such cooperation demands a change in professional attitudes. Initially, cooperation concerns a common subject, a joint task, a shared problem. This form of communication requires listening to partners and taking their arguments and analyses seriously. As the problem also concerns the social workers, they have to formulate their point of view on the subject. They have to contribute their view to the situation and not their empathy with the cooperation

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partner. They have to present themselves in a different fashion. On the one hand, this means a greater risk of being contradicted and the need to cope with this. On the other hand, communication is more spontaneous; it even holds less risks, because the partner is not dependent or helpless. Cooperation assumes that partners can look after themselves, that they can regulate closeness and distance, openness and reserve alone. Sympathy and shared points of view play a more important role than they do in a helping relationship. Therefore, social workers experience more contradiction than when they are providing assistance in which the client is always dependent on them. Thus, the style and course of communication in a cooperation situation differ from a helping relationship. Social workers do not have to interpret the messages in the same way (i.e., what does the communication partner mean by this). For the social workers in the project, this was a new form of communication because of their long professional socialization in applying a helping attitude. Eventually, they no longer found this sort of communication stressful, because it gave them a chance to develop new qualifications. Cooperation with other professional groups requires knowledge of other functions, roles, and occupational socializations. There is less need for "psychological fantasy" ("Why is this person acting like this?"), and more need for "social fantasy" ("What function does my cooperation partner's behavior have in the context of her professional task and role?"). Alongside a different form of communication, cooperation usually deals with different subjects as well, such as setting targets, coordinating functions and tasks, deciding, planning, and making appointments. One can anticipate more argumentation; more statements than questions. Naturally, cooperation is also based on emotional relationships. If these are good, it will be easier to discuss the issues. In work groups, as in a team, joint tasks and goals produce positive emotional relationships. A good emotional climate definitely promotes the work. On the other hand, cooperation and working relationships are in no way as liable to break down as helping relationships are. One can persist in making inquiries, insist on decisions being made, make demands, contradict, and make other proposals. These can contribute to the setting of targets and thus to cooperation; they do not handicap it. In a cooperative relationship, unwillingness and frustration with the partner can be expressed in a more open and more aggressive way than in a helping relationship in which one always has to consider how much the client can take. The most satisfying thing about cooperation is recognition within the group and prompt feedback on one's own input. Personal success and failure are experienced more directly and can be corrected, whereas in a helping relationship, self-reflection frequently has to replace feedback. During the course of the project, it became obvious that cooperative abilities and skills are acquired quickly through practice. They in no way require the sort of training and reflection necessary for the development of professional helping attitudes. It was very important to discuss all activities beforehand within the group. New kinds of activities such as chairing the group were carried out in pairs so that participants could experience mutual support and correction and grow into their new roles.

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References Garbarino, J. (1976): A preliminary study of some ecological correlates of child abuse: The impact of socioeconomic stress on mothers. Child Development, 47, 178-185. Garbarino, J. (1977): The human ecology of child maltreatment: A conceptual model for research. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 11, 721-735. Garbarino, J. (1981): An ecological approach to child maltreatment. In L. H. Pelton (Ed.): The social context of child abuse and neglect (pp. 228-267). New York, London. Garbarino, J. (1983): Social support networks: RX for the helping professionals. In J. K. Whittacker & J. Garbarino (Eds.): Social support networks: Informal helping in the human services. New York. Hege, M. & Schwarz, G. (1993): Der Stadtteil und seine Bedeutung für die soziale Arbeit bei Gewaltproblemen. In: G. Schwarz (Ed.): Profil und Professionalität. Praxis der Sozialarbeit im Umbruch. München. KardorfT, E. v. & Stark, W. (1987): Zur Verknüpfung professioneller und alltäglicher Hilfenetze. In H. Keupp & B. Röhrle (Eds.): Soziale Netzwerke. Frankfurt/M., New York. Keupp, H. & Röhrle, B. (Eds.) (1987): Soziale Netzwerke. Frankfurt/M., New York. Müller, C. W. (1982): Wie Helfen zum Beruf wurde. Eine Methodengeschichte der Sozialarbeit. Weinheim. Nestmann, F. (1988): Die alltäglichen Helfer. Theorien sozialer Unterstützung und eine Untersuchung alltäglicher Helfer aus vier Dienstleistungsberufen. Berlin, New York. Sozialreferat der Landeshauptstadt München (Ed.) (1987): Neue Armut in München. UrsachenStrukturen-Entwicklungstendenzen-Sozialpolitische Konsequenzen. München Sozialreferat der Landeshauptstadt München (Ed.) (1991): Münchner Armutsbericht 1990. Entwicklungstendenzen von Umfang und Struktur der Armut in den 80er Jahren. München. Straus, F., Höfer, R., Buchholz, W., & Gmür, W. (1987): Die Bewältigung familiärer Probleme im sozialen Netzwerk. Überlegungen zur Praxisrelevanz der Netzwerkperspektive in der Familienarbeit. In H. Keupp & B. Röhrle (Eds.): Soziale Netzwerke. Frankfurt/M., New York.

Compassion Versus Control? Handling Child Abuse in the Netherlands Adri van Montfoort

1 Introduction and Focal Questions Many Dutch publications concerning the approach to child abuse stress that voluntary services should be a priority, and that judicial intervention should really be considered only as a last resort. Until recent years, judicial intervention concerning child abuse has hardly received any attention in either the literature or scientific research. Subsequently, if we read publications from the 1970s, we find that judicial intervention then seemed to be no more than a relic from a long time ago. Governmental texts, the literature, and statements made in the media by prominent experts, all portray the Dutch approach to child abuse as "help rather than punishment", "compassion" instead of "control" (Rosenfeld & Newberger, 1977), voluntariness rather than coercion, and family support instead of separating the child from the parents. As a rule, the Bureau Vertrouwensarts/BVA [Confidential Doctors Office/CDO] is given a lot of attention when describing the Dutch approach to child abuse. This organization will be dealt with in greater detail later, though it should be stressed here that since early 1972, the CDO has distinguished itself as the gateway to voluntary services, and that Confidential Doctors have always emphasized their independence from the police and judiciary. The Dutch model of handling child abuse has also attracted international interest. From 1979 on, several Confidential Doctors' Centers were founded in Belgium that, although they function differently from their Dutch counterparts, were set up as a result of the developments that occurred in the Netherlands (Marneffe & Lampo, 1989). In Germany there has long since been an interest in the Dutch approach, from, among other places, the first Kinderschutzzentrum and the Ärztliche Beratungsstellen (Sale & Davies, 1990). Christopherson (1981) has compared the approach to child abuse in the Netherlands and Great Britain. He argues that the Netherlands has adopted the "welfare model", whereas Great Britain operates the "justice model". More recently, Reid (1992) wrote a chapter headed "Child Abuse: Lessons from Holland". Here the author writes: "In the late 1960s, governments in Europe became increasingly aware of child abuse, and started to develop systems of management to cope with the problem. At the same time that the British were preparing the Seebohm report, which was to lead to Cleveland, Rochdale, Orkney and other disasters, the Dutch met to discuss a different approach." (P- 134)

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According to Reid, the Dutch system of handling child abuse is based on a medical model; it avoids the negative consequences of judicial intervention, is noncoercive, intelligent, benign, and in the best interests of the parents and the children. He also claims that the other European countries wisely have turned away from the British model and are beginning to follow the Dutch example. Before we discuss whether and, if so, how "the Dutch example" is being followed, it is first necessary to examine the reaction to child abuse in practice in the Netherlands in greater detail. This point, therefore, raises the following focal question: To what extent does the above-mentioned portrayal of Dutch "tolerance" correspond to daily practice in our country? For a clearer understanding of this, I shall first provide some information concerning the development of the CDO. Subsequently I shall deal with three points that will give cause to correct or at least complement this image of "Hilfe statt Strafe" [help instead of punishment] of the Dutch approach to child abuse. These points are: (a) the question of to what extent the CDOs themselves are able to realize the principle of voluntariness; (b) the issue of what role civil child protection plays in practice; and (c) what role the criminal justice system plays in this. In the conclusion, I shall come back to the question of to what extent the Dutch approach to child abuse can be categorized under "compassion" as opposed to "control." 2 Emergence of the Confidential Doctor's Office As is known, the early 1960s saw a renewed interest in the phenomenon of child abuse in the United States after pediatricians published reports of serious violence against babies and young infants (Nelson, 1984; Parton, 1985). This led to the creation of new legislation in all 50 states and thus to mandatory reporting for physicians and other professional groups. The first Dutch article following the publications of Henry Kempe and his colleagues (Kempe, et al., 1962) was published in a medical journal in 1964 (Kuipers & van Creveld, 1964). As in the Anglo-Saxon countries, a debate emerged around the physician's oath of confidentiality as a hindrance to the reporting of child abuse. However, unlike what took place in the U.S.A., there was little response from the mainstream child protection authorities, and new legislation was not drawn up. The debate focused on the position of general practitioners and other medical professionals, and was dominated by medical ethics. In 1969, the then State Secretary for Health and Social Affairs wrote a letter to the Royal Dutch Society of Medicine (KNMG). The State Secretary asked the physicians what ought to be done to deal with the problem of child abuse, given the constraint that mandatory reporting was incompatible with Dutch culture. The Royal Dutch Society of Medicine replied that the physician's oath of confidentiality was a cornerstone of medical practice that should be left in place. As a result of this correspondence, a Committee on Child Abuse was appointed to propose a Dutch solution for reporting child abuse. The Committee, which was heavily dominated by the Royal Dutch Society of Medicine, reported in 1970, and proposed appointing Confidential Doctors, to whom general practitioners could turn for confidential advice.

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In 1972, the first four Confidential Doctors were appointed. They were paid directly by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and from the outset were given independent status. It was their task to receive reports from physicians or from anybody else who knew of or suspected that a child was being abused. In each case, the Confidential Doctor was to organize services for the child and his or her family. He or she would coordinate the efforts of various agencies and organize a foliowup in each case. The Confidential Doctor would not provide services to the child or the parents themselves, but would mediate between the family and other agencies. In addition, the Confidential Doctor was to set up a register to gain insight into the prevalence of child abuse. The Child Abuse Committee and the government both agreed that the Confidential Doctor's field of work should be limited to physical abuse. Child sexual abuse hardly figured in their considerations, and emotional abuse was ruled out because it was deemed too hard to define. It was feared that, without clear lines, an enormous number of cases would be laid at the new agency's door. The Confidential Doctor was not given any statutory powers to perform this task. It was assumed that this agency would find a place among the other agencies not through the power of the law, but by gaining goodwill and trust in practice. In addition, we should take into consideration that initially only four physician's were appointed in the whole country. The advent of these Confidential Doctors changed little if anything with respect to the already established system of child protection, and criminal law policies also remained unchanged. 3 Development of the CDO Since 1972 Since 1972, the CDO has developed considerably in many aspects. In its first year, 430 cases were reported to the Confidential Doctors. Table 1 shows the increase of reports until 1992.1} Table 1: Number of Cases Reported ίο the Confidential Doctors Year

Number of cases

1972 1975 1980 1985 1990 1992

430 815 1,700 3,883 8,223 11,466

Percentage of all Dutch children 0- 1 8 years 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.10 0.25 0.30

Although the Confidential Doctor was set up for physicians, in 1992, only 24% of all reports came from the medical profession including mental health, nurses, and midwives (Table 2). The largest group of reports came from neighbors and family members.

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Table 2: Reports to the Confidential Doctors in 1992 Source Nonprofessional environment (neighbors, family members) Medical agencies, GPs, nurses, midwives, mental health School Social welfare agencies Judicial agencies, including police Miscellaneous

Percentage 43 24 16 6 7 4

Notwithstanding the clear statements in 1972 about the focus on the physical abuse of small children, the definition of child abuse widened rapidly to include neglect and emotional and sexual abuse. Table 3 shows the percentages of reported cases in 1992. Table 3: Types of Abuse Registered by the Confidential Doctors in 1992 Type of abuse Emotional abuse/neglect Physical neglect Physical abuse Sexual abuse Miscellaneous

Percentage 43 8 21 17 11

In addition, the range of activities of the Confidential Doctors has widened, partly on their own initiative. Guidelines for Confidential Doctors, drawn up in 1988, list eight different responsibilities, besides the original activities, including the verification of reported cases, public relations, education, and "intervention by the Confidential Doctor." From the initial four physicians, lacking almost any administrative support, the concept of the Confidential Doctor developed into an agency that now has 11 offices spread over the country and 148 employees, most of them part-time (83). The official name is now the Confidential Doctor's Office, and while this still sounds very medical, social workers form the largest professional group in this agency. 4 Actual Position and Critical Notes Despite the growth that the CDO has enjoyed in almost every respect, the "success" of this institution remains uncertain. Of primary concern are the position and working method of the CDO, which despite its 22-year existence, still does not enjoy any legal recognition. In 1993, the government issued a statement announcing a proposal for a legal solution. This proposal falls short of important practical parameters set by the CDOs. To add to the hindrances, in the

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Netherlands the progression from government proposal to actual legislation in the field of child protection is an extremely slow process that is likely to take several years. One even more pressing problem is that from 1992, the CDOs have been decentralized over 12 provinces and 3 metropolitan regions. Whether or not the CDOs will be able to maintain their national uniformity is questionable. Although most provinces show a serious interest in dealing with child abuse, decentralization will lead to differences in organization. The future of the National Foundation and therewith of the national register is clearly in doubt. A third problem is that although the CDO's distinct position and working method have gained respect from many of the child protection and youth care institutions, it has also received its share of criticism. This criticism has raised the questions of whether or not the CDO is capable of effectively protecting children without any judicial powers, and, furthermore, whether or not voluntary help is really suited to the CDO's line of work. The CDO has always placed great emphasis on voluntary services. However, it is only in a small percentage of all reported cases that the family members step forward themselves. Reports from abusing or neglecting parents themselves are very rare (1992: 0%). Reports from abused children themselves also comprise only a small figure (1992: 2%). This means that 98% of families dealt with by the CDO are reported through a third party. This often occurs without the permission of the children or parents, and, in many cases, the children and parents are not even aware of the fact that they have been reported. After receiving a report, the CDO does not contact the family immediately. As a rule, it will first contact agencies or individuals associated with the family such as the school, the general practitioner, and possibly other social workers. In cases such as these, the CDO will endeavor to obtain information concerning the family in question as a means of verifying any allegations of child abuse. After this verification, the CDO will normally invite all family-linked agencies and individuals for a multidisciplinary case conference. The families themselves are usually not invited. These case conferences aim at deciding on the course(s) of action to be followed. This might entail no more than an extra visit to the family by the general practitioner, but also an official report to the Child Protection Board, or placing the children in care. After the case conference, the CDO will discreetly continue to monitor the family's "progress." In some cases this "monitoring" goes on for years. In the last few years, the CDOs have been striving to offer families reported in connection with child abuse more open information concerning their reporting procedures and activities. Despite this, the majority of families still are unaware of the fact that the CDO compiles files with personal data pertaining to their situation. Notwithstanding the principle of voluntariness, the CDO works closely with a large number of organizations, including judicial institutions. In 1992 the CDOs involved one or more judicial agencies, such as the police or the Child Protection Board, in 39% of all cases reported to them. From the beginning, the CDO has received criticism from a number of authors due to this working method (Dock, 1980; van Montfoort, 1988; van der Pas, 1972;

