Domestic Violence is a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain control and power over the other partner. Domestic violence can involve physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, or mental abuse. This is a growing issue in society today. In the United States, there are about 1.3 million women and 835,000 men that go through physical abuse each year. There is no direct cause of domestic violence, and it affects people of all ethnic groups and economic classes. There can be many factors such as substance abuse, stress due to unemployment, or growing up in an abusive household that result in domestic violence.
Most domestic violence victims do not report their cases because they feel responsible for the abuse or they are too intimidated by the abuser. A number of women end up killing their partner to escape the abuse they receive. A prison study in California found that 93 percent of women who killed their partner were abused by them. 67 percent of those women claimed to be protecting themselves or their children when they killed their abusers.
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Statistics show that “75-80% of women who killed in self-defense are convicted or convinced to plead guilty, and are sentenced to long terms.” In some cases the acts are seen as murder instead of self-defense. Battered woman syndrome, a sub-category to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is often used in court to reduce the severity of these cases. Battered woman syndrome is a mental disorder that occurs after being involved in a long abusive relationship. It can cause learned helplessness which causes the victim to believe there’s no way out of the