Domestic Violence Fatality Reviews and the African American Community

Abstract

Cultural competence is important to the domestic violence fatality review process. This article reviews current knowledge about cultural competence for Black women abused by men in the United States, with suggested implications for domestic violence fatality review teams (DVFRTs). Help-seeking behaviors, coping strategies, historical context, and cultural values within the African American community are explored. These areas are further examined using a framework inclusive of the structure, goals, processes, outcomes, and barriers of DVFRTs. The implications for how DVFRTs can utilize this information are discussed.Keywords gender, femicide, homicide survivors, policing, intimate partner, victim/offender relationship Domestic violence fatality review teams (DVFRTs) provide an important contribution to the communities they serve. The focus of the DVFRT is to better understand how systems can improve to more effectively meet the needs of persons experiencing domestic violence and thus reduce fatalities in the community (Websdale, Town, & Johnson, 1999). By reviewing the life events and systems' responses, review teams piece together the victim and the perpetrator's story and try to find the gaps and the places where systems can make a difference for the future (Wilson & Websdale, 2006). The very notion of domestic violence fatality reviews presupposes that these deaths can be avoided: "Fatality reviews can reveal trends and may lead to changes to the

Diversity in Interpersonal Violence Research

“…Having such research is critical. With women of color being more likely to be victimized and killed due to domestic violence (Bent-Goodley, 2013; Smith et al, 2017; Violence Policy Center, 2017), the need for having effective interventions rooted in the realities of these communities could not be more important. Scholars have an enormous responsibility to get this right to advance IPV knowledge generation and to move the science forward.…”

“…Being able to understand the worldview of the group allows you to build more accuracy to determining problem definition (Burnette, 2016). For example, it is important to understand that when working with Black women who have experienced domestic violence, they may be concerned with how reporting domestic violence makes Black men vulnerable to criminal justice intervention (Bent-Goodley, 2013). In addition, Black women have been socialized to protect Black men as a part of a survival tradition in the Black community (Richie, 1995).…”

Can Justice System Interventions Prevent Intimate Partner Homicide? An Analysis of Rates of Help Seeking Prior to Fatality

“…While Black men who were killed (50.0%) were slightly more likely to be complainants than White men (42.9%), Black women who were killed (32.1%) were slightly less likely to be complainants than White women (33.3%). These disparities may reflect over-policing in African American communities as well as the manner in which African American women are perceived by police officers (Bent-Goodley, 2013;Hitchens, Carr, & Clampet-lundquist, 2018;Richie, 2012).…”

“…The analyses of race suffer from a lack of specificity due to the nature of police-report data; the dichotomous Black/White categorization is particularly problematic given, for example, the "racialization of legal status" among Latinos (Menjívar, Simmons, & Alvord, 2018, p. 111). We have nevertheless included these data, given previous research indicating differential homicide rates across race/ethnicity and the context of over-policing in communities of color, fear of police, and differential treatment of victims and offenders based on race/ethnicity (Bent-Goodley, 2013;Hitchens et al, 2018;Petrosky et al, 2017;Richie, 2012). Finally, in subgroups of the data that were examined, some categories of homicide had a rather small sample sizes, and these findings should be interpreted with caution.…”

Hear My Cry: Breaking the Code of Silence around Intimate Partner Violence among Black Women in and beyond Midlife

“…St Vil and colleagues (2017) found that Black women utilized three types of survivor strategies: internal strategies of faith and reli-gion, interpersonal strategies of leaving the abuse, and external reliance on informal and/or formal supports. Many Black women reported relying on the church community and friends and family for support, while only some looked for support from organizations that specialized in supporting women who experience IPV (Bent-Goodley 2013;St Vil et al 2017). Other studies indicate that although Black women are hesitant to use legal resources, they are more likely to access them when there is a high risk for lethality (Sabri et al 2014).…”