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Wolters, 1975; van der Woude, 1972). In the last few years, however, the CDO approach has come under increasing pressure due to new legislation concerning the privacy of citizens and the rights of patients and clients. Although reports to the CDO remain on the increase, which indicates that the CDO is catering for a continuously expanding need, the organization will increasingly have to choose between a status as a straightforward child protection agency with clear connections to the judiciary or, on the other hand, as a voluntary agency whose powers of intervention would be restricted by the permission of the parent or the child. As yet, it is still unclear as to how the CDO will fare in this, but I expect that the CDOs will experience radical changes in the coming years. 5 The Role of Civil Child Protection Abel, et al. (1982) write that "informal justice" is usually set up as an alternative to the established judicial bodies. Criticism of the counterproductive and formal nature of the judicial procedures results in finding solutions to conflicts and problems outside judicial channels. In practice, however, these alternatives prove not to replace the existing system but complement it. This is certainly true for the development of the CDO as a central organization in which (suspected cases of) child abuse may be reported in the Netherlands. Although the CDO is generally referred to as the central reporting organization for child abuse, the judicial institutions have continued to exist. The number of times civil courts have been called upon to protect the child has decreased sharply during the 1970s. In the 1980s, however, this decrease halted and has, in fact, become an increase again. Whereas in 1980, only 0.22% of all young people were under court-ordered supervision; in 1990, this percentage had increased to 0.36% (Junger-Tas, et al., 1992, p. 85). In the Dutch system, the Child Protection Board is the gateway to civil child protection measures. The Child Protection Board was set up in 1905 when the Children's Laws were introduced in the Netherlands. These laws made it possible to relieve parents who neglected children of their parental authority. As far as its tasks and position are concerned, the Board can best be compared to the Jugendamt in Germany or the Social Services Department in Great Britain. From an organizational point of view, however, the Board is part of the Ministry of Justice. Although the Board does not play any role in the criminal law system and only very rarely reports child abuse or neglect to the police, the Royal Dutch Society of Medicine (KNMG) resisted the proposal to appoint the Board as the central reporting organization for (suspected) child abuse in the late 1960s. In the KNMG's view, the Board was too much involved in the judicial process, and reporting to the Board would therefore be incompatible with the physician's oath of confidentiality. But even though the CDO was set up in addition to the Child Protection Board, the Board continued to receive reports of child abuse from many professional groups and (increasingly) through the CDO itself. It is not easy to answer the question of how many reports of child abuse the Board receives annually, because

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the Board does not register the reports in the same way as the CDO. Our own research has shown that annually the Child Protection Boards receive approximately 5,000 to 6,000 reports concerning approximately 8,000 to 9,000 young people (on the basis of the definition used by the CDO). This includes reports of physical child abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse (van Montfoort, 1993, p. 44). In contrast to the CDO, the Board adopts an open approach to the family involved in the report. The reporting party is asked to inform the family in advance about the report and, after the report, the Board contacts the family. The parents have the right to inspect the Board's files, and if the case is taken to the court, the parents receive a copy of the Board's report before the hearing. This openness is due to both legal battles by parents in the 1970s and 1980s and critical attention in the media regarding the Board's functioning as a government body with extensive powers. The net result is that parents who are involved with the Board have greater legal protection than parents who have been reported to the CDO. Abel, et al. (1982) describe this phenomenon for various forms of formal and informal justice. This greater legal protection, however, is offset by the fact that the Board has the power to take a case to court, and that, as a result parental authority may be restricted or terminated, services may be enforced, and the child may be placed in care against the will of the parents. Although many reports are not registered by the Board as "child abuse" but as "problematic family situation," daily practice in the Netherlands clearly shows that measures and actions are certainly taken regarding families through the courts, either in addition to or after intervention by the CDO. 6 The Role of the Police and Criminal Law in Dutch Practice The debate in the Netherlands on the application of criminal law in cases of child abuse is similar to that in many other European countries. In the 1970s, it was generally assumed that in cases of child abuse care should be provided to the whole family and that punishing the parents would do more harm than good. This changed in the 1980s, when sexual abuse became the main focus of attention, first in public opinion and subsequently in the spheres of care and the judiciary. In publications in the early 1980s (Rijnaarts & van Hengel, 1983), former victims of sexual abuse called for the punishment of perpetrators. By applying criminal law, society would give a clear signal that the actual perpetrators are responsible for the sexual abuse, and no-one else - neither the mothers nor the children. Society would also make it clear to offenders that sexual abuse of children is not "normal," as many offenders would have the children believe. The police and the judiciary soon responded to the criticism expressed by former victims, who were supported by the women's movement. Guidelines were drawn up to give victims of sexual abuse a greater say in the criminal law process, together with guidelines for prosecution policy in cases of sexual abuse. Through extra training, many police officers and public prosecutors gained more in-depth knowledge of sexual abuse and of the care organizations involved. In many different places in the Netherlands, multi-agency teams have been set up in which care organizations,

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the CDO, the Child Protection Board, the police, and the probation services agree on the strategy to be followed in the various cases and decide on the way in which to coordinate interventions and services. In spite of the greater public attention to the role of the criminal justice system in the case of child sexual abuse, very little is known about the proces of decision-making by the police and the judiciary in daily practice. In order to overcome this lack of data about a large number of "ordinary" cases, we at the Free University, Amsterdam have examined police and court records on more than a 1,000 cases of physical and sexual abuse of children. Our study focused mainly on the way in which decisions are made in practice by the police and judiciary. For clarity's sake, it should be noted that in the Netherlands public prosecutors are not obliged to prosecute. In all kinds of cases (even serious crime in which evidence is no problem), the public prosecutor is free to dismiss a case definitively or conditionally. This possibility of "policy-based dismissal" (Opportunit tsprinzip) gives Dutch criminal law procedure great flexibility. From a formal point of view, the police do not have the right to dismiss a case, but in many different places in the country the public prosecutor and the police reach agreement on the strategy to be followed in individual cases. As long as the public prosecutor approves of the police approach, police officers may participate in informal consultations with counselors and social workers, without the criminal law officers "snatching" the case away from them. The public prosecutor himself may also participate in informal consultations with social work agencies and occasionally he is invited to be present at case conferences, on the precondition that he or she will not use the information put forward at the case conference in criminal proceedings. In our study, we compared the application of criminal law in cases of sexual abuse and of physical child abuse. We found what we had anticipated, namely that cases of physical child abuse are hardly ever prosecuted at all on the basis of criminal law, whereas cases of sexual abuse by family members generally are. Table 4 shows the outcome of our comparative study. Table 4: Police Action per Category No prosecution Prosecution Total

sexual abuse 47% 53% 100 %

physical abuse 90% 10% 100%

N = 432 N = 256 unknown = 69 unknown = 11 This difference was highly significant, χ2 (Ι, Ν = 688) = 130.24, p < .001.

We can see how rarely criminal proceedings are instigated against perpetrators of physical child molesting. In our random sample, the public prosecutor decided to press charges only 25 times. However, this did not mean that the parents were actually convicted. For 11 cases, we could not find the outcome in the judicial records. Of the remaining 14 cases, of which the outcome was found in the

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judicial records, 12 had been dismissed by the public prosecutor: nine times as a "policy-based dismissal" and three times as a "dismissal based on lack of evidence." Therefore, only two cases were actually tried in court. One case concerned grievously bodily harm to a 2-year-old boy, whose injuries included burns and fractures. Regarding the offender (the mother's boyfriend), the court had given a ruling of greatly diminished responsibility, and had ordered detention in a closed psychiatric hospital. The other case concerned an 18 year-old mother who had killed her baby immediately after birth. She had been given a 12-month suspended sentence. The table shows that sexual abuse was prosecuted more often. Table 5 shows the outcomes of those cases in which the public prosecutor initially decided to start criminal law proceedings. Table 5: Outcomes of Cases of Sexual Abuse at the Public Prosecution Office and the Courts Outcome Policy-based dismissal Technical dismissal (lack of evidence) Acquittal Public Prosecutor not admissable or discharge from prosecution Convicted Total (N= 152)

Percentage 7 37 2 5 49 100

Out of the 75 suspects who were convicted, the courts imposed a nonsuspended sentence on 40; the other suspects were given a suspended sentence, had to do community service, or were fined. The average duration of the prison sentences imposed was 1 year; the longest sentence was 6 years. 7 Conclusion Unfortunately, there are almost no international comparative studies on the application of criminal law and the length of the sentences imposed, as well as the application of child protection measures. In fact, conducting such studies would not be easy because of the many differences in definitions, legal regulations, and procedures. It would, however, be very interesting to see to what extent our general impression proved correct if we analyzed the decision-making processes in practice. Three points should be made regarding the proposition that the Dutch approach to child abuse is based on a "welfare model." First, the action taken by the Confidential Doctor's Office is not based on the reported parents' voluntary cooperation. Second, the system of civil child protection has continued to exist and the creation of the CDO has not led to a permanent decrease in the number of times civil courts are called upon to protect children. The CDO is not the hard

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core of our system, but it is an expansion of the system that has not yet been embedded institutionally. Third, in daily practice, the police are also an important reporting station for all kinds of abuse. Criminal law is frequently applied in cases of sexual abuse. Policy-based dismissal is used very rarely in cases of sexual abuse; cases that are dropped are generally dismissed due to lack of evidence. Despite these points, it continues to be true that physical child abuse in the Netherlands is only prosecuted in criminal lawsuits in exceptional cases. The Dutch system is flexible, among other things, because the public prosecutor is not obliged to bring a case before the court, no-one is under any obligation to report, and because many organizations may act at their own discretion. However, I would prefer to call this system informal rather than tolerant. In certain respects, the control of families by the authorities in the Netherlands extends further than would be allowed in, for instance, England or Germany. Where flexibility is the advantage of this informal system, nontransparancy is the disadvantage. It is not much use to discuss, in general terms, "the Dutch example" as a "welfare model" as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon example as a "justice model." The Netherlands has its own mix of "compassion" and "control," of help and punishment, and, in that respect, the dilemmas of combating child abuse have not yet been solved - nor have they, however, in Germany, Scandinavia, or England. Note The data in Tables 1-3 are based on official information from the National Foundation of Confidential Doctor's Offices.

References Abel, R. L. (Ed.) (1982): The politics of informal justice. New York. Christopherson, J. (1981): Two approaches to the handling of child abuse. A comparison of the English and Dutch systems. Child Abuse & Neglect, 5, 369-373. Dock, J. E. (1980): Vertrouwensarts met/zonder rechtsbescherming. Kindermishandeling en hulpverlening. Maastricht. Junger-Tas, J., Kruissink, M, & van der Laan, P. H. (1992): Ontwikkeling van de jeugdcriminaliteit en de justitiele jeugdbescherming: Periode 1980-1990. Arnhem. Kempe, C. H., Silverman, F. N., Steele, B. F., Droegenmueller, W., & Silver, H. K. (1962): The battered-child syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association, 181, 105-112. Kuipers, F. & van Creveld, S. (1964): Mishandeling van kinderen [Battered child syndrome]: Nederlands tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, 108, 2399-2406. Mameffe, C. & Lampo, A. (Eds.): (1989): De ontbrekende schakel. Kindermishandeling en kinderbescherming. Brüssel. Mertens, N. M. (1993): De ondertoezichtstelling en andere maatregelen van kinderbescherming. Een dossieronderzoek. Den Haag. Montfoort, A. J. van (1988): De ongrijpbare werkwijze van het bureau vertrouwensarts. Maandblad Geestelijke Volksgezondheid, 43, 980-986.

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Montfoort, A. J. van (1993): Kindermishandeling en Justitie. Een empirisch onderzoek naar de afliandeling door de raad voor de kinderbescherming, de politie en het openbaar ministerie van meldingen van kindermishandeling en seksueel misbruik. Amsterdam. Nelson, B. J. (1984): Making an issue of child abuse. Political agenda setting for social problems. Chicago. Parton, N. (1985): The politics of child abuse. London. Pas, A. van der (1972): De vertrouwensarts. Een niet zo duidelijke functie. TMW, 10, 266-269. Reid, D. H. S. (1992): Suffer the little children. St. Andrews (Scotland). Rijnaarts, J. & van Hengel, R. (1983): De straf op zwijgen is levenslang. Over seksuele kindermishandeling binnen het gezin. Amsterdam. Rosenfeld, A. A. & Newberger, E. H. (1977): Compassion versus control. Conceptual and practical pitfalls in the broadened definition of child abuse. Journal of the American Medical Association, 237, 2086-2088. Sale, A. & Davies, M. (Eds.) (1990): Child protection policies and practice in Europe, London. Wolters, W. H. G. (1975): Verdere gedachtenontwikkeling rond de kindermishandeling. Maandblad Geestelijke Volksgezondheid, 30, 334-343. Woude, P. van der (1972): Kindermishandeling de mist in? TMW, 26, 470-473

Governmental Reactions to Child Abuse Barbara Willenbacher

1 Introduction Most depictions of child abuse in recent German sociological and criminological literature are oriented toward American sociological investigations that have studied the phenomenon of violence in families on a broad representative basis. German literature then shifts abruptly to German penal norms, and describes penal practice in relation to each period. Here, different research questions and patterns of interpretation clash: on the one hand, sociological and psychological research work, (descriptions, recordings, cause and effect analysis, as well as definitions of the phenomenon "family violence"), and, on the other hand, the criminological analysis of penal practice and prosecution. Thus, the different sciences face each other without any attempt being made to transform and translate each relevant scientific code. The sociohistorical depictions of political campaigns designed to institutionalize governmental sanctions for child abuse or intensify state control also ignore the differences in each country's legal and institutional systems. Therefore, the fact that special acts of intervention are bound to Anglo-Saxon law is disregarded. This is especially true of compensation awards, the demarcation of civil and public law, the influence of procedural law, and so forth (the adversary principle, trial by jury, as well as cross-examination; see King & Trowell, 1992; Myers, 1992). Penal, civil, and public law tend to examine their domains in isolation within the juvenile welfare system, without acknowledging parallel regulations in adjoining domains of law. As a result, it is frequently overlooked that the demarcation of the constituent facts of familial violence in penal, civil, and public law also forms a three-sided relationship. Namely: • • . •

§223bStGB, §170dStGB, §1666BGB, §42, §43KJHG.

