Violence Against Women
Speakers: Bonnie J. Campbell (click here for biography)
Soap Summit 3

Transcript of Proceedings
October 17, 1997

SONNY FOX: In 1994, violence against women became a federal offense for the first time. Now it has some limited use, in terms of federal offenses. There are certain circumstances that have to happen for that crime to become a federal offense, but it gave President Clinton a chance to start a division. He picked the Attorney General of Iowa, Bonnie Campbell, to be the first director of this division. She's in charge of the resources of the federal government which are behind the new initiative to protect women and their families. Bonnie has really turned a criminal prosecution division into an advocacy group. She has been truly effective as she's gone through the country dealing with this issue and trying to sensitize many, many organizations and groups to this issue. I am so pleased that she agreed to come from Washington to be with us today. It is with great pleasure I present to you Bonnie Campbell.

AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE]

BONNIE CAMPBELL: I want to thank PCI for believing in the perfectibility of the human condition. I want to share the words of Madeline Albright, "Today around the world, appalling abuses are being committed against women, from domestic violence, to dowry murders, to mutilation, to forcing young girls into prostitution. Some say all this is cultural and there's nothing we can do about it. I say it's criminal, and we each have a responsibility to stop it."

That is really where we come in. I view violence against women in these very broad, global terms, as fundamental human rights violations. If you think about it, being a prisoner in a home where someone controls every move you make isn't substantially different than being a POW, or being in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, or being killed by Stalin's henchmen. Violence is fundamental. Living your life free of it is a fundamental right. Throughout the world, we have never wanted to have this conversation about the fundamental rights of women. It's always an interesting statistic to hear that during the course of the Vietnam War, we lost 55,000 American soldiers. More than that number of American women were killed by batterers during that same period of time. That's a very astonishing thing to absorb. What I'd like to do, I guess, is throughout my comment, remind you that this is about power and control. Just like putting Jews in concentration camps. It's about advancing your own agenda, about controlling your environment. Battering is the same thing. It isn't about love and jealousy. It's about power and control, and who has it, and who doesn't. The reality for many women around the world is they cannot be full participants in our democracy, in our economies, in our communities, if they cannot be guaranteed the right to live without a fear of violence.

In our office, we say we have three missions. One is to educate the public, because we all operate with so many myths about battered women and who they are, why they do what they do. Second is to reform the justice system. And I can tell you, that's easy to say, it's really hard to do. But it has to be done, and you can tell already that it won't be done until we educate the public. It's ordinary citizens who are police officers, who are prosecutors, who are judges. They, too, have to be educated. And, finally, we know we need to build around the country a community based response to domestic violence, where health care providers, educators, clergy, employers, civic leaders, political leaders all come together and say and believe that we have the power to stop violence in our homes and on our streets.

Now, all of these goals depend upon the success of each other. They are interconnected, requires a certain synergy. Of all the goals, we know none will be accomplished without a better educated, more empathetic public. I know that you can reach a group of women, battered women who are often very isolated through that powerful medium of television. Any one of you could in one episode, because of your ability to educate over a longer period of time, do more to reach a human being in trouble than I could with all the speeches that I give. I think what I do is important, reaching, you know, a roomful of 20, 30, 100 people. So we're acutely aware that our mission is a great one.

Let me give you just a little context. I hate using numbers, but I do think they provide a context. Each year in America, roughly five million women are the victims of a violent crime, that would be domestic and sexual violence. Unlike men, women victims are usually injured by someone known to them about 60% of the time. Fifteen percent of the time, the someone known to them is irrelevant. Thirty percent of the time, it's someone well known, maybe a neighbor, a stepfather, that sort of the thing. And for a third of these victims, they are usually revictimized by the same person again in that same year. Painting a picture of somebody trapped, I think, victimized, a little time passes, they're victimized again. And each year this group of people get younger and younger.

I've thought a lot about what's with these issues. Why don't we talk about domestic violence, rape and incest? It has something to do with how we view stranger crime, as versus intimate crime. Surely if the stranger did to a woman what her husband does to her, there is no question that he'd be severely punished by any justice system. The reality in America today is that very few batterers ever go to jail. Of course, if they kill someone, they will. And that homicide may very well not even be considered a domestic homicide. In my State of Iowa, when I was Attorney General, two-thirds of our homicides of women were by their partners. Two-thirds. So many police departments around the country now call their domestic violence units "Homicide Reduction Units," because it's an excellent way to seriously get in there and bring those numbers down. What's wrong about how we view intimate crime is it causes us to ask all the wrong questions. And for some peculiar reason, it really causes us to blame the victim. Let me give you some examples.

