The Trump Administration Quietly Changed the Definition of Domestic Violence and We Have No Idea What For
A domestic violence relationship rarely begins with physical violence, much less violence that rises to the level of a crime. If you were punched on a first date, odds are there wouldn’t be a second. Intimate partner abuse is insidious: Emotional and psychological abuse escalates to physical violence as an abuser’s need and/or ability to exert power and control increases.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Without fanfare or even notice, the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women made significant changes to its definition of domestic violence in April. The Obama-era definition was expansive, vetted by experts including the National Center for Victims of Crime and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The Trump administration’s definition is substantially more limited and less informed, effectively denying the experiences of victims of abuse by attempting to cast domestic violence as an exclusively criminal concern.
The previous definition included critical components of the phenomenon that experts recognize as domestic abuse—a pattern of deliberate behavior, the dynamics of power and control, and behaviors that encompass physical or sexual violence as well as forms of emotional, economic, or psychological abuse. But in the Trump Justice Department, only harms that constitute a felony or misdemeanor crime may be called domestic violence. So, for example, a woman whose partner isolates her from her family and friends, monitors her every move, belittles and berates her, or denies her access to money to support herself and her children is not a victim of domestic violence in the eyes of Trump’s Department of Justice. This makes no sense for an office charged with funding and implementing solutions to the problem of domestic violence rather than merely prosecuting individual abusers.
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Well, this might be why:
"Criminal concerns" is pretty much the focus of the Department of Justice.
So, while all of these things -
Are dickish, rude, and frequently associated with domestic violence, they are not, in and of themselves, crimes.
That's just a guess, but I think it's a reasonable one.
Maybe somebody decided we'd just go back to using words as they are actually defined. The Left, for example, loves to pretend that speech is violence. It's not. Physical force or damage is violence. I'll even go so far as to concede that the threat of imminent physical harm is violence. Wanting to know where you've been or how you spend money is obnoxious, but not violent.
Journalists, could have maybe asked somebody at the time, but they're so focused on Russia or White House intrigue all the time that actual news gets ignored.
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Guess it's all about perspective...
Actually the legal definition of violence is:
The unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force.
So by your own definition, physical force or damage DOESN'T have to occur for violence to have occurred. That was a quick change of heart.
No one said it was.
Is there a statute of limitations for questioning why the government is making regulatory changes?
They kind of did if it was included in the previous definition of domestic violence .
That's not the point. It's almost a year later. No one is going to care now. And if you insist that they should care, the obvious response will be "why didn't you insist on this eight months ago when it happened?" No, here's what CBS News thought were the biggest stories in April 2018 :
Facebook, Russia, and a porn star. That's what mainstream media is doing for America. What do you suppose impacts more people in their daily lives? Russia? Porn Stars? Or Domestic Violence?
That's a pretty big IF Tacos! The article doesn't indicate that your IF is valid. Here is part of what it DOES say:
It sure as hell looks like it is since the next thing you say is:
As for 'NEWS' coverage. Exactly how the hell is the media suppose to report 'NEWS' that isn't announce? Tell you what, post a link here of the press release that the DOJ or the OVW posted that announced the change in the definition. I'll wait...