The judicial restrictiveness of constituent facts increases from the Child and Youth Services Act (childrearing assistance, supervision within the framework of foster care), across the revoking of parental custody in family law, across violations of childrearing obligation in penal law, up to penal sanctions for child abuse and neglect. Hence, the objective threat to mental and physical well-being

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is the major justification for state intervention in the Child and Youth Services Act, whereas the revoking of parental custody demands the causality and unavoidability of incriminating parental behavior (independent of subjective blame), and penal law usually assumes deliberation and predictability or acceptance of harm to the child through parental behavior. Furthermore, the rules of penal sanction dealing with child neglect and abuse require subjective guilt in parents or other care givers, particularly in cases of cruelty and brutality. The differences in the restrictiveness of legal norms in public, penal, and civil law explains the variations in the breadth of empirical relevance of each legal domain to the phenomenon of child abuse. Because of the theoretical similarities in social and criminal law norms, most analyses of family violence deal with penal norms, and the fact that the majority of state interventions are civil and public is disregarded. This misunderstanding can be traced back to the insufficient attention paid to older German literature. A proper analysis of the origins of these norms and how they relate to each other could explain the above-mentioned divergences. The aim of this paper is to depict state intervention within the framework of the different legal domains. That is: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The history of legislation (the legal, dogmatic arguments and their advocates) The history of state intervention as a function of the spirit of the times Changes in professional attitudes A description of the population affected by state intervention

2 The Campaign for a Penal Definition of Child Abuse The national, universal codifications of the civil penal codes in the 19th century (e.g., in Germany, Switzerland, and France) dropped the threat of sanctions for child abuse embodied in the older specific penal codes of the individual states or provinces and the older specific rulings on penalties for child or spouse abuse. This was legitimized by reinterpreting the definition of family in terms of Roman law to include the protection of the family from state interference, and this particularly involved a rejection of police activities in welfare states aimed at ensuring good behavior. These tasks were transferred to new state laws that had to be formulated within the framework of public welfare, or, to use the contemporary terminology "compulsory education of minors" (Balks, 1986; Bönheim, 1932). At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, criminal sanctions against child abuse were reinstitutionalized through the campaigns of voluntary welfare associations, anthroposophical movements, and, in particular, societies for the protection of women and children directed toward comprehensive legal and social reforms. These demands were part of the general aims of the welfare associations to improve living conditions in the lower classes, while simultaneously disciplining them, particularly in the fields of health care, crime prevention, and the preventive control of deviant behavior (Schoch, 1907; Wild, 1907). In cases of child abuse, the emphasis was less on violation of the right to freedom

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from injury or the right to individual development, and more on the threat to the state and its citizens through deviant behavior and its continuation into the next generation. Therefore, the goal was to prevent deviant socialization and criminality in the young generation by controlling parents or preventing their lapses. The driving powers were the local welfare organizations such as the societies for educating the poor and the child protection agencies in German-speaking Switzerland that tried to follow the example of the English Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. These societies, alongside the Berlin Society for Protection of Children, were clearing houses for private and institutional reports on violence in families.1 They examined cases and organized referrals for child and adolescent victims, and they also instituted legal action against parents and guardians. They housed children, partly in their own centers, partly in other institutions, and created the preconditions for such intervention s in civil law, such as the withdrawal of parental custody. They also filed charges, usually in vain, because German law, for example, defined child abuse as "minor" bodily injury. As minor bodily injury was an offense requiring an application for prosecution, a guardian had to be appointed by the custody court in order to replace the legal guardianship of the parents, or the father, and the guardian then had to apply for prosecution in the name of the child (Jacobsohn, 1912). Not only because of this complicated procedure but also because of the low probability of conviction, the societies demanded a reform of penal law. Another complaint was that the referral of children into care fell under the jurisdiction of the local welfare agencies, and was therefore the financial responsibility of local authorities. Previously, public custody was only taken over by the state when dereliction threatened to lead to crime. Custody to protect the child on other grounds had to be paid for by the community, that is, the local orphans' council, because, generally, the incriminated plaintiffs' poverty meant that they were unable to pay the costs of protective custody in line with their civic duty to maintain their children (Polligkeit, 1908). The consequences of outside intervention, namely to relieve the parents of the financial burden of supporting their children, was considered a positive reward for deviant behavior. The legal withdrawal of parental authority was, in this context, not considered a sanction, and it was therefore demanded that the lack of sanctions for parental error should be remedied in penal law. 3 The Legal Definition The German legal debate, exemplified by Frieda Duensing (1903), demanded coordinated penal and civil formulations, dependent on an objective principle of cause and causality that focused on the injury caused and relegated the subjective guilt of the reference persons to second place. In contrast, the purely scientific penal discussion used the penally dogmatic character of minor and grievous bodily injury to reject such a legal standard. The renunciation of the principle of guilt was viewed as a violation of constitutional principles based on the theory of civil law. Nonetheless, special definitions of offense were created, and these initially entered the penal code as official offenses in 1912 as the abuse of

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children and dependents within the framework of grievous bodily injury of children. Because of dogma, the interpretation of the question of what is considered a dangerous weapon and special constituent facts typical of child abuse or abuse of dependents such excessive discipline, failure to render assistance, or being under the influence of chemical substances were not included. This means, conviction was denied on the grounds that there had been no assault with a dangerous weapon. Because of the restrictiveness of decisions by the supreme court, offenses such as placing a child on a hot stove were ruled to be noncriminal (Ittin, 1913). The documentation of such scandalous cases led to calls for a reform of penal law, and the discussion at the turn of the century was revived (Schleich, 1928). Legal scientists and politicians in the Weimar Republic, however, rejected a renunciation of the principle of guilt for constitutional reasons - also because of Social Democrats' political experiences in negotiating with the Wilhelminian state. The far-reaching interpretations of what constituted a dangerous weapon (e.g., during demonstrations and strikes) was cited, while ignoring the fact that such broad interpretations were never applied to child abuse. However, the legal policy of the Weimar Republic did not encourage more severe legal sanctions, because one of the Social Democrats' major goals was to reduce penal sanctions for petty offenses and thus reduce the criminalization of the lower classes. They even discussed returning to the treatment of the abuse of children and minors as an offense requiring application for prosecution. However, because of the protests of the welfare organizations, illustrated through a collection of scandalous cases of child abuse, an independent body of constituent penal facts was formulated that continues to be valid to the present day, defining the abuse and neglect of children and dependents as an official crime punishable by law in cases of cruelty or brutality by custodians. However, these penal reforms did not become law until 1933, mainly in line with the new paradigm that such offenses were a crime against the German people, because they destroy and injure its most important resource, its children (Höppe, 1942). 3.1 Legal Practice The interpretation of these offenses is documented in only a few higher court rulings that generally refer to the definitions of abuse or brutality in offenses committed against adults - usually within the scope of failure to provide aid and assistance. This witnessed an extension of the definition of abuse and brutality by the Supreme Court of the German Reich between 1933 and 1945 that was reversed by the Federal Supreme Court after 1949. Proof of abusive cruelty or brutality first had to be established by forensic experts on the basis of the extent of injury (frequently to dead children). Changes came about particularly through the activities of psychologists, especially Hildegard Hetzer (1936) who tried to define psychological criteria that would provide an objective basis for the interpretation of legal guilt as part of her work for the Berlin Society for the Protection of Children after 1933. These criteria referred particularly to impairment of emotional and cognitive development. In cases of traumatic injury and the lack of parental insight or the inability to change

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parental behavior, penal proceedings should be initiated. This tradition, however, stopped after 1945. The reestablishment of the Child Protection Society was based on different professional and scientific premises (Brinkmann & Honig, 1984). The right to define the constituent facts of child abuse and the presentation of evidence once more became the privilege of pediatricians and forensic experts. Cooperation with the courts was rejected in favor of the idea of an independent organization that would not automatically adopt the interests of state institutions or state sanctioning rights. The right to therapeutic treatment led to a rejection of custodial care and also, in part, to a rejection of penal sanctions. The number of prosecutions for child abuse has declined in recent decades, whereas the number of such cases known to the police has remained more or less constant: The percentage of prosecutions has fallen from 40% to 15%.2 The percentage of convictions fell at an equal rate. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s that new campaigns by welfare organizations, pediatricians, and child protection societies lead to a slight increase in the number of criminal prosecutions (Schreiber, 1991).3 Unfortunately, no criminological investigations are available on this triad of offense, prosecution, and conviction, because most criminological investigations of child abuse are based on convicted cases and do not investigate the fluctuations in crime statistics. Even when lawsuits filed are included, the determining factors that lead to charges or conviction have not been examined. Because of the reduced indictment and conviction rates in recent decades, there is a corresponding drop, and findings are less representative. However, the "clients" passing through the courts have generally remained unchanged. There is a proportional overrepresentation of members of the lower classes, with corresponding socioeconomic, psychological, and familial stress factors (Ammon, 1979; Bauer, 1969; Biermann, 1969). The constancy of the incriminated "clientele" - despite falling crime rates - has not been investigated scientifically. The only phenomenon emphasized is the decreasing involvement of women (Appel, 1988; Ferriani, 1897; Mende & Kirsch, 1968). 3.2 Summary Whereas the penal definition of the crime of child abuse is, above all, determined by internal patterns of interpretation within the legal system, the motivations of those campaigning for legal sanctions have changed enormously. There has been a paradigmatic change in the interpretation of social work - from education through control and sanctions to therapeutic intervention; from explaining child abuse through brutality and cruelty to the assumption that it is caused by helplessness. 4 The Creation of an Omnibus Clause: Violation of Parental Childrearing Duties Due to the intensification of social control over parental childrearing from 1933 to 1945 (Chesnais, 1982), not only was a new definition of sexual abuse created in

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1943/44, but also a new definition of violations of childrearing duties as a supplement to the penal law for young offenders of 1940, that took over earlier police regulations to prevent the spread of deviant behavior (theft, begging, prostitution). This simultaneously revitalized the discussion on the demands raised at the turn of the century, namely, to objectify the definition of abuse and neglect in terms of the damage done (Licht, 1948). However, the dogmatic structure of penal law continued to impose itself on the formulation of these offenses: There was a continued demand for premeditation, knowledge of illegality, acceptance of the consequences, and lack of conscience. Penal law commentaries represented this offense as being, above all, a woman's crime, because neglect, especially of infants, is most often blamed on women, as the conviction rates show (Kaltofen, 1965). What remained unnoticed, in contrast, was that the classic arguments of voluntary welfare work reappeared, and that these constituent facts were originally meant to counteract the restrictive formulation of the offense of child abuse. 4.1 Criminal Proceedings under §170d of the Penal Code Analyses of court decisions reveal that "minor forms of abuse" are not discussed, and criteria of neglect are rarely introduced. Until the amendment of § 170d of the German Penal Code, the main focus was on risk to moral development. Court decisions in the 1950s extended the scope for intervention - in line with the few judgments from before 1945 - in the sense that threats to the state of matrimony through the behavior of the parents that are detrimental to the children became sanctionable under criminal law. This does not mean that the old police definitions regarding the instigation and encouragement of deviant behavior (begging, theft, prostitution) were adopted, but that the criteria of social deviance were extended greatly, which then also led to correction through the penal law reform (Franke-Griksch, 1970). In contrast to this tendency towards expansion, the trend toward increased latitude in the interpretation of neglect and abuse before 1945 was countered by the restrictive interpretations of the 1950s (Kreutzahler, 1955). It is not possible to carry out an empirical control of the relevance of these criteria for interpreting court decisions by evaluating records, because the criminological investigations do not differentiate between abuse and neglect or between abuse and neglect and the other criteria for an offense under §170d of the German Penal Code. The same applies to criminological investigations of §223b German Penal Code that also do not discriminate between abuse and neglect. This means no discrimination is made between the different facts justifying intervention. Due to the low number of cases on file, empirical investigations analyze convictions under both penal law paragraphs together. There is also is no differentiation according to case groups, denunciations, prosecutions, and convictions. As a rule, only convicted cases are evaluated. Here as well, the convicted population belongs to the typical youth service clients described above: There is an accumulation of socioeconomic, psychological, and family-related stress factors (Klimmek, 1970; Ullrich, 1964).

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4.2 Summary In summary, we can say that neglect has been neglected. Measured in terms of the reasons for visits to child guidance centers, the provision of supervision orders, referrals for residential care, and referral to foster families, which are based on neglect in 30% to 40% of cases (Blandow & Frauenknecht, 1980; Junker, 1978), this phenomenon plays only a minor role in penal law sanctions. This is because the penal definition of abuse and neglect does not match the empirical pattern of child abuse and neglect based on the intentional attitudes underlying the actions of guardians as revealed in sociological and psychological studies. In terms of Luhmann's systemic logic (1993), penal codes have to deviate from the codes of the family system that are characterized by diffusion and ambivalence compared with legal definitions. 5 Civil Sanctions Under §1666 of the German Civil Code In contrast to criminal law, the formulation of the standards in civil law regarding the state's rights to use the custody courts to interfere with parental authority or custody does not include the concept of guilt. The definition of abuse of parental authority remains unspecified. As, however, the principle of guilt within the scope of culpable violation of parental duties (gross neglect or grossly negligent violations) ranked highly in both the Civil Code advisory commissions and preliminary drafts, the Supreme Court has adopted this interpretation criterion (Harms, 1988). Unlike penal law, civil sanctions of the abuse of parental authority are oriented more strongly toward the old intervention criteria of police law and the contents of parental authority: the instigation of dishonest and indecent behavior by one's own behavior, by encouraging the child's behavior; by failing to fulfill one's obligations to care for the child; by overexploiting child labor; and by impeding adequate education or vocational training (Mohrmann, 1934). However, these criteria are oriented more toward "objective" social norms. In contrast, the interpretation of the facts justifying intervention in child abuse and neglect are oriented more toward guilt and actual injury or risk to the child's well-being. These commissions also focused on the socially deviant lower classes; the phenomenon of violence in families was viewed as common knowledge in this context, in contrast to more recent family law literature. The Federal Republic of Germany has taken much longer than other European civil codes to introduce or add the prerequisite of culpable behavior through sheer objective failure measured in terms of the risk to the child's well-being. Nonetheless, the control over referrals to residential care by the youth services has been strengthened (Jean d'Heur, 1993).

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5.l Judicial Custom Analyses of civil court sanctioning decisions indicate that abuse and neglect only cover a minor field of jurisdiction. There is a much stronger focus on correcting the patriarchal legal concept of paternal authority in favor of the parental rights of mothers and the enforcement of equal rights of equality; correcting the political pressure on politically deviant parents under the rule of the Kaiser, the National Socialists and in the Cold War era; correcting the sanctioning of social deviance, particularly sexual deviance; providing access to medical treatment and schooling; enforcing ethical interpretations and maintenance claims; and so forth (Hirsch, 1965; Höhne, 1974). Here as well, as in the interpretation of penal law, the principle of guilt played only a minor role between 1933 and 1945 compared to the concept of an objective threat to the child's well-being. This interpretation was facilitated by the interpretation of injury to the people resulting from injury to the child's well-being (Bluhm, 1952). These strong societalization trends, which were also represented in the consolidation of national socialist ideology, were withdrawn from both civil and penal law in relation to child abuse and neglect after 1945. More emphasis was placed on the principle of guilt.4 However, if one analyzes the reasons for civil interventions, even in cross-cultural comparisons, it becomes apparent that it is particularly the parents' unwillingness to exercise insight and respond appropriately to the proposals of the youth services that is sanctioned, regardless of whether recourse is made to a concept of guilt or a concept of apparently objective injury. Empirical studies on §1666 of the Civil Code are extremely rare compared with criminological investigations, although state intervention in the family is far more frequent in terms of the number of cases (Zenz, 1979). The relatively few empirical studies nonetheless show that: 1. Child abuse is seldom the reason for interference in parental custody. 2. Neglect takes a higher rank. 3. The group of persons affected by interventions in parental custody is the same as the group convicted under penal law in the two cases mentioned above. This once more raises the question regarding the discriminatory factors applied in the different penal and civil interventions. 6 From Compulsory Education to Corrective Training to Protective Custody Publicly funded "compulsory education" was considered necessary to counter the "threat of dereliction," particularly in terms of juvenile delinquency and prostitution. It was subsidiary in Civil Law in relation to the withdrawal of parental custody, and should only be used in cases when the risk of delinquency could not be averted in any other way. All other cases in which the withdrawal of parental custody was justified in cases of abuse, residential care for the children had to be financed by the parents as part of their obligation to pay for their children, or by the local welfare departments, the orphan's councils (Duensing, 1903).