Now, let's say that I'm a battered woman in Des Moines, Iowa. Somebody calls 9-1-1, police come, there's a police report. Very likely, I'd be asked, "What'd you do this time to make him kick you?" Or, more likely, "Come on, we've been here five times. You know this man is a batterer. Why don't you leave?" I'll come back to that, because that is one of the questions that drives me crazy. In fact, I'll discuss it now.

I'm asked two questions all the time. The first, "Well, why don't battered women leave," assumes, first of all, that it's the victim's purpose to leave. She hasn't committed a crime. She's been injured. Her life is in total chaos. A criminal beat her up, and our society says, "Well, why don't you leave?" I guess the contrarian in me wants to say, "Why the hell should I? He's the criminal. Why don't you take him, instead of putting me in a shelter, why don't you put him in a jail?" The question, "Why don't you leave" is a difficult one, and a complex one to answer. Let me try to give you some answers. One, they're usually economically very dependent on that person. So, think about if you had maybe 30 minutes to pack up all you need, get your kids ready to go, and leave forever, how difficult that choice would be for you. They never have legal representation. Can they take the money in the checking account? Can they take the car? Can they take the kids out of school? Can they take the kids at all? Maybe there's a conflicting court order giving him custody or visitation. Now these issues are litigated to State Supreme Courts every day, and a battered woman, in a moment of absolute crisis is supposed to make all those judgments? She doesn't leave because society tells us we should try to keep our relationships together, our families together. She doesn't leave, because he says, "Oh, go right ahead and leave. But you know what? You'll never see those kids again. I'll kill 'em. I'll kill you." Finally, she doesn't leave because leaving is dangerous. She knows that when she does leave, she has that enormous risk, and unfortunately, the justice system cannot say, "You leave, I promise you, guarantee your safety." Because we can't do that. We cannot. So battered women don't leave for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is the decision they're making is a life and death one.

The second question I'm asked all the time is, "Why do men batter?" The answer to that I honestly believe to be fairly simple. Because they can. There are no consequences. It's only been recently that somebody might lose a job or an important position because of battering. They batter because they can, it gives them what they want, and there aren't any consequences. People say to me all the time, "Well, I know Joe. He's really a nice guy. But that night, he just lost control." And I have to interrupt and say, "Oh, no. He didn't lose control that night. He gained control. He did it to gain control." Remember, it's all about power and control. He didn't assault the gas station attendant, or the clerk at the grocery store. He cunningly, calculatingly zeroed in on his regular target, his possession, his woman. And so it is. He didn't lose control. He batters because he can.

And in this conversation, what drives me is understanding the connection between family violence and community violence. Kids learn from their first and most important teachers the violence of how you resolve your conflicts. If it were in your repertoire of tricks, you'd use it, too. And as you heard Rob Reiner say last night, it's hard to unlearn something you've already learned. Well, as a society, we have an obligation to intervene at the earliest possible point. I share a description of two posters I've seen that really convey this message. One shows a mother, a young mother with a beautiful little infant boy, and it's a poignant picture. She's holding him to her breast. And the tag line says, "If you hit his mother, he will go to prison." And sadly, the statistics seem to bear that out. The other poster is a beautiful little girl, big blue eyes, she's perfect. Except she's got two big black eyes. And the caption at the bottom says, "She has her mother's eyes." You see, the victims who witness this violence run a very good risk of growing up to be the youthful offenders. Or to be the victim. Certainly you need to know that not all children who grow up in violence grow up to be victims or batterers. But Rob Reiner said it again, all those batterers did grow up in a violent home. There's almost a straight line correlation.

I believe with all my heart that you can reach an audience in the simplest of ways. I am a very far cry from a writer of any variety. I'm a lawyer. Simple things like discussing how to develop a safety plan, how to think about getting out, how to call a shelter, that there is a shelter out there, that there is a National Domestic Violence Hotline. We were discussing at my table just letting these women who lead such desperate, quiet lives in total isolation know that they're not alone can send the most powerful message of all.

AUDIENCE: [CLAPPING]

QUESTION: Do you see or perceive any increase in victims coming forward because of increased exposure?

