There is widespread agreement within the legal system that its response to the battering of women by men has been ineffective, the Cork Domestic Violence Project has claimed.
In its submission to the National Crime Forum, sitting in Cork yesterday, the project representatives said the Garda agreed that judges too often failed to convict; judges were of the opinion that the Garda were inconsistent in their use of the ability to arrest and that sentencing alternatives failed to include effective rehabilitation services; and, underneath it all, many claimed that the victims, somehow, were to blame.
According to the submission, the most important aspect of changing the response to battering was to co-ordinate all available services to ensure a uniform response.
"The first strategy is to decrease cases traditionally screened out of the courts by developing police and advocacy policies and procedures aimed at bringing cases into the courts rather than diverting them into social service or counselling settings for resolution.
"The second is to impose and enforce increasingly harsh legal penalties on the abusers who fail to stop their violent and abusive behaviour.
"The third is to provide victims with emergency housing, legal advocacy and education. This network of services is essential in loosening the controls the abuser has established over the victim which he has typically used to protect himself from court intervention.
"The fourth strategy calls for a systematic inter-agency communication flow on each case and monitoring of policies and procedures by a small staff, separate from the court system and accountable to battered women.
"The policies and guidelines governing the community's response to battering must be continually evaluated to determine the consistency of the system in its response and its successes in stopping the violence of abusers," it added.
The submission also called for the development of policies which would distinguish between taking responsibility for placing controls on the assailant and imposing new, prescribed behaviour on the victim.
It went on: "Blaming a woman who has a protection order for `inviting' him back into the house ignores the nature of relationships in which battering is occurring.
"Policy directed towards enforcement of assault laws should clearly distinguish between the role of the community and the role of the victim in such an effort. The legal system must not, like the abuser, dictate the victim's behaviour, or blame the victim for the abuser's use of violence."