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A different basis for funding and intervention only became available with the Reich Youth Welfare Act of 1922, which institutionalized youth offices as responsible authorities. This was oriented toward the physical and mental wellbeing of children and their childrearing rights. In contrast to the Civil Code, which made the withdrawal of parental custody dependent on deliberate violation of parental duties and culpable behavior by the parent or guardian, the Reich Youth Welfare Act was directed specifically toward the objective social threat to children and adolescents in terms of dereliction or the risk of dereliction. If the facts of the offense were confirmed, public funding could be provided when guardians were without money. If the guardians disagreed with the measures proposed by the youth services, custody had to be decided before the guardianship court (Jordan, 1987).5 The Youth Welfare Act of 1961 essentially adopted this legal construction. It articulated the right of minors to voluntary corrective training - in cases of risk or impairment to development, and when measures to avoid the risk or overcome the impairment were available. However, the legal right of minors to be guaranteed voluntary corrective training could be pursued only if the legal guardians agreed to or tolerated these activities. Thus, a written application from the legal guardians was mandatory. The right to corrective training in cases of dereliction or risk of dereliction, on the other hand, focused more strongly on the social environment and on the causal factors: It could be enforced against the will of the juvenile and against the will of the guardian by the guardianship court when requested by the youth office. As a rule, despite differences in legal legitimization, voluntary and mandatory corrective training were carried out in the same residential centers. The Child and Youth Services Act of 1990 replaced the concepts of voluntary corrective training and mandatory corrective training with the concept of socioeducational provisions. A right to socioeducational provisions is generally linked to the condition that an education promoting the well-being of the child or adolescent cannot be guaranteed under normal circumstances. This means that the child's well-being is at risk when specifiable impairments arise or will arise through the social, psychological, or individual situation in which the child is socialized, and nonintervention in the situation would place the child's well being at risk. Such provisions can also include permanent care and residential care. The youth office is obliged by the Child and Youth Services Act to obtain the cooperation of the parties in selecting actual provisions, and, in contrast to the Youth Welfare Act, it grants those involved the right to express their wishes and choose the type of provision provided. Generally, the guardians are the only persons with a legal right to socioeducational provisions. Implementation of socioeducational provisions in defiance of the custody rights of the guardians is possible only on the basis of §1666 if the minor's well-being is at risk (Münder, 1991). The basis of funding has also been changed. All socioeducational provisions are funded by local youth service providers in contrast to the Youth Welfare Act in which the funding of corrective training was assigned to regional rather than local youth service providers.

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6. l Legal Practice The concept of dereliction, just like that of moral risk in penal law and moral or dishonorable behavior in civil law, underwent major extensions as a function of the spirit of the times, particularly in cases of supposed sexual deviance. The main grounds for intervention in the form of voluntary and mandatory corrective training within the Reich Youth Welfare Law and the Youth Welfare Act were property offenses, truancy, and running away from home. Recent decades have seen an increase in the number of children and adolescents who have been taken away from their families. However, because of scientific criticism of residential care, the last 30 years have seen an increase in foster care, particularly for younger children. In most cases, permission has been granted by the guardians, making legal interventions increasingly rare at about 20%.6 Research on children in permanent care shows that 10% of them were referred because of abuse, but between 30% and 40% for neglect (Heitkamp, 1989). Research on children and adolescents in residential care, however, emphasizes the juvenile's existing delinquency as the main reason for referral. Deficits in parental childrearing are, therefore, hardly ever mentioned. However, single case reports indicate that the history of childrearing in these children hardly differs from those in foster care. Whereas older studies on juvenile delinquency and dereliction also discuss childrearing deficits in terms of abuse and neglect, more recent studies in the 1970s focused on the ineffectiveness of residential care (Opitz, 1959; Peters, 1975; Többen, 1992). 6.2 Summary In summary, it can be stated that the previously ascertained accumulation of parental problem states is also conspicuous in children in residential and foster care: Most of the families concerned are characterized by an accumulation of socioeconomic problems; the same applies to the stress caused by addiction and other diseases, unemployment, being on welfare, reconstituted families, and incomplete families. In addition, the majority of studies on foster families and residential care do not differentiate the reasons for referral. This makes it impossible to collect further information on the specific consequences of violence and neglect. Even official welfare statistics are oriented mainly toward the technical reasons for referral based on the Youth Welfare Act and the family status of the children and adolescents referred. 7 Legal Sanctions for Child Abuse and Child Neglect in the Former German Democratic Republic In the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the paragraphs in penal law defining child abuse and neglect as a violation of parental childrearing duties, as well as the standards for revoking parental custody in family law were a realization of the demands made by voluntary welfare associations at the turn of the century and

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follow a homogeneous logic. Penal sanctions provide the necessity of establishing guilt in terms of brutality and cruelty; civil and penal standards focus on subjective guilt in terms of socialist morals and deliberate or negligent parental behavior. These were particularly defined in family law: Parents were obliged to meet the social standards of childrearing. They had to broaden the knowledge needed to rear and care for their children and take advantage of the institutions set up for this purpose, for example, they had to accept the assistance and support of societal and state institutions. If the health, the upbringing, or the development of the child was at risk, the youth services were obliged to implement the necessary measures. However, the intervention of the youth services was not justified just because the family was having difficulties in rearing its children. First, an attempt had to be made to help the parents implement the childrearing demands through the intervention of educational institutions and other worker collectives. Withdrawal of parental custody was only allowed as a last measure of state intervention. It was limited to cases in which the child's development was at risk because of severe, culpable neglect of parental duties and only as a result of a court decision following a complaint by the youth services (Schlicht, 1970). This meant a re-interpretation of the necessity for guilt: It consisted in the failure to accept the assistance offered by society. This introduced implicit criteria, which have to be proven in the jurisdiction of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and other countries, explicitly into the legal process of intervention. The priority of the childrearing function was explained, above all, by the classification of infringements of the law as dangerous in the case of socially hostile and system-hostile infringements, and private, familial infringements that are not usually considered as hostile to society. They became a favorite object of the educational character of socialist law. 7. / Legal Practice Legal practice in the GDR, just like that in the FRG, demonstrates that legal state interventions in cases of child abuse and neglect were relatively seldom. Penal convictions also showed a slight decline in later decades. They were limited to behavior that ignored the simplest prerequisites for healthy development in children. In contrast to court decisions in the FRG, a precise pragmatic definition of incriminating facts was given in penal law commentaries. It has to be considered that about one half of penal offenses (child abuse and neglect) were processed in civil courts, that is, alternatives to penal law. Here as well, educational influence had priority over penal conviction. It was particularly family deficits that remained the domain of civil courts, which became less important for other penal offenses during the final two decades. The expansion of sanctionable offenses feared by penal law crime researchers - which had played a major role in 1900 and 1920 - did not occur as a result of the abandonment of the conditions for brutality and cruelty, because of the linking of jurisdiction to minimum standards. In particular, the practice of civil sanctions, of withdrawing parental custody, differed greatly from that in the FRG. The number of civil interventions was considerably lower in relation to population figures. The linking of intervention

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criteria with social ethics led, in fact, to the involvement of social work based on high court guidelines. This was limited to the following types of case: failure to observe basic hygiene; insufficient and irregular meals; improper clothing; insufficient supervision; physical abuse; failure to provide medical treatment; and encouraging moral dereliction (Brummer, 1980). In spite of the withdrawal of parental custody, children were frequently not taken into care. This was due to other social work standards. Court injunctions for the care of these families through collectives and the institution of substitute families were rated highly, whereas foster families were rejected. The rate of residential care was also low. Most state intervention was made without the use of judicial force with compulsory measures being applied in only about one third of cases (Arnold, 1975). As in the FRG, there was a tendency to expand jurisdiction in cases of political deviance. During the Cold War era, incorrect development in political education tended to lead to civil and penal interventions. However, this tendency toward expansion could not be found in cases of abuse and neglect. The imposition of educational influence made civil interventions a rarity. In approximately one third of these proceedings, withdrawal of parental custody was based on abuse. On the whole, the proportion of families in whom parental custody was withdrawn amounted to 0.3%. Experiences with the transfer to the FRG Child and Youth Services Act through setting up the new institution of the youth office are not yet available (Ramm, et al., 1994). 7.2 Summary Despite the differences in legal practice in the FRG and the GDR, it can be stated that state sanctioning of child abuse and child neglect was a rarity - measured in terms of the number of convictions and the number of withdrawals of parental custody. Much more important are the interventions by the youth services, and an example of the study of these will be outlined in the following. 8 The Cologne Study on Violence The study on violence in families, commissioned and funded by the Ministry for Work, Health, and Social Affairs of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, was designed to study all institutions confronted with the above-mentioned problems within the framework of public welfare services within one locality. Special emphasis was placed on the reaction and problem-solving patterns that state institutions use to tackle family violence. The actual institutions involved were those that are also obliged to intervene in family problems as part of their broader sociopolitical task field. These are the police, the criminal police, child guidance centers, voluntary family assistance provisions, the local health service department, the youth office, a selected children's hospital, a temporary residential care center, community and independent shelters for women, and the Children's Protection Society. A survey of divorced persons was conducted for control

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purposes. The second step was to perform complete population surveys of contacts with clients (youth office, police) in two selected urban districts with contrasting socioeconomic structure (lower-class vs. middle-class residential areas). Only the youth office and the temporary residential care center proved to be relevant for violence against children. Six percent of the reasons documented for referral to residential care indicated child abuse, as well as 11% of the contacts during a three-month period within a general social services district. All other institutions - to their own surprise - hardly ever had anything to do with cases of violence against children (e.g., 0.2% in the children's hospital). This means that the majority of cases documented within the survey period were dealt with by general social services (Allgemeine Soziale Dienste, AS D), which carried out the following tasks in line with the former Youth Welfare Act: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Local authority guardians for illegitimate children Report on the situation of children in divorce cases Monitoring of maintenance payments Socioeducational provisions Supervision orders Voluntary corrective training Mandatory corrective training, and so forth

Also, within the spectrum of family conflicts dominated by violence, acute and obviously threatening as well as potentially threatening situations were named much more frequently than in other institutions. This also included the most severe cases - measured in terms of the necessity for medical treatment. As the records kept by the temporary residential care center contained little information, the following analysis concentrates on the survey of the ASD. First of all, not all family members are equally involved in violent quarrels, as often assumed in the past. The findings from the survey of divorced persons and persons in residential care indicate that violent conflicts rarely transgress the subsystem boundaries of families (marital subsystems vs. generational or childrearing subsystems). Only the results on youth office clients deviated from this. As family and private conflicts were otherwise generally resolved within the private sphere, and public offers of aid and intervention were used only under limited conditions, this principle of privacy of information was violated only when economic assistance and other services were made necessary by temporary or permanent separations. This connection between socioeconomic need and the release of information on family conflict situations is confirmed in the ASD study. In more than one half of the cases of family violence, family members turned to the ASD because of their intention to separate, and they used the ASD to obtain information on public assistance, and also, for example, to obtain certificates documenting their urgent need for accommodation. 8.1 The Study on the General Social Services The general social services (Allgemeine Soziale Dienste, ASD) were selected because their activities within the framework of family assistance and general

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youth office work mean that they are also a potential clearinghouse for reports from other institutions (schools, preschools, police) and thus also for cases of violence in families. The ASD function as a clearinghouse for problem cases that are hard to assign to other offices, and after cases have been dealt with, they are also responsible for further referral. In the field of youth services, the division between office work and field work has been abolished. Social workers now make their own decisions on actions to be taken within the framework of the Youth Welfare Act. Contacts with clients usually takes place during office hours or during home visits. Files are kept in ASD under families. About 800 files had been collected in the 3 years since the establishment of the area administration office. Only a few were considered as actually closed; most files remain open for many years as long as a child is cared for outside the family or under a supervision order. As a rule, there are three types of file: social work files opened when the ASD has to intervene under the Youth Welfare Act; general welfare files opened when repeated counseling is necessary, but there is no legal follow up; and individual files when there was only one instance of counseling. If the families are also in contact with the social services department that is located on another floor of the same building, this is also noted in the various files. It was not possible to carry out the comparison between middle-class and lower-class residential areas, because only 16 cases of violence were reported in the middle-class area during the period covered by the study. In contrast, 123 cases were analyzed in the lower-class area. Therefore, the study is based primarily on these cases. The goal of the study was to assess incidents of family violence within the framework of social work. The following criteria were used: threatened or acute abuse; suspected abuse; practiced abuse; threatened or acute neglect; suspected neglect; practiced neglect; physical conflict; threatened or acute violence in partnerships; severe threat; severe restrictions to freedom of movement; and being thrown out of the family home. The goal was to assess all cases in which the above-mentioned criteria could be found for persons still living together in one household or now separated. 8.2 Documentation Criteria: Reports Most cases were individual reports from within the family, above all, from the victim. Almost one third of the cases were reports by others, mostly institutions and the social environment or institutions and the family. Individual reports from victims were made by young persons seeking help. In rare cases, the official report provides the only information on the location of the family. Most reports arrive simultaneously with those from social and family environments. The most infrequent case is a report by the ASD itself; reports generally come from other sources; one half are referrals from other offices.

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8.3 Grounds: Type of Disturbance The grounds are generally abuse and physical conflicts; in most cases, physical violence is the reason giving for seeking contact. A minority of cases report psychological stress through threats, insults, or neglect. Visible injuries are marks from being tied up, swollen eyes and lips, bruises, hematomas, and lack of care. Most cases were reported to be repeated incidents; first incidents are extremely rare. In summary, it becomes clear that the main cause for seeking contact is physical conflict, named in one half of the cases; threats, abuse, and suspected abuse in one fifth of cases; neglect and suspected neglect in one fourth. The constituent facts mentioned in cases of neglect are usually abandonment, insufficient care, children being left to themselves, the condition of the children giving cause for concern; anxiety and retardation in the children. The majority of violent acts are beatings (with hands, fists, feet), throttling, and pulling out hair. Long-term neglect, abuse, and threat generally lead to removal of the children from the family home. The term physical conflict and threat is used more often when adolescents are involved. The offender structure changes when children are involved, and this as a function of the completeness of the family. Particularly in complete families, the father or both parents are both named as offenders. In a few cases, this is the stepfather or the mother's boyfriend, siblings, or the stepmother. Mothers, especially single mothers, are recorded as offenders in one sixth of cases. It is conspicuous that mothers are strongly underrepresented as sole offenders in complete families; it is fathers or both parents who are reported as being responsible for beatings and neglect. 8.4 Problem States If children are involved, the following family constellations are fairly typical: In incomplete/single-parent families, insufficient care of the children is dominant in more than one half of the cases; and in one third, it is clear that mothers beat the children or adolescents. The same picture is also found in complete families: In one half of the cases, deficient care; and in the other half, physical punishment, particularly beatings by fathers. If women and children are involved, the following types of case are found: In one half of the cases, the offender (husband and father) is described as being an alcoholic who threatens his wife and children through his alcoholism (brawling, destruction, threats). In all, cases in which both wives and children are simultaneously victims of violence are rare; in addition, most of the pertinent information stems from the problem field of alcoholism. Neglect and violence are also frequently related to alcoholism and drug addiction (these reveal gender-specific differences: neglect in female alcoholics and drug addicts; violence in men) or to marital and family conflicts such as parental separation or conflicts in adolescence.