BONNIE CAMPBELL: Absolutely. In Los Angeles County there was a dramatic increase in reports, and that is the good news. And I think we all looked at that as in increase in crime. I looked at it as the good news. All the nay-sayers were saying, "Oh, you know, we're a violent society," and I'm saying, no, we've always had a violent society. The good news is that we're aware of it, and we're reporting it, and we're talking about it, and these women are beginning to come in. Neighbors were calling in and they were going out and doing investigations. So it did have a dramatic impact and we did actually see the messy, violent related deaths go down in the County after that.

QUESTION: I heard another presentation on this topic in which the speaker had an escalation theory, and I wonder if you can validate it, that there tends to be a pattern so that initially less severe injuries, if they are patched up, and the situation is not faced tend to become more severe over time, leading, I would think, recognition of that would make intervening in a more dramatic way even more important.

BONNIE CAMPBELL: I think that's what it starts with, the emotional violence, and I don't like to call it abuse. I call it emotional violence, physical violence, and sexual violence against women and children, because I think that's what it is. And, yes, that escalates, it escalates from the words, to physical assault, to violence, physical assault, to sexual assault. And, ultimately, tragically, often times, as the woman tries to extricate herself from that environment, homicide. We do need to build a better response to protect them as we move forward. What we're really trying to do is figure out a way for society to build a real response to focus on the rights of the mother and the child.

QUESTION: Can you explain the small cards on our tables?

BONNIE CAMPBELL: I first became acquainted with this when they asked for help. The American College of Gynecologists began to understand, of course, that pregnant women are enormously at risk. Batterers just love to punch those pregnant bellies. It's amazing. But when the women go to doctors, the batterers go with them. And they never leave them alone. Except when they go into the bathroom and get a urine sample. So the college developed a card that would fit inside a woman's shoe so she could hide it because if battering victims are found empowering :information, they are beat up again for having it. This is similar to that. The whole idea is to put it somewhere in the woman's bathroom where she can get it and conceal it. But begin to learn she's not alone, to find out where help is available, and, very importantly, how to begin to think in terms of leaving. This is empowering. I had a political science professor once who said something that always has stayed with me. He said the thing about ideas is, you can't stop an idea with a bullet. These give women the idea they can leave, they can begin to build on that idea. They are powerful. Look how simple it is.

SONNY FOX: Can you talk about the underground?

BONNIE CAMPBELL: I have to approach this with great caution because my deputy, a very cautious lawyer, is sitting there. It's a sad thing for me to even describe what it is to you. The justice system historically has totally revictimized battered and abused women. It's just a fact. Now we're working on these criminal justice reforms and they're happening slowly. Everything takes time. We also have to move in the civil justice arena when issues of child custody and visitation are concerned. For example, maybe I know my husband is sexually abusing our child. But we were divorced eighteen months ago, he's got child visitation being ordered over here in a civil order. On the one hand I have the criminal court restraining order, and I have a civil order mandating visitation. When I take my child and flee because I can't get any help from the justice system, now I'm in criminal contempt on the civil order.

So this is just a quick story of why one might go into the underground. You go to the system, get a bad cop, get a bad prosecutor, get a bad judge, and they say well I'll tell you what. I don't care. Maybe I'll go to jail. I am taking my children out of this danger. And they do. Somehow they make their way into the underground. I've already told you I'm from Iowa. I was shocked to learn that because two major interstates intersect just north of Des Moine, Iowa, Iowa has this huge underground. You read about it all the time. It could be one of the reasons so many of the homicides in Iowa are by their partners. They may not even be Iowans. They may be people all the way from L.A. to Pennsylvania.

It's a sad commentary, but there's a huge underground in the world. When I went to Beijing for the Fourth World Womens' conference, American citizens found me in the middle of this mud hole and they were women on the run with their children. As one who represents the justice system, it was the most eye opening and frankly insulting experience I had ever had. I don't know a lot about the underground because even today women in the underground call our office and we say to them don't tell us where you are, don't want to know. If you need more information, you will have to call us back. Because as an officer of the court, I know you've got an arrest warrant out for you because you didn't let your husband have visitation because you know he's sexually abusing your child. And I'm theoretically obligated to turn you in. I don't want to have to do that, and so from my perspective, ignorance is supreme bliss. But from your perspective, you should know that there is an underground. I don't know exactly how it works. I suppose it is similar to the underground railroad of another era.

QUESTION: Can you comment a little bit about emotional abuse and psychological abuse?

