Review of Linda Mill's Insult to Injury

Review of ''Insult to Injury''

Insult to Injury is a short, conceptual book (about 150 pp) in which Mills argues theoretically, drawing on some research citations, for an alternative to the current mandated arrest/prosecution approach. In particular, Mills criticizes a reflexive feminist approach, which she refers to a number of times to as "mainstream feminism." While Mills perhaps oversimplifies feminism in this sense, she makes some very valid points.

For example, in general Mills makes a good case for the need for a more nuanced, practical legal approach to domestic violence, which she prefers to call "intimate violence" per her title. She notes that the reality of violence within a dyad is frequently complex, typically ambiguous and that there are interactional components that can make assigning blame to only one side a moot point.

Mills also describes and treats intimate violence as a ''dynamic'' in partner conflicts, arguing for the option of a different approach that attempts to give both partners more choices, that avoids the typically black/white assessment of the situation (noting the ubiquity of mandated interventions-arrest, prosecution, punishment in the US), and one that may avoid labeling one person ( i.e., the woman) as a victim and the other person (i.e., the man) as a batterer.

This alternative approach she ties to Braithwaite's concept of Restorative justice (an approach that was used in South Africa to address/redress the crimes of the Apartheid era), rather than the model of punitive justice currently in ascendence. In an earlier section giving the recent history of legal responses to intimate violence, Mills describes how feminists, desperate to correct power imbalances and a lack of justice in the criminal system thirty years ago at the dawn of modern feminism, pushed to develop an approach that emphasized identifying and punishing male aggressors in an attempt to rectify these problems.

In doing this, however, some feminists not only minimized or even denied the role of female aggression, they separated emotional violence from the dynamic of intimate abuse and emphasized physical acts of violence. Seen in isolation from the total relationship between two people, this has served to focus blame on men and to perpetuate stereotypes of all women in such relationships as passive, weak, and as victims of male power. Noting the prevalence of ''victim'' models to understand women in such relationships, Mills observes how in this view, women paradoxically are denied a voice in the current legal approaches-unless they agree to aggressively cooperate against their significant other with police, judges and prosecutors-and men are often alienated and made more angry (and some studies suggest made more prone to domestic violence) by their perceived mistreatment by a legal system that labels them as violent and irredeemable.

Mills spends the last part of the book discussing the Intimate Abuse Circle (IAC), a therapeutic/mediation model that gives couples the choice to work individually and as a couple together to resolve their dyadic problems. Violence and other issues in this reparative approach to a damaged, but salvageable relationship are carefully assessed holistically with ongoing lethality risk assessment, with individual comfort levels noted, and with a team of sensitive and caring individuals, including family supporters designated by the involved partners have input. This is a very general outline of the model, but it appears to have promise and fits with some of the most progressive therapeutic approaches we see in some clinics and counseling centers where ''kneejerk'' approaches are avoided.

In summary, Mills makes an interesting and thoughtful argument to look at intimate violence in a different way, to provide a more flexible approach that allows couples more choices to work out their problems in a cooperative atmosphere with therapists, family supporters and the greater law enforcement community. This book will probably be dismissed by some dv ''advocates'' and proponents of a ''victim'' approach to intimate violence. However, Mills is no apologist for male violence, nor, as she emphasizes in her book, does she advocate blaming victims. In fact, she recognizes that in some cases, her optional approach would not work or individuals have the right/need to leave relationships that are in fact dangerous to their safety and welfare.