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8.5 Measures When children or adolescents are viewed as victims, the general proposal is a separation of the family either through fostering or other residential care. If such drastic measures do not seem necessary, it is more frequent to recommend counseling. If the recommended counseling or planned talks with other family members are unsuccessful, the removal of the child or adolescent from the family is also planned. In about one half of the cases, the child is taken into care (residential care, foster care, or lodging with relatives), and/or guardianship court proceedings are introduced in order to revoke or modify parental custody. Summarizing those cases in which both women and children are victims of violence reveals that in one half of the cases in which children are taken into care (approximately one third of all cases), mother and child or mother and children become separated. Separation of families is unnecessary if this has already occurred or if children have already been taken into care. This applies to about one half of all cases. Care mainly occurs in those families exposed to stronger socioeconomic and family stress, insufficient accommodation, poverty, sociocultural incompatibilities (for foreigners), and in multiproblem families. Victims most frequently are in favor of being taken into care (one third of cases). But, here as well, both offenders and victims frequently cannot reach a decision on the recommendations of the social services, and about one third reject being taken into care. 8.6 Clients Information on parents' occupations cannot be used to classify social classes because reports are incomplete. However, a comparison of clients from the middle-class and lower-class areas reveals that lower-class clients are characterized by a high percentage of single, separated, and reconstituted families. It generally has to be taken into account here that incomplete and separated families tend to have more contact with the ASD, because of the youth office work on giving opinions on custody decisions, establishing paternity in illegitimate children, and the supervision of maintenance payments. The size of families reveals a strong deviation from German norms. Large families are strongly overrepresented. Likewise, a high percentage of homeless people and welfare recipients can be found in the lower-class area. Furthermore, three quarters of the clients are already receiving long-term assistance. This means that within the scope of cross-sectional surveys, one quarter of the families have no record, and three quarters of the families have returned or been referred to the ASD. As the majority of families were already receiving long-term assistance, the survey on violence against children within a short assessment period could be checked against a file analysis. All files in the middle-class district were analyzed, and 60 out of 90 files in the lower-class district. Missing data had an almost equal distribution across Youth Welfare Act reports, counseling files, and miscellaneous notes. The analysis of documents showed that the results of the cross-sectional survey were in need of correction. Contrary to prior expectations, more families

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with comparable ethnic, socioeconomic, and family Stressors to those found in the lower-class area could be found in the middle-class area. The analysis showed that the impression of a high proportion of single reports in lower class districts has to be corrected. It also becomes apparent that in one fifth of the cases, personal contact was not the primary basis for contact with agencies, but that the family's violence had come to light through questions on divorce and custody raised in the family court. In long-term family guidance, the ASD becomes the clearinghouse for reports from families, so that the mechanism that supposedly suppresses discussion of violence in families does not apply. Taboos on family violence are destroyed by separation or conflicts over divorce. A diffuse pattern of violence in families is found that is characterized by repetition. It is not possible to isolate one homogeneous type of violence in families. The above-mentioned criteria do not differentiate on the basis of major cause or measures taken. The measures also cannot be differentiated according to the decisive causes, and even the pattern of socioeconomic stress is similar in all cases. The only exception is those cases of family violence that are revealed in conflicts over custody and rights of access. More than one half of the cases are characterized by abuse of the wife and neglect of the child. However, these cases also show the typical family and socioeconomic stress factors of unemployment, alcoholism, and poverty. The accumulation of family and socioeconomic stress factors is seen in all cases of economic plight (welfare recipients, insufficient maintenance payments by child's father) and housing problems. In addition, separation and divorce increase the stress on the family. In 20% of the cases, proceedings had already been instituted to revoke of custody. The affected children or their siblings were already considered derelict through their truancy and sometimes even delinquency. In many cases, they had already been taken into care (residential care, foster care, or relatives). This case structure is characterized by the succession of residential care, foster care, and family care among the children. Proper care for the children is the goal of this measure, and older children often initiate it themselves. In almost one half of cases, adequate care of the child is endangered by alcoholism in a parent or reference person. In addition, childhood disturbances in terms of retardation, learning difficulties, and maladjustment are apparent, regardless of concrete reasons for intervention, and this cannot be traced back to individual phenomena. Thus the measures introduced are generally identical (residential care, foster care, and educational measures) regardless of whether the case had been classified originally as abuse, neglect, or parental or adolescent conflicts. 8.7 The Social Workers' Perspectives The problem of defining violence is seen in the rejection of the separation of mental and physical abuse. Neglect and abuse are hard to differentiate clearly and often occur simultaneously. Violence, compared with all other grounds, is a relatively rare reason to intervene. In principle, violence is viewed as a conse-

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qüence of socioeconomic stress, and, for this reason, it does not determine the target of measures. Problems among foreigners are viewed as a special case, because of the sociocultural contradictions involved. However, because of the variety of problems they face, such as acts of violence, neglect, illness, socioeconomic difficulties, separation, and addiction, there is not a separate response to violence in these multiproblem families. In addition, the available measures are not violencespecific: aid payments, preschools, foster care, and family separation. These measures are considered and applied in all cases of developmental disorders and of relationship difficulties in both parents and children. Moreover, these measures are often discontinuous; children can be returned to their families if they or their parents desire when the family situation "stabilizes." Generally, the families are characterized by instability and successive phases of parental separation and successive changes in child placement. The children's developmental disorders are not just due to family violence, but to the broad spectrum of familial and socioeconomic problems and changes in reference persons. The measures and assistance provided do not solve the problems that are present: Final effective measures (such as disappearance of retardation or learning difficulties) are not mentioned. 8.8 Comparison of the Results With Other Studies on Youth Services Surveys on the youth services show that case figures on the problem of violence only differ insignificantly (Hege & Schwarz, 1992). The description of the clients of youth services is generally identical (Jordan & Trauernicht, 1989). The same applies to the onset of violence in cases of divorce and separation, as well as assistance to mothers of illegitimate children. The only mentionable difference between violent and nonviolent families seems to be a greater readiness to revoke parental custody in the former, because voluntary acceptance of social work interventions is less common in this group. 9 Conclusions The analysis of state intervention shows that: 1. The public discussion on family violence served to legitimize changes in the law as part of the socialization or modernization of socialization norms. They never had any real empirical relation to the numbers of families involved. 2. Violence was rarely the reason for intervention by state and private institutions in the form of taking children into care. 3. Interventions by youth services do not differentiate between violent reasons and other causes. 4. Dogmatic legal fears were ungrounded with regard to the expansion of interpretative leeway resulting from the qualification of parental guilt. Coun-

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5. 6. 7. 8.

tries that have taken this step do not reveal more prosecutions or convictions (Salgo, 1993). Professional standards of social work in dealing with the lower classes and social deviance have changed. The professional explanations of abuse and neglect have undergone a change of paradigm. The decline in the proportion of marginal lower-class groups in society is not reflected in reduced figures for assistance in youth services interventions. The gap between the rate of child abuse reported in a victim survey (Journal of Europe, 1980: 5%) and official figures of 1% still has to be explained.

Notes 1

The activity reports of the corresponding associations nonetheless show that child abuse was hardly ever the reason for contacts. See Table in appendix. According to the responsible police officers, regular reports in the press and mass media lead to a constant rate or an increase in the number of charges laid in the population, completely in line with Durkheim's effervescence sociale. Interventions based on the threat to moral well-being were only discontinued after the change in sexual morals at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. For example, in approximately 19,000 cases in 1927. The relation between compulsory and voluntary corrective education had already changed in favor of voluntary corrective education before 1900.

Appendix

Table 1: Penal Sanctions (Convictions); German Reich, FRG

§223b §170d

1936 489

1954 215 338

1960 235 206

1970 279 159

1980 231 62

1990 167 49

1970 72 68

1980 61 48

1990 62 55

Table 2: Conviction Rate (Percentage Convicted)

§223b §170d

1936 -

1954 72 73

1960 62 74

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180

Table 3: GDR: Convictions Resulting from Violations of Childrearing Duties

1970

1980

1989

978

473

488 (referral to social courts: 46%)

Table 4: Withdrawal of Parental Custody

Filed by youth office

"Success rate"

6244 5630 6823

7589 7232 9465

82% 78% 72%

802

822

96%

Final Old German states 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 GDR 1989

8521

Table 5: Percentage of Children Taken into Care in Germany Children in reisidential care

Adopted and foster children

Shelte r care

Old German states New German states Old German states New German states Old German states

0,4

0,9

3,0

0,3

0,6

Taken from Die Familie in Westdeutschland 1991; Die Familie in der DDR 1992. Table 6: Proportion of Women Convicted for Abuse of Children and Dependents (§223a Abs. 2 StGB); Child Abuse and Abuse of Minor s (§223b StGB) German Reich, FRG

1918

1920

1930

1936

1950

1958

1970

1980

1990

56%

24%

23%

40%

39%

36%

35%

29%

26%

Table 7: §17Öd StGB Violation of 'Custody and Childrearing Duties; Proportion of Women Convicted (FRG)

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

76%

77%

72%

62%

63%

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Table 8: Crime Rates for Convictions of Child Abuse and Violation of Childrearing Duties for every 10,000 Convictable Members of the Population (German Reich, FRG) Abuse of dependents and children (§223a II, 223b StGB)

1925 1936 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1954

Men

Women

0.24 1.2 0.47 0.78 0.75 0.77 0.47

0.10 0.77 0.25 0.37 0.42 0.41 0.15

Violation of childrearing and custody duties (§170d StGB) Women Men

1.7* 0.9" 0.72 0.45 0.11

0.45* 0.2" 0.36 0.19 0.07

1963

Table 9: Voluntary Corrective Education and Compulsory Corrective Education (FRG) Voluntary corrective education

Compulsary corrective education

10,879 24,503 25,186 15,798 15,200 10,811

47,216 27,783 18,901 3,194 2,693 594

1951 1960 1970 1980 1981 1989

Table 10: Children and Adolescents in Nonfamilial Residential Care (FRG) per 1,000 minors 1950 1960 1970 1980 1981 1988 1991*

26,662 with guardianship court decisions

130,577 143,985 98,975 115,554 109,391 87,159 115,010

5.2 8.1 7.9 7.9

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References Ammon, G. (1979): Kindesmißhandlung. München. Appel, T. (1988): Kindesmißhandlung. Ph.D. dissertation. München. Arnold, H. H. (1975): Art und Umfang der elterlichen Rechte in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Reform des Rechts der elterlichen Sorge und der Adoption in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Berlin Balks, E. (1986): Die Vorgeschichte des §1666 BOB. Ph.D. dissertation. Bielefeld. Bauer, G. (1969): Kindesmißhandlung. Lübeck. Bertram, H. (1991): Die Familie in Westdeutschland. Opladen Biermann, G. (1969): Kindeszüchtigung und Kindesmißhandlung. München. Blandow, J. & Frauenknecht, B. (1980): Dauerpflege, Adoptionspflege und Tagesbetreuung. München. Blühm, U. (1952): Theorienstreit zu §1666 BGB. Ph.D. dissertation. Kiel. Bönheim, K. (1932): Die strafrechtliche Bedeutung der Kindesmißhandlung. Ph.D. dissertation. Bonn. Brinkmann, W. & Honig, S. (1984). Kinderschutz als sozialpolitische Praxis. München. Brummer, G. (1980): Die Entwicklung des elterlichen Sorge- und Erziehungsrechts in der DDR. Köln. Buelow, A. (1987): Heimerziehung in der BRD. München. Chesnais, J. (1982): Histoire de la violence. Paris. Duensing, F. (1903): Verletzung der Fürsorgepflicht gegenüber Minderjährigen. Zürich. Durkheim, E. (1980): Die Regeln der soziologischen Methode. Darmstadt. Ferriani, L. (1897): Entartete Mütter. Berlin. Franke-Griksch, S. (1970). Sinn und Bedeutung des §17Öd StGB im geltenden und künftigen Strafrecht, mit Ausblicken auf das österreichische und schweizerische Recht. Ph.D. dissertation. Köln. Harms, C. (1988): Die Funktion des elterlichen Fehlverhaltens als Voraussetzung für Eingriffe in das Personensorgerecht. Ph.D. dissertation. Hamburg. Hege, M. & Schwarz, G. (1992): Gewalt gegen Kinder. München. Heitkamp, M. (1989): Heime und Pflegefamilien. Frankfurt/M. Hetzer, H. (1936): Psychologische Begutachtung mißhandelter Kinder. Zeitschrift für angewandte Psychologie und Charakterkunde, 209-250. Hirsch, M. (1965): Entzug und Beschränkung des elterlichen Sorgerechts. Neuwied. Höhne, N. (1974): Gerichtliche Kontrolle elterlicher Fehlentscheidungen. Ph.D. dissertation. Frankfurt/M. Höppe, H. (1942): Die Mißhandlungen von Kindern und Jugendlichen und ihre Bekämpfung. Ph.D. dissertation. Münster. Ittin, R. (1913): Der Schutz der Entwicklung des Kindes als ein Problem der Strafgesetzgebung. Ph.D. dissertation. Heidelberg. Jakobsohn, R. (1912): Der gesetzliche Schutz des Kindes gegen körperliche Mißhandlung. Breslau. Jean d'Heur, B. (1993): Verfassungsrechtliche Schutzgebote zum Wohl des Kindes und Interventionsmöglichkeiten .Berlin. Jordan, E. & Trauernicht, G. (1989): Alleinerziehende im Brennpunkt der Jugendhilfe. Münster. Jordan, E. (1987): 65 Jahre RJWG. Münster.

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Junker, R. (1978): Pflegekinder in der BRD. Frankfurt/M. Kaltofen, J. (1965): Der tatbestandsmäßige Aufbau der Verletzung der Aufsichtspflicht. Ph.D. dissertation. Mainz. King, M. & Trowell, J. (1992): Childrens welfare and the law. London. Klimmek, U. (1970): Verletzung der Sorgepflicht gegenüber Kindern und Jugendlichen. Ph.D. dissertation. Frankfürt/M. Kreutzahler, P. (1955): Die Strafiarkeit der Verletzung von Erziehungspflichten. Ph.D. dissertation. Erlangen. Licht, W. (1948): Die Verletzung der Aufsichtspflicht. Ph.D. dissertation. Freiburg. Luhmann, N. (1993): Das Recht der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt/M. Mende, U. & Kirsch, H. (1968): Beobachtungen zum Problem der Kindesmißhandlung. München. Mohrmann, H. (1934): Das Erziehungsrecht der Eltern und der Staat. Leipzig. Münder, J. (1991): Das neue Jugendhilferecht. Münster. Myers, J. E. B. (1992): Legal issues in child abuse and neglect. Newsbury Park. Opitz, E. (1959): Verwahrlosung im Kindesalter. Göttingen. Peters, H. (1975). Die sanften Kontrolleure. Frankfurt/M. Polligkeit, W. (1908): Das Recht des Kindes auf Erziehung. Ph.D. dissertation. Gießen. Ramm, T., Grandke, A., & Berie, H. (1994): Familie und Recht. München. Salgo, L. (1993): Der Anwalt des Kindes. Köln. Schleich, B. (1928): Die gefährliche Körperverletzung Pflegebefohlener des §223a RStGB. Breslau. Schlicht, G. (1970): Das Familien- und Familienverfahrensrecht der DDR. Tübingen. Schoch, O. (1907): Die körperliche Mißhandlung von Kindern. Ph.D. dissertation. Zürich. Schreiber, L. (1991): Mißhandlung von Kindern und alten Menschen. Hamburg. Strafrecht der DDR (1987). Berlin. Többen, H. (1922): Jugendverwahrlosung und ihre Bekämpfung. Münster. Ullrich, W. (1964): Die Kindesmißhandlung in strafrechtlicher, kriminologischer und gerichtsmedizinischer Sicht. Berlin. Wild, A. (1907): Die körperliche Mißhandlung von Personen, welchen die Fürsorgepflicht für dieselben obliegt. Zürich. Zenz, G. (1979): Kindesmißhandlung und Kindesrechte. Frankfurt/M.