BONNIE CAMPBELL: The reality is that without the emotional abuse and constant chipping away of one's self esteem, the physical violence really couldn't handle. But we can't figure out how to write laws against emotional abuse. What's the evidence? How are we going to prove it? So typically I can't tell you. This is such an odd experience for me as a lawyer. Batterers all say the exact same thing to their victims. I just couldn't believe it. "You are a fat ass." Have you ever hear that anywhere? That's what O.J. Simpson said to Nicole. That's what every batterer has told every victim I've ever known. "You're a fat ass." "You're stupid." "You're ugly." "You're a bad mother." "You're lucky you have me." "If you didn't have me, you'd starve to death you worthless piece of garbage." It is, it's just like that. And after a while, the women come to believe that. And then they think it's because I'm so stupid. It's because I can't ever get dinner quite right or on time. It's because I'm a bad mother. I deserve it. It's my fault. And historically everywhere she goes, gets someone to say no it's wrong. She gets a different answer. She goes to work. She's all beat up. Nobody says anything. It's like a conspiracy of silence. She goes to the rabbi, she goes to the priest, she goes to the minister, and they all say well go home and be a better wife and we'll pray for you.

The emotional abuse comes from the batterer, but it comes from the rest of society too. If I'm a battered woman, and I go into the hospital ER because I'm never going to go to a shelter, but I do have to have my bones fixed. And they know I've been battered. They also suspect that it wasn't a stranger. It was my husband. I tell them I fell down the stairs. And they don't question me. They don't ask. They know and from my perspective as a victim, I'm thinking, you think it's my fault too. If you didn't, you'd be asking me. You would be asking me what really happened and you would be intervening here. The silence, we need to break the silence. It is so important. It's another layer of emotional abuse heaped on these people. And it does work that way. Absolutely does work that way. The women, by the time they do get to shelter or they get some severely injured, the justice system must intervene, they really have come to believe that they deserved it, it's their fault, they're worthless. It is a long journey back from that. That's why knowing that you're not at fault is such an important thing. The emotional part of it, we don't really know how to get at. I think we're deferring to the medical community to intervene.

The question is can batterers ever really be rehabilitated? Remember I started by saying I really, I kind of believe in the perfectability of the human spirit. I have to tell you though, such intervening with the batterer is exactly what we need to do to stop victim blaming. The idea that we need to focus on the batterer is fairly new. We're only now getting anecdotal information about the programs that work. My personal belief based, upon what I perceive, is that a certain percentage of people just by virtual of knowing they will be arrested, knowing that maybe their name will appear in the paper, and go to jail, will actually stop being violent. These are people who learned it and can unlearn it. Then there is another group of whacked out people and you're going to hear from a wonderful young woman today whose father fit into that category. Nothing would have stopped it. Nothing would have stopped him short of being locked up in a cell. I think we have at least three groups. And a very careful watchful eye of the justice system can, maybe not change the personalities, but alter their behavior which is all we can ever ask of anybody. There is always that highly dangerous group of people who simply cannot be controlled. They don't mind dying themselves. There is that final act of controlling that woman. And so the answer is we're in this game, but I have to believe that we're going to find a way long term to salvage these people because in many ways they are victims too.

QUESTION: Does stranger crime get punished differently from spousal abuse?

BONNIE CAMPBELL: In Iowa we have a mandatory jail statute. It's two days. It's a misdemeanor. If you don't have any history of violence, you're probably going to get probation. Very few states have actual mandatory jail. It could be six days, seven days, we're talking not very serious frankly. And in many rural communities, or over crowded urban communities, there is a huge attempt to accommodate batterers by letting him serve one day on a weekend. If you assaulted a stranger with the kind of injury that often gets pled down to a domestic violence misdemeanor, it would be a felony most of the time. I think domestic violence injuries should be a felony from the get go. This is not the justice department's position, it is mine. The problem is that prosecutors are so overwhelmed that they don't take misdemeanors. And they're thinking, okay, I've got a batterer, he's here and we can get a restraining order, but meanwhile I've also got these young kids out here toting guns and shooting people. When they set priorities, battering tends not to be high on that list, but if it were a felony it would be worth the investment.

QUESTION: Can therapy be done with the family?

BONNIE CAMPBELL: The victim, as a group, don't like mediation. They don't like programs that are designed to keep the family together, which she has after many years of violence finally managed to extricate herself.

QUESTION: Do batterers enter programs voluntarily or through the court?

BONNIE CAMPBELL: Usually batterers are ordered by the court. And usually wonderful advocates provide a whole array of victim services for the victim. Which tells us many victims never fit the system at all. Thanks very much.

AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE]