Robin SmithDuring the last few weeks "domestic violence" has been a headline-grabbing topic, mostly because of the off-the-field brutality of angry, highly-paid professional athletes.
What if, instead of using "domestic violence" to describe the crime, we chose to call the crime "assault and battery?"
I'm 51 and remember hearing folks talk in shame and anger about men who "beat" their wives or guys who "hit" their girlfriends.
I remember the word "sorry" being used as an adjective preceded the noun that referred to those individuals.
It seems in a world that needs to put everyone and everything in special interest groups, terms get created and used to draw attention to and elevate the awareness of a group's concern. But as an unintended consequence, doesn't that reduce the severity and shame of a crime?
Cornell University Law School's online dictionary offers some insight into the terms assault, battery, and domestic violence:
• Assault: Intentionally putting another person in reasonable apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. No intent to cause physical injury needs to exist, and no physical injury needs to result ...
• Battery: ... a physical act that results in harmful or offensive contact with another person without that person's consent.
Although used interchangeably, in many jurisdictions assault and battery are distinct crimes.
Aggravating factors include recidivism, lack of remorse, amount of harm to the victim, or committing the crime in front of a child, among many others. The recognition of particular aggravating factors varies by jurisdiction.
• Domestic violence: Felony or misdemeanor crimes of violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabitating with or has cohabitated with the victim as a spouse or intimate partner ... .
As the mother of a daughter, I don't want crimes against women to be any less severely defined, viewed, or punished.
While I applaud and support the efforts of so many active and important groups working diligently to meet the needs of abuse victims and to draw awareness of "domestic violence," abuse, whether physical, mental, or verbal, is assault. When physical harm is done, it's assault and battery. If there are weapons used or special circumstances, it's aggravated assault and battery.
Disgustingly, those of renown, whether talented athletes, celebrity, the well-connected in business or politics or any other privileged status, may receive preferential treatment due to their "prominence."
Look at the elevator video of former Baltimore Ravens Ray Rice. Watch it with the definitions of assault, battery and domestic violence in hand.
Have we eliminated the shame and personal responsibility of crime by prettying it with words that do not convey the horror of the act?
There is nothing domestic about any violence. Violence is a crime. Let's stop making excuses.
Robin Smith, immediate past chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party, is owner of Rivers Edge Alliance.