The Position of the Police Between Calls for Help in Crisis and Criminal Prosecution in the Conflict Field of Family Violence Thomas Feltes

1 Violence in the Family: Family Quarrels Versus Violence Against Children Violence in the family is the most frequent form of interpersonal violence in society. It is more frequent than all other forms of violence against persons combined. This even applies when only offenses recorded by the police and their crime statistics are referred to and the considerable field of unrecorded cases is disregarded. Family rows, according to the police definition, are "clashes between family members that are reported to the police by affected members of the family or other witnesses such as neighbors, friends, and so forth in order to prevent danger and/or to report indictable offenses." (Nobel, 1983, p. 4) However, the quality and extent of such rows cannot be ascertained from police crime statistics, even when the quarrels have involved criminal offenses. These can be reconstructed only in part from the recent assessments of "victim-offender relationships" in criminal offenses. An evaluation carried out by Wiebke Steffen and Siegfried Polz has shown that between 1974 and 1989, the increasing public discussion and awareness of the use of violence, particularly within the family, has left no impact on the frequency of reporting such criminal offenses to the (Bavarian) police (Steffen & Polz, 1991, pp. 14-15). Nonetheless, it shows that the general stagnation in crime rates in the 1980s (after a marked rise in the previous decade) also applies to violent offenses. On the other hand, trends since 1989 show an increase in - also violent - crime. The number of victims suffering dangerous and severe bodily harm rose from 67,683 in 1989 to 81,768 in 1993 (for the old German states; plus the whole of Berlin in 1993). However, it must be assumed that this increase is not due to criminal offenses related to "violence in the family," but is the result of the new open borders, particularly toward the East. The proportion of "relatives" in all consummated offenses has declined from 7.6% to 7.4%, and the proportion of "acquaintances" from 22.8% to 21.6% between 1989 and 1993. For other violent offenses, police crime statistics do not reveal any significant difference in terms of victim-offender relationships. However, a differentiation of victim-offender relationships among relatives between male and female victims does allow a distinction according to typically male and typically female victim situations. This makes it obvious that women are far more frequently attacked or

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injured within close social relationships by (male) persons than men (Steffen & Polz, 1991, p. 15). In 1993, 20.4% of all female victims of dangerous and severe bodily injury were related to the offender; another 32.7% were attacked by acquaintances. Only in 24.6% of cases was there no prior relationship (consummated offenses only). For male victims, the figures were relatives in only 3.8% of all cases and acquaintances in 18.5%. There was no previous relationship in 43.3% of cases. The situation is different for violence against children, which is regulated by law as an independent criminal offense in the form of child sexual abuse (§176 StGB) or abuse of wards (§223b StGB), hi 1993, a total of 14,397 children were recorded as victims of consummated sexual abuse (1,572 cases of attempted sexual abuse), and 1,614 children were recorded as victims of maltreatment (§223b StGB) in police crime statistics. In concrete terms, these figures mean, for example, that the number of victims (recorded offenses per 100,000 members of the age group in the population) of consummated sexual abuse is, at 145 children per 100 000, six times higher than the number of juvenile and adolescent victims of rape and higher than the number of victims of robbery or extortion under threat of force. The risk that a child will be sexually abused is much higher than an adult's risk of being a victim of robbery. It also has to be assumed that the ratio of unrecorded cases of sexual abuse is much higher than that for robbery. This may well be reflected in the fact that only 30% of cases of child sexual abuse involved relatives or acquaintances (superficial or no previous relationship: 59.3%). However, it has to be pointed out that: 1. Not all forms of violence against children, even when committed by parents and therefore usually taking place within the domestic domain, are criminal offenses according to §223b StGB; and 2. The number of unrecorded cases in this area is immense. The estimated number of cases of violence against children in the West German states lies between 30,000 and 400,000 or even 500,000, and in cases of sexual violence toward children, the estimated ratio of unrecorded cases is between 18 and 20 to 1 (see, Janssen, 1991, pp. 128-131; Schwind & Baumann, et al., 1990, p. 701). In the following, the subject "violence against children" from a police perspective will be dealt with predominantly in relation to family rows. The extensive debate on whether and in what form "violence against children" in the form of parental corporal punishment should be penalized, and in what form the state should intervene cannot be addressed here (Schwind & Baumann, et al., 1990, pp. 938ff). On the other hand, it should be made clear from the start that the police neither can nor should withdraw from the regulation of aggressive family quarrels. Accordingly, the recommendations of the subcommission on police practice of the Federal Commission on Violence cannot be followed. The subcommission considers that the police are principally not the appropriate authority to fight violence in the family: Traditional "soft" measures of conflict intervention and counseling are not police tasks, and the demanded "hard" measures of prosecution

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and arrest would tend to enhance conflict. Since intervention by the police and punishment nearly always increase existing tensions, the police should be located as far toward the end of the chain of interventions as possible when it comes to violence in the family (Schwind & Baumann, et al., 1990, p. 705). The justification given for this is that "the constitutionally protected privacy of the home and the family limits direct influence" and that "maltreatments in the family" thus avoid "direct prevention." "Moreover, the police have to withhold their interventions in order to avoid inflaming an existing crisis or preventing or impairing therapeutic measures." Particularly the last statement seems to be almost cynical against the background of the real experiences of police officers who are called to family rows and have to face the helpless victims. Police officers themselves consider that their intervention does not inflame crises, but resolves or at least interrupts them. Therapeutic measures are hardly ever mentioned - who should offer them to the families anyway? The "constitutionally protected privacy of the home and family" cited by the subcommission can only extend up to the point at which other, more important interests protected by law, such as the physical (but also mental) integrity of victims, are affected. If there is a risk of these interests being violated or citizens are forcefully prevented from exercising their basic rights (e.g. the right to freely develop one's personality) by others, then the police even have to intervene (§1 Abs.l Nr.2 PolG, §163 Abs.l StPO).2 If an individual police officer refuses to intervene, he or she will become liable to prosecution if an offense is committed (§258a StGB: Strafvereitelung im Amt). Here is an example taken from the study of Steffen and Polz (1991, p. 62): Case 1: The victim (aged 55) reproached her husband (aged 48, in early retirement) for eating in the living room. The latter threw his plate of food at his wife 's head and injured her. The children were present. The victim called the police. The row was settled, the legal situation was pointed out, and the husband was charged with the offense of bodily injury. Outcome of the proceedings: Charge dropped according to §170 StPO (insufficient suspicion). Length of the action with 2 police officers: 10 minutes."

2 Family Quarrels: Police Reality Regulating family quarrels plays an important role in the daily routine of the police, although its quantitative significance is controversial. Research, particularly in the U.S.A., has revealed the complexity of the problem and its major role in daily police routine. Accordingly, attempts have been made to develop police strategies in order to face this problem in an appropriate way. This cannot and shall not be discussed at this point.3 Training and further training concepts are being developed in several institutions (e.g., at the University of Bielefeld and at the Austrian Interior Ministry in Vienna). Instead, I shall use the sparse data available to try to give an overview of the way in which the police cope with family quarrels in Germany. This will refer to the only recent4 empirical study on

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this topic presented by the criminological research group at the Bavarian regional crime office in 1991. Additional information is taken from an analysis of police radio patrols at Stuttgart as well as interviews with police officers. 2.1 The Study ofSteffen

and P oh

The study on "family quarrels and the police" carried out by the research group mentioned above has analyzed a total of 2,074 events involving family quarrels over a period of 2 years. It produced the following results: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

11. 12.

Police actions (by the Bavarian police) involving family quarrels accounted for less than 1% of all police actions. The frequency of actions involving family quarrels varied from region to region. However, no structural connections could be found. Offenses usually occur between 18:00 and 24:00, and the incidence for Saturdays and Sunday is approximately 50% higher than for the other days of the week. The average police action takes 24 minutes. The mean age of the victims is 38 years. It is difficult to specify the term "family quarrels." It covers various forms of arguments involving different sorts of people: noisy but still relatively harmless quarrels as well as massive rows followed by scuffles with even deadly consequences. In 65% of all family quarrels, the persons involved call the police themselves; in 14%, they are called by members of me family who are not involved in the quarrel; in another 14%, neighbors; and in 6%, other people or anonymous callers. It is rare for police officers to know what they will have to face when the call comes in, that is, before they actually arrive at the place of the quarrel. As a rule, the information coming in with an emergency call is not very extensive. Hence, police officers can hardly ever prepare themselves for the specific situation, although, or also because, they have to be at the place of action as quickly as possible, due to the risk that it might be a life-threatening situation and not just a minor quarrel. Accordingly, these actions are given a high priority within the action hierarchy of the police. In 31% of the actions, more than one culprit and/or more than one victim are involved in the quarrel. Therefore, family rows are arguments that do not just occur between two persons. In very many cases, other people who are either involved themselves or more often not involved, are present, at least when the police arrive. Family quarrels mainly occur among adults and also (at least in this study based on documents from 1988) mainly among Germans. Only 16% of culprits and 14% of victims were foreigners.5 Although, in the majority of cases the police arrived immediately, they often encountered a situation that had already calmed down. In two thirds of all actions, the quarrels had stopped before the police arrived.

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13. More than half of the family quarrels were carried out "merely" verbally although serious threats may have been made. Forty-two percent of the arguments involved aggressive physical actions, and 30 victims and 5 culprits (from a total of 2,074 cases) were injured so severely that they needed treatment in hospital. Three victims were killed. 14. Violent acts against police officers are the absolute exception. Aggressive and/or violent acts against officers occurred in only 3% of all actions. 15. Nearly two thirds of the police actions involved families that had never called the police before because of a quarrel. Fourteen percent of the families were known to the police because of "rather frequent" family rows; 13%, because of "occasional" rows; and 10%, for only one previous row. This supports the view that, under certain circumstances, even a single police action can be successful in the sense that the family will not call the police again. Family quarrels for which the police are called generally have a long prior history. 16. Continuously repeated actions with "problem families" are rather rare, and in no way involve particularly severe and violent arguments. 17. In the cases in which culprits and victims could be clearly identified, 79% of the victims were female and 21% of the victims were male. The culprits were male in 91% of the cases, and female in 9%. 18. The most frequent situation was "male culprit, female victim." Seventy-six percent of all examined cases belonged to this category, and they mostly concerned verbal and physical abuse of a spouse. The second most frequent constellation (14% of the actions) was "culprit and victim both male." These were often (59%) arguments between fathers and their (grown-up) sons, carried out in an aggressive way, and these were the main source (42%) of criminal proceedings. In this context, here are three further examples from the study of Steffen and Polz (1991, pp. 62-63): Case 2: Sunday, 22:00, husband (age 55) had an argument with his wife because she had gone out without his permission. Neighbors called the police. When the police arrived, the argument was already over. No further people were present. Apart from advising the victim, no further measures were taken and no offense was reported. Length of the action with 2 police officers: 15 minutes. Case 3: Husband (age 48) threatened his wife (age 51) with a knife for several hours and threatened to kill her. Members of the family called the police on Saturday at 21:00. When the police arrived, the husband took his wife hostage and gave the police an ultimatum to leave the house. An hour later, the wife managed to escape with injuries, and, after medical treatment, she was taken to her son. After another 30 minutes, the husband allowed a police officer to enter the house; 30 minutes later, the man left the house and was arrested. The family had no record of similar actions. Outcome of the proceedings: Fine for unlawful detention. Length of the action with at least 9 officers: 120 minutes.

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Case 4: The culprit (age 51) informed the police on Sunday at 20:45 through an emergency call that he urgently needed a doctor and the police because he had beaten his wife and mother in law at home. The officers, who had driven immediately to the scene of the crime, ascertained that the culprit waiting in front of the house had beaten his mother in law (63) to death with an axe and had seriously injured his wife in a fit of rage because of family quarrels. The culprit, who had not been drinking alcohol, was arrested without resistance. During the course of investigations, it turned out that the culprit had repeatedly been violent toward members of his family, but these violent acts had never been reported. Length of the action for the first two officers on he scene: 120 minutes. Outcome of proceedings: life imprisonment because of consummated murder and attempted manslaughter. The cases reveal the following: 1. It is always the municipal police who intervene in family quarrels. Usually it is also the municipal police who ultimately process the crime that has come to their attention.7 2. The length of the action can vary between a few minutes and several hours. 3. The course of an intervention in family quarrels is generally unpredictable for the officers concerned. Nevertheless, they have to be ready for "anything," and how the situation develops can depend very much on how they behave. 4. Quarrels in families that are already "known" to the police are not necessarily aggressive, and, by the same token, a row in a family that is not yet known to the police is no guarantee that violence (also against officers) will not occur. 2.2 The Stuttgart Study The central computer of the police headquarters in Stuttgart II (= city area of Stuttgart) records all the radio patrol actions8 that it initiates. The recorded data include, for example, information about the person who initiated the operation (telephone caller or police station), place of action, cause of action (free text), its beginning, and its end. At the end of an operation, the events are catalogued on the scene using standardized statistical terms. Although actions are not categorized as "violence in the family," it is possible to differentiate between general incidents involving physical violence against persons and those that can be located within the domestic domain. In the period between June 1993 and May 1994, a total of 6,536 operations involving bodily injury were carried out in Stuttgart, that is, about 18 operations per day. Based on all Stuttgart officers who are available or on daily patrol, this means that every patrol officer has to deal with an average of about 60 such actions per year or about two per week.9 (In comparison, every municipal police officer in Minneapolis has to deal with an average of one such operation per day. It is estimated that between 12.5 and 25 million such actions are dealt with every year in the entire U.S.A.10).

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The Position of the Police Between Calls for Help in Crisis and Criminal Prosecution

Table 1: Patrol Vehicle Operations in Stuttgart Reason for operation

All operations Operations in connection with (suspected) offenses of bodily injury Operations in the domestic domain

Number

118,551

6,536

%

100

5.5

Number of police vehicles employed

On

171,976

1.5

89

61

11,021

1.7

7,547

41

Length

Length of Total length of

average of entire action per each operation action vehicle in hours

(man hours)

3h 3 min

2h 19min

4,877 = 74.6%

Operations outside the domestic 1,659 domain = 25.4%

4.112)

6,413

1.3

3,090

29

Ih 15min

1.4

4,608

2.8

4,457

58

25min

5h

Period: June 1, 1993 until May 31, 1994 (12 months)

The operations employed an average of 1.7 vehicles for an average time of 41 minutes. Three quarters of these operations (74.6%) took place in the domestic domain. These operations were generally: 1. shorter (29 minutes compared with 58 minutes for actions outside the domestic domain, i.e., on streets, alleys, squares, in bars, etc.); and 2. were carried out with fewer vehicles and personnel (an average of 1.3 patrol vehicles employed compared with 2.8 at other operations). This means that in the city of Stuttgart (with nearly 600,000 inhabitants), an average of 13.4 operations have to be carried out every day because of physical violence against persons in the domestic domain. In other words, there are about one hundred patrol vehicle operations per week in Stuttgart linked to domestic violence.14 In this context, it has to be considered that: 1. There are additional operations (which cannot be derived from the statistics) in connection with domestic conflicts that are mainly or exclusively about noise (mostly after neighbors have called the police). 2. There is a (nonetheless small) proportion of emergency calls in the domain of "domestic conflicts" that do not result in an operation because the officer at the police station succeeds in calming the caller down (such talks often take 30 minutes or longer). 3. There is an (even smaller) proportion of emergency calls in which officers know the caller or the calling families and only order an operation after the second or third call in a night. 4. There is a small proportion of emergency calls that obviously result from domestic quarrels (background noises), but cannot be localized because the

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caller is unable to give a name or address (e.g., due to drunkenness), or they are made by children who cannot be understood.15 5. There is a small proportion of emergency calls in which the caller gives a street name that exists more than once in the greater Stuttgart area (e.g., in the city center and in the suburbs). Usually the officer is aware of this problem and additionally asks for the telephone number (except in cases of minor traffic accidents with material damage) to facilitate identification. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that there are peak times with a much higher number of operations in connection with domestic quarrels. These include weekends but particularly the period at the end of several work-free days (e.g., Boxing Day, Easter Monday) or at the end of vacations.16 According to personnel at the central police station (Einsatzleitzentrale), most emergency calls in connection with domestic conflicts are due to conflicts between partners. Calls often come from the same district (with high homelessness or poverty) and from certain social classes (i.e., lower class or unemployed). In most cases, alcohol plays a role (both partners are often drunk). This makes such operations rather unpopular, even though the central police station tries to gain clear information on the conflict so that officers are prepared accordingly.17 However, in many cases, the emergency call can be evaluated correctly and suitable measures can be taken in advance (e.g. ordering another patrol vehicle). Although family quarrels happen everywhere, at least the frequency with which the police are called to deal with them depends on the social situation of the persons involved. In Stuttgart as a whole, it seems that at least those family quarrels in which the police are called frequently occur within socially disadvantaged families. On the other hand, both Steifen and Polz as well as the present study show that family quarrels are not just an urban problem but also occur in Table 2: Share of Domestic and Family Quarrels in Emergency Calls and Patrol Vehicle Operations in Three Cities in Baden-Württemberg Share of domestic and family quarrels in 1 fi All emergency calls Emergency calls without information request, abuse, and traffic area All patrol vehicle operations Patrol operations except road traffic

Calw

All operations per year in the domain of domestic and family conflicts (approx. ) Operations per year per patrol officer Operations each year per 100,000 inhabitants (in comparison: approx. 800 in Stuttgart21)

160

Period of the survey: October/November 1994

Freiburg

Ravensburg/ Weingarten

2.9%

1.9%

1.2%

9.6%

4.5%

3.7%

6.2%

3.8%

1.9%

10.6%

5.4%

3.8%

5.2 662

1,040

6.6 527

170 2.3 241

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193

rural areas. An analysis of emergency calls and patrol vehicle operations carried out in 1994 in three cities in the state of Baden-Württemberg has shown that the share of domestic and family quarrels in all incoming emergency calls and subsequent patrol operations varies between 1.2% and 2.9% for emergency calls and between 1.9% and 6.2% for patrol vehicle operations. These figures would have been considerably higher if they were based solely on those emergency calls and patrol operations that required an actual police action (see Table 2). Thus, in Calw, for example, every tenth patrol vehicle operation not directed toward road traffic was concerned with domestic and family conflicts. Whereas, in Freiburg, every emergency call due to domestic conflicts was followed up by a patrol vehicle, this was not the case in Calw or in Ravensburg/Weingarten. Here, no patrol vehicle operation was introduced after 28.6% and 27.6% of emergency calls respectively.22 3 Violence Against Children in the Context of Family Quarrels The Stuttgart data cannot be used to derive statements on violence against children in the context of family quarrels. The study of Steffen and Polz allows the following statements: In 413 out of a total of 2,074 operations, parents and children were involved in the quarrels themselves, that is, nearly every fifth operation (19.9%) involved family quarrels between parents and children. However, these figures are of limited validity, because they also include cases in which (adult) children quarrel with their parents. This is also shown by the fact that only 13 (0.6%) of victims were children and 45 (2.2%) were adolescents (younger than 18).23 This means that children and adolescents under 18 years of age were recorded as victims in less than 3% of operations. However, this does necessarily mean that these children and youths have actually been injured; it merely allows a statement on who was the receiver of (also verbally conducted) aggression. On the other hand, in 552 (26.6%) cases, children were present in the conflict situation. In those cases in which parents and children were recorded as parties in the quarrels and in which the social relations between culprit and victim had been registered, 46% of the victims were male and 54% female, and 90% of the culprits were male and 10% female. This implies that male and female "children" are equally often the victim (again, possibly adult children), but that the culprit is almost always male. It can be deduced that these quarrels occur between fathers and their (adult) children. According to Steffen and Polz, this is actually the second most frequent conflict constellation24 and also the most problematic. The proportion of families known from former operations is in this constellation is particularly high, and, due to the fact that these conflicts are often very aggressive, almost every second case results in criminal prosecution - although frequently for only rather minor acts of violence (Steffen & Polz, 1991, p. 80). A typical case constellation in Steffen and Polz is as follows:

Thomas Felles

194

Case 5: Father (54) had a fierce and violent argument with his son (18), who received such serious injury that he required medical treatment. The son called the police. When the police arrived the fight started again and the aggressive and drunken father also abused the police officers. ... The son brought a charge of bodily injury against the father, and he was also charged with abusing the police; a blood test was not performed. The family had been known from several similar actions: Outcome of proceedings: Dismissal according to §170 Abs. 2 StPO (Insufficient suspicion). Length of the operation with two officers: 30 minutes (Steffen & Polz, 1991, p. 81).

4 Reasons for Conflict and Assessment of the Operations by the Officers Steffen and Polz report the following reasons for conflicts: Table 3: Causes of Family Quarrels (According to Steffen & Polz, 1991) Cause

Absolute number

Alcoholism Housing and rents Childrearing, custody Jealousy, unfaithfulness Marriage breakdown, divorce Pocket money, financial problems Property Psychological/senility problems

428 150 129 117 115 95 68 54 271 1,427

Other reasons Total25

Percentage 30.0 10.5 9.0 8.2 8.1 6.7 4.8 3.8 19.0 100.0

The reason for the unpopularity of operations in the context of family quarrels among police officers is revealed in an unpublished study of municipal police officers in Baden-Württemberg.26 Results showed that 75.1% of the interviewed municipal police officers found the regulation of domestic and family quarrels "rather difficult," 65.4% regarded the stress as "rather high," and 62.7% considered their significance to be "rather important." In addition, 50.8% considered that they had not been trained for such work, and 82.7% complained that they had not been given special inservice training. Only 8.1% thought that their training had been "rather good." Similar findings (though somewhat weaker) were reported for the regulation of conflicts between neighbors. Dealing with individuals with particular personal problems or difficulties and coping with/resolving conflicts are right at the top of the scale of difficulties reported by police officers, alongside saving and rescuing people (e.g., with suicidal intentions), tackling violent criminals, dealing with people involved in

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195

severe traffic accidents, or policing violent demonstrations. Regulating domestic and family quarrels, for instance, is regarded as more difficult (75.1% "rather difficult") than dealing with "dangerous criminals" (66.4%), drug addicts (65.4%), pimps (33.5%), or prostitutes (16.8%). Job satisfaction regarding operations to regulate family quarrels is rather low ("fairly high" for only 14.6%). The fact that 99.5% regard the frequency with which house and family quarrels have to be tackled as "rather high" tends to contradict the actual figures (less than 1% of all operations in Bavaria according to Steffen & Polz; between 1.9% and 6.2% according to figures from three and four towns respectively in BadenWürttemberg, see Tables 1 and 2). 5 Police Reactions to Family Quarrels In principle, the following options (or combinations of options) are available to police officers or the legal system when it is called in2 to deal with domestic quarrels: 1. Arrest of the violent persons; penal charge, clear judicial sanctions. 2. Arrest of the violent persons; penal charge, no judicial sanctions (e.g., dismissal of the case). 3. Detention for several hours (e.g., to sober up) without penal charge. 4. Mediation of the conflict on the scene without taking further measures. 5. Referral to social services (e.g., family welfare workers). 6. Referral of the female victim to a women's house (or a man to a men's house) or to other "refuges" (acquaintances, friends, relatives). In real-life police work, this spectrum is confined to: 1. Arbitration or calming down the quarreling parties without taking any further measures (often, a second operation becomes necessary after a while). 2. Arrest of one party as a crime suspect if sufficient cause is given. This is possible only for (attempted) capital crimes (murder, manslaughter) if there is danger of flight or collusion. Officers do not view this option as being very realistic (usually the parties have a permanent home). 3. So-called safekeeping following §28 PolG Baden-Württemberg (BW), according to which a person is only allowed to be kept in police custody until the end of the day following the arrest, if: 1. If a direct threat of a major disturbance of public security and order cannot be prevented in any other way, or a major disturbance that has already occurred cannot be removed. Or 2. custody is necessary in order to protect a person against the threat of injury to life and limb, and the person (a) seeks custody, or (b) is obviously in a condition which excludes a decision based on freewill or is otherwise in a helpless situation, or (c) wants to commit suicide. Or 3. the identity of a person cannot be ascertained in any other way. (§28 Abs. l PolG BW)

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Detention should be ended as soon as its purpose has been met (§28 Abs.3 PolG BW). In real life, various options are available: 1. Following §28 No. 1 PolG Baden-Württemberg, the danger to the partner, the family, or neighbors can be defined as a "severe disturbance of public security and order," and a corresponding intervention can be legitimized. 2. Following §28 Abs. 1 No.2 PolG BW, the person her or himself can be at risk, in, for example threatened suicide. 3. Finally, following §28 Abs. l No.2c PolG BW, a person seeking her or his own custody, for example, the affected wife, can be a reason for intervention. This option of seeking custody is always taken up when one of the conflict partners is not cooperative, that is, when despite the officers' attempts to mediate, aggressions continue. The person concerned is usually released from police custody the following morning. A certain, although not further definable, part of all 7,998 imprisonments according to police law in Stuttgart in 1993 was probably related to family quarrels. Referral to social services fails because of their unavailability at the times when family conflicts most frequently occur (after office hours), and also because family welfare has only limited possibilities of intervention. Police officers frequently advice women to go to a women's house. The outcome, however, depends on the women's willingness to make such a decision and to cope with its consequences. Ultimately, the police are the only institution that deals seriously with cases of family violence. This is true because: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Other institutions (e.g., social services) are not available. Other institutions are objectively unable to solve the problem. Other institutions try to "evade" this task. The victims themselves ask for the help of the police and for nothing else.

When it is confined to conflict settlement, police intervention has the great advantage (for victims) that it is free of charge and, moreover, has no unwanted side- or after-effects (such as visits by social workers). Here, the actual power of the police is often utilized by victims in order to solve their conflicts in a way that has relatively few consequences. According to the study of Steffen and Polz, the following measures are undertaken in connection with family quarrels (multiple namings possible) (see Table 4)All in all, the results show that although reestablishing social peace and removing acute danger are the priorities of the police officers, they also regularly fall back on the repressive measures of criminal prosecution, especially when dealing with severe and actual violent quarrels. They regulate family quarrels according to their familiar action program without distinguishing between "arbitation/advice" and "criminal prosecution." In both cases, their measures are basically directed more toward the (male) culprits than toward the (female) victims (Steffen & Polz,

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The Position of the Police Between Calls for Help in Crisis and Criminal Prosecution

1991, p. 110). Despite frequent external demands that the purpose of police intervention in family quarrels is not to calm down the quarreling parties but to permit criminal prosecution (arrest of the culprit in order to prevent further violence and to protect the threatened woman should be the regular outcome), the police themselves seem to view things differently. Table 4: Method and Frequency of Police Measures When Intervening in Family Quarrels (According to Steffen & Polz, 1991, p. 100) Measure

All operations

%

Clearly identifiable criminal and victim 1,086 954

% 73 64

Pointing out the legal situation Arbitrating the conflict General measures for the victim Criminal charges Measure following PAG28/StPO Referral of victim to others Making victim leave home First aid/emergency physician Applying immediate constraint to culprit Bloodiest of culprit Victim taken to other people

1,490 3,339

72 65

1,188 622 597 315 48 113

57 30 29 15 12 5

910 577 508 232 180 90

61 39 34 16 12 6

108 72 72

5 4 4

98 64 56

7 4 4

All operations

2,074

100

1,491

100

6 Judicial Processing "There is hardly any other area of violent behavior in our society that is subject to such public denial and exclusion as familial violence. Our society views the institution of marriage and family as the refuge for an intact world, and this ideal is shared explicitly by those who offend against it daily through their violent behavior within the family."

This is a translation of the introduction to Busch, Funk, Narr, and Werketin's29 analysis of marital and family conflicts in their study of criminal charges. The authors interpret the fact that their evaluation nonetheless revealed a total of 515 reports on family/marital and private conflicts (which represents about 9.9% of all cases in which private persons as well as shop and house owners etc. suffered from material damage, violent or sexual offenses, trespassing, robbery, and offenses against personal freedom) as an indication of how widespread "family violence" is in our society.

Thomas Feltes

198

"At the same time, it is known that the cases reported to the police are only the tip of the iceberg. The fact that we do know so little about the motives that lead people to call in the police at a certain point of time, makes it even harder to interpret data on charges. When analyzing the charges, we gained the impression that it is not the severity of an attack or an injury that decides whether charges will be pressed. Usually women - who are the most frequent victims - are only prepared to press charges when they consider that their marriage has collapsed, that is, at the.end of a long and agonizing process permeated by a whole chain of violent acts whose endpoint, when regarded in isolation, often seems harmless. At the same time, the charges stemming from the private domain (i.e., from intimate partners in a broader sense) include cases of arguments about divorce or separation in which, for instance, the police are primarily exploited as a means of regulating supposed wrongs (e.g, when one partner is being forced to leave shared housing). Nonetheless, we consider that the available data can serve as an indication for the variety of conflicts in the private domain and their differing distribution over the individual areas of our research field." (Busch, et al., 1987, p. 144)

Table 5: Penal Charges Following Interventions in Family Quarrels (According to Steffen & Pölz, I991, p. 198) Charge All charges (first registration): By police and victim By police only

Absolute number 622 346 276

Percentage 100 56 44

Percentage of all 2,074 operations 30 17 13

All charges (later registration)30 Prosecution demanded Dropped

568 226 32

100 40 14

27 11 2

Charged with: Bodily injury Dangerous bodily injury Threat Material damages/insult Severe violent offense31 Other offenses

(N = 568) 378 67 50, 27 19 27

100 66 12 9 5 3 5

18 3 2 1 1 1

Judicial process: Resolved by prosecutor. Through dismissal Through indictment

539 455 84

100 84 16

26 22 4

58

100

3

12 46

21 79

1 2

Resolved by court: Through dismissal or acquittal Through sentence

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According to Steifen and Polz, the victims of family quarrels only pressed charges by themselves in 18 % of all operational cases. In 44% of cases, this was the work of the police.Victims institute proceedings in only 40 % of all penal charges. Charges and the outcomes of proceedings are shown in Table 5. In 28% of the operations analyzed by Steffen and Polz, the police were unable to clearly identify the victim and the culprit in the quarreling parties. However, this does not apply in cases in which the argument became physically aggressive, or criminal charges or other measures were taken. Here, culprit and victim could be defined clearly in more than 90% of cases. Police officers laid charges against the culprit in only 46% of the cases which culminated in aggressive actions of the quarreling parties toward the police. All in all, the officers are rather cautious in their reactions toward aggression directed against themselves, and they are not particularly disturbed by aggressive and often drunk culprits. Apparently, they do not exhibit "clumsy" behavior that would inflame the conflict situation. Nonetheless, Steffen and Polz also report that no charges were pressed in a quarter of the cases in which the victims suffered physical injuries. Although these injuries were not always severe, they were also not always petty offenses whose prosecution would have required a charge by the victim. Steffen and Polz could also confirm this in their analysis of case reports. In a total of 280 operations (20% of the 1,427 for which case reports had been compiled), basically criminal actions could be ascertained according to the accounts or the injuries of the victims, but neither the victims nor the officers were inclined to press charges. However, it is questionable whether a penal charge would have been in the interests of the persons concerned. Even now, Steffen and Polz confirm that almost half of the penal charges are brought in by the police for official reasons, with no indication of interest in pressing charges by the victim. Penal charges were made in 53% of the cases in which the quarrel was physically aggressive; 74% of cases were charged when the victim received injuries from the quarrel. During the following proceedings, 84% of the charges laid by the police that had already been processed by the prosecution had been dismissed before the end of the study. When no penal charge was made, the prosecution dismissed 90% of the proceedings. Here, interestingly enough, injuries to the victim did not play any role in the prosecutor's decision. When the victim had been injured, 84% of proceedings were dismissed; when the victim had not been injured, the rate of dismissals was around 85% (Steffen & Polz, 1991, p. 119). Of the 58 charges that had already been processed by the courts at the time of the survey, 23 resulted in a fine; 13, in fixed penalty orders; and 10, in imprisonment. Five proceedings had been dismissed, seven had ended with acquittal. A closer analysis of the data also revealed that the prosecution showed an above-average frequency of dismissed proceedings in those police districts with a particularly high number of penal charges. The evaluation of charges from the years 1981 to 1982 by the Berlin workteam showed that a majority of violent offenses occurred between persons who knew each other, and, moreover, a significant part of these conflicts took place within the private sphere (39.5% of all cases). The workteam stressed that the recorded charges "make up only a small, and, in several areas, highly distorted

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selection of daily violence." That which resulted in police charges had been filtered in many respects (Busch, et al., 1987, pp. 140-141): 1. "More than other offenses, a large amount of violence between private persons escapes potential police control. ... All in all, direct police access to such violent offenses is insignificant: Only 1.4% of charges of bodily injury and so forth resulted from a police initiative. There was agreement, on the other hand, among the interviewed experts that other authorities that are at times well-informed about a case of child abuse or a woman being beaten, mostly refrain from a police charge because criminal prosecution of such actions only makes it far more difficult to solve the social and familial problems. Thus, the child protection center guarantees all persons reporting a case of (suspected) child abuse that the police will not be informed. 2. The case of child abuse points to a systematic distortion of our data (and even more so of those of the police) resulting from a strong dependency of those cases perceived by the police on charges being pressed by a second party. Because in many violent dependent relationships, the victims are unable or not in the position to disclose their maltreatments or injuries, let alone report them to the police, a lot of - especially severe - cases of violence are excluded or underrepresented in police charges. This does not only apply to children but also to the elderly - either within their own families or within other care relationships - and particularly to many foreign women, especially Turkish wives. Because the latter only have residence permits for the Federal Republic of Germany through their marriage, and a return to Turkey as a divorced woman separated from her children would mean "social death," they are hardly inclined to disclose their miseries to the authorities. 3. If, on the one hand, we have to assume a large area of concealed crime in the areas of highly violent dependent relationships, on the other hand, the status of that which is reported to the police by a lot of victims remains unclear. Reporting a criminal offense does not just function as a registration of a victim's objectively verifiable impairment of personal freedom or even physical integrity. Rather, such a charge may well be the attempt to utilize it as an instrument of conflict in which the crime itself is entirely unimportant."

7 Summary With reference to Steifen and Polz, the results can be summarized as follows: The victims of family quarrels do want to have their conflicts regulated by the police although not necessarily by means of criminal prosecution. Mainly, the police are wanted in their function as an agency of social peacemaking and norm clarification, that is, in the function that the officers do actually fulfill. Hence, the interests of the victims and the actions by the police do not seem to be far apart, and, accordingly, victims and police should be satisfied with police intervention. The fact that this is obviously not, or not always, the case, is that this procedure often places police officers in a gray zone because of their commitment to the principle of mandatory prosecution that prevents the introduction of clear guidelines, further education, or control of the officers. Therefore, from the perspective of the police, penal norm intervention is the most successful,

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and at least the most efficient strategy. More frequent charges by the police do not result in a growing number of cases brought by the prosecutor: The opposite is the case. As a result, it is impossible to say which of the two basically possible ways for the police to act is the "right" one or the more successful one. Obviously, it is important to react adequately, that is flexibly, to family quarrels, and that police officers have a legal basis on which to do this. Thus Steffen and Polz propose a "double strategy": Stringent prosecution when necessary (with a good chance of success with the prosecutior) and a legally accepted advice and rebuke proceedings for the police in less severe cases of family conflict (Steffen & Polz, 1991, p. 173). When it is also true that other institutions are neither available in the acute conflict situation nor able to act effectively through advice, treatment, or therapy,32 then the only remaining "social helper" is the police. Both American studies and also the study of Steffen and Polz clearly show that there is a strong need for more research on the situation in Germany. For example: 1. It should be examined whether emergency calls in connection with family quarrels come from particular regions and from certain groups of people 3 (such investigations are currently being made in the Techical Police College Study mentioned above). 2. The training of the police officers should be intensified in this area, and the contents of training should be developed in cooperation with officers who are experienced in family conflict (see the above-mentioned models developed at the University of Bielefeld and the Austrian Interior Ministry). 3. There is a need for an open discussion on the problem of the definition of the power of police officers in situations of family violence against the background of the German principle of mandatory prosecution, and the fact that criminal proceedings ntroduced by the police officers are almost exclusively dismissed by the prosecutor. 4. There is a need to ascertain the actual workload of police officers through report duties, charge registration, and the like in order to work out what is more important: prevention through the presence of police officers on the streets or attending to paper work. 5. The topic "violence in the family" should be taken as an example of the fact that repressive means not only reduce the chances of success but also may eventually lead to an escalation of the situation, by, for example, increasing arrests or punishments. Seen as a whole, the regulation of family quarrels by the police is a reflection of their role in society: They have to negotiate a path between help in crisis and criminal prosecution, between assistance and punishment, and they can only achieve this through continuous further development, by extending their qualifications for solving problems and conflicts, and when their work is judged by the quality of the results rather than by the quantity of settled cases. This is the only way the police can develop toward a purpose oriented, flexible institution that can adapt itself continuously to changed societal constitutions and demands. "Smart policing" (Sherman) is client-oriented, quality-oriented, and permanently

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evaluated police work. The regulations set down in German police law (e.g. §28 PolG BW) equip officers with the necessary discretion for an adequate regulation of family quarrels.34 For example, a look at Sherman's demands based on American research findings shows that practically all of them can be fulfilled by the police in Germany: 1. Offering to take the victim to a safe accommodation (women's house, relatives, friends). 2. Taking the culprit or the victim somewhere where they can sober up or withdraw from drugs. 3. Letting the victim decide whether the culprit should be arrested immediately (following the guidelines in §28 PolG BW). 4. Mobilizing the victim's social environment in order to organize short-term protection (e.g., calling other family members). If, in addition to this, police and prosecutors were to cooperated more intensively, many cases could be solved more effectively and more satisfactorily for police officers, victims, and offenders. Notes Number of victims of consummated rape: youths: 27.5, adolescents: 22.2 and adults (21-60 years) 5.5. §1 Abs.l PolG BW: "The police is obliged to protect individuals and the public from dangers that are a threat to public safety and order. They also have to remove disturbances of public safety and order as far as public interest demands. In particular, they have to ensure the constitutional order and the free exercise of civic rights." §163 Abs.l StPO: "The offices and officers of the police must investigate criminal offenses and give all instructions that create no delay in order to prevent crimes from being covered up." For extensive research in the U.S.A., see, Sherman (1992). Sherman especially discusses the question whether arrest (and, if necessary what form: short-term withdrawal or long-term arrest) of the (in most cases male) culprit in case of family quarrels is appropriate in order to prevent future quarrels, or whether it would cause an aggravation of the situation in the long run. Seven experiments carried out in the U.S.A. and supported by the National Institute of Justice (see, Sherman (1992), p. 247) have shown that: - arrests have led to an increase in family violence whenthey concerned people who do not have anything to lose (in particular the unemployed); - arrests have a certain deterrent effect when there are larger groups of white suspects; - arrests have a short-term deterrent effect, but lead to an escalation of the domestic situation in the long run, when there is a larger group of black unemployed suspects; - a small group of violent couples is responsible for the majority of police actions concerning family quarrels. For an older study (by Krause), see Steifen & Polz (1991), p. 26. See Steifen & Polz (1991), p. 60: The result of a Berlin study by Busch, et al. (1987) was 20.8% of foreign victims, corresponding with the percentage of foreign inhabitants in the examined neighborhood (see Busch, et al. (1987), p. 150). Insofar, the situation in Germany obviously differs from the U.S.A. where criminal bodily injury against police officers in connection with intervention in family quarrels is a considerable problem. In cases in which police officers have been injured in the course of an intervention, family quarrels take fourth position among all reasons for actions; see, Hirschel, et. al. (1994), pp. 99ff.

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In Baden-Württemberg, for instance, up to 80% of all criminal acts are dealt with by the municipal police. The criminal police are only consulted in certain cases (severe or specific, e.g., economic offenses). In other federal states, this percentage varies between 30 and 50% of all offenses. Radio patrol vehicle actions = services requiring (at least) one radio patrol vehicle. Actions in cooperation with the mobile police or other forces and operations in which officers have to be brought to the scene in team buses (e.g. operations in connection with sports or political main events; "chaos days" etc.) are not recorded here. Also unrecorded are team buses in which more than two officers travel to the scene of action (e.g. VW - Bus). In these cases only one patrol vehicle is registered. Assuming that about 110 officers are available in Stuttgart at a given time. See Sherman (1992), p. 6. Sherman assumes an average of one operation per citizen per year in the U.S.A. of which 5% to 10% have to deal with domestic violence. In 15% to 33% of these actions, victims are said to have been injured. Also Sherman quotes an estimation that 22% to 35% of all treatments of women in hospital emergencies are due to domestic violence. Calculation: time of action per vehicle (column 7) multiplied by 2 persons (regular crew) multiplied by average number of police vehicles employed (column 4). For comparison: in Minneapolis: 10%; see, Sherman (1992), p. 5; in Charlotte, North Carolina (400,000 inhabitants, 600 municipal police officers): 7.8% (Hirschel, et al. (1994), p. 107). For comparison: in Minneapolis 4.9%. For the year 1976, only 50 such operations were reported around Cologne and Hannover. In cases that seem urgent or life-threatening, the officer can directly initiate a phone trace through the "operation control computer" (Einsatzleitrechner). For an analogue telephone, this means that the caller's line remains engaged until the address is found (this is not the case for digital telephones). It is then up to the officer to decide whether to put down the phone and give the caller the chance to call again, or whether he will accept the sometimes very long investigation time (at the weekend and at night, it can take up to 2 or 3 hours because a telephone company technician has to be called). Explanation by the officers: The family members have got on each other's nerves during the preceding spare time. When partners go to work or go shopping (on normal weekdays), the time for quarreling is rather limited. What are they hitting with? With flat hands or with fists? Is a knife being used? Are other persons such as children in danger? What exactly is the caller asking for, for example, to be able to leave the home in order to stay with a friend , and so forth. Emergency calls via 110, via other telephone and mobile radio lines, as well as via emergency alarms (call boxes). Emergency call as well as personal initiatives (small proportion). Projected according to a 6-week evaluation. Figures are not very precise because the number of inhabitants in the regions controlled by police headquarters is not necessarily identical with the number of inhabitants of townships. Reasons given are: the problem has already been solved on the phone; the police know the family, intervention is usually not necessary, or at least not after the first call. 18-24 years: 260 = 12.6%; 25 years and older: 1,615 = 77.9%; "no answer / information" 1,411 =6.8%. The most frequent situation is when one partner (husband) abuses or insults the other (wife). 674 remarks could not be evaluated. The interviews were carried out by FOR Wössner, Villingen-Schwenningen, as part of a course at the Police Technical College and are part of the project on "Requirement profile: squad service" run by the Interior Ministry of Baden-Württemberg. This is the rule; cases in which police officers notice domestic quarrels themselves and also decide to intervene hardly ever occur. One reason is that it is highly unlikely that a police officer will notice a crime directly, although this is often extremely overestimated. Given an actual relation of one available police officer per 10,000 citizens, this is no surprise. Even in big American cities (in which the crime rate is 10 times higher than in Germany), it is esti-

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mated that a municipal police officer can expect to encounter a street robbery while at work only once every 14 years. Polizeiaufgabengesetz (police task law) (Bavaria). Busch, et al. (1987). They have evaluated penal charges handed in between October 1, 1981 and September 31, 1982 in the Berlin districts Gropiusstadt und Neukölln (approx. 30,000 inhabitants). Of these, about 7,500 were charged with the offense of violence "in the sense of our heuristic notion of violence" (pp. 31-32.). In 59.2% of all cases, charges were made by the victim; 11.7%, by a third party; and 8.3%, by the police. The rest were either joint charges or charges by institutions and so forth (p. 37). These included only 5 reports about abuse of wards, 6 about child maltreatment, and 25 charges of child sexual abuse (p. 52). 44.4% of all evaluated charges were related to offenses within the "public sphere;" 35.5%, in the "private sphere;" and 10.8%, in bars/casinos (p. 57). Late registrations are those operations for which the accompanying charge could only be ascertained and evaluated by justice 6 months later. Seven charges of murder or manslaughter; eight charges of deprivation of liberty. An examination of the relevant American projects by the National Institute of Justice at the end of the 1980s concluded that "serious defects in the designs of nearly all evaluation studies conducted make it possible to draw definite conclusions about treatment effectiveness" (Saunders & Azar (1989), pp. 481). In Milwaukee, about half of the emergency calls came from 20% of the couples who had called the police during a family quarrel in the examined period of 33 months. In Minneapolis, more than half of the emergency calls came from less than 1% of the streets in the city (see Sherman (1992), p. 4). This distinguishes the German situation positively from the US- American one, where attempts were made during the 1980s to exactly prescribe the police reactions to family quarrels - with rather negative results: see Sherman (1992), pp. 243-244). Apart from the fact that German police act in a gray area here, we have reason to be pleased with the outcome of this regulation.

References Busch, H., Funk, ., Narr, W.-D., & Werketin F. (1987): Unpublished manuscript. Berlin. Hirschel, J. D., Dean, C. W., & Lumb, R. C. (1994): The relative contribution of domestic violence to assault and injury of police officers. Justice Quarterly, 11(1), 99. Janssen, H. (1991): Stichwort: Gewalt in der Familie. In H. J. Kemer (Ed.): Kriminologie Lexikon (pp. 128-131). Heidelberg. Nobel, H. (1983): Zur Psychologie von Familienstreitigkeiten. Deutsches Polizeiblatt, 3, 4. Saunders, D. G. & Azar, S. T. (1989): Treatment programs for family violence. In L. Ohlin & Tonry (Eds.): Family violence, Vol. 11, Crime and justice: A review of research (pp. 48 Iff). Chicago. Schwind, H.-D. & Baumann, J., et al. (Eds.) (1990): Ursachen, Prevention und Kontrolle von Gewalt. (Bericht der Gewaltkommission). Vol. 2. Berlin. Sherman, L. W. (1992): Policing domestic violence. Experiments and dilemmas. New York Steifen, W. & Pölz, S. (1991): Familienstreitigkeiten und Polizei. München.