Anatomy of Manipulation – The Jailhouse Tapes

When Women Became Victims

by Angela Marie MacDougall

Over the objection of prisoners’ groups and defense lawyers and already routine in some New York State and federal prisons, New York City changed policy in 2007 to permit the recording of prisoners telephone calls at the city jail. “Fly on the wall” accounts of emotional manipulation and threats by men cooling their heels for violence against women were documented in jail house recordings and reported in The New York Times February 2011.  Chilling in detail for the first time, the larger public got a glimpse of what women and their children deal with when surviving male violence in an intimate relationship. 

Going one step further Meet Me on the Hill Where We Used to Park:  Interpersonal Process Associated with Victim Recantations  is a U.S. study which for the first time recorded jailhouse telephone conversations between men charged with, (what they call) felony domestic violence and their woman victims to reveal why sometimes women decide not to follow through on charges. 

Researchers listened to telephone conversations between 17 accused men abusers in a Washington state detention facility and their women victims, all of whom decided to withdraw their accusations of abuse.   According to the study, the couples were aware they were being recorded through an automated message at the beginning of each call.  The analysis of the conversations confirmed what we have been seeing in our work at Battered Women’s Support Services that the men abusers are not necessarily threatening more violence rather are using a more nuanced and sophisticated appeals designed to:

• minimize their actions,
• deny the experience of the woman,
• create doubt of her account and recollection of her experience,
• blame her for his actions,
• ultimately gain the sympathy of the woman thus
• turning the focus away from any harm done to her to the sense of harm he feels is being done to him by being in jail/involved in the criminal legal system.   

Adapted from the abstract, after analyzing the calls, the researchers identified a five-step process that went from the women victims vigorously defending themselves in the phone calls to agreeing to a plan to recant their testimony against the accused abuser:

Stage 1

Typically, in the first and second conversations there is a heated argument between the couple, revolving around the event leading to the abuse charge. In these early conversations, the woman is strong, and resists the accused perpetrator’s account of what happens.  The phone calls show how the woman starts out with a sense of determination and is eager to advocate for herself, but gradually that erodes as the phone calls continue.

Stage 2

The male abusers utilizes classic emotional power and control tactics minimizing the abuse, denies that it happened at all and if it did it wasn’t that serious and if it happened it was her fault.  In one couple, where the woman suffered strangulation and a severe bite to the face, the accused male perpetrator repeatedly reminded the woman that he was being charged with "felony assault," while asking whether she thought he deserved the felony charge, eventually wearing her down where she agreed that he didn’t deserve a felony charge. 

Within the second stage the male perpetrator appeals to her sympathy describes how he is suffering, depressed, and misses her and the children.  This is often effective where she begins to provide empathic responses attempting to comfort and soothe him. 

In one case, the accused perpetrator threatened suicide and said in a phone call to the woman victim, "Nobody loves me though, right?"  At that point, the woman’s tone changed dramatically, and she sounded concerned that he might actually try to hurt himself and from then on, the woman promised to help him get out of jail.

Stage 3

In the third stage, after the accused abuser has gained the sympathy of the woman, the couple bonds over their love for each other and positions themselves against others who "don’t understand them."

Stage 4

The fourth stage involves the perpetrator asking the woman to recant her accusations against him and the woman complying.

Stage 5

Finally, in the fifth stage, the couple constructs the recantation plan and develops their stories.

My daughter Leona, who represents the larger public, not necessarily privy to first-hand survivor accounts, read the abstract and had this perspective, “We all know they (abusive men) are manipulative, it is good that this research shows in great detail exactly how they do it.”

It appears that the study was not written for larger public, like Leona, and seems to have been written for criminal legal system personnel and victim advocates.  Though identified as a target audience for the recommendations, feminist and feminist ending violence activists consulted for this blog were underwhelmed by the study and irritated by it’s premise that women and women’s advocates don’t already know this.  The overwhelming sentiment from advocates consulted for this blog, identified the challenge of working with the system where over forty years of survivor based expert information is seemingly disregarded until an academic study “reveals” it. 

“The fact that perpetrators use emotional manipulation, minimization, mothers’ guilt feelings re: children or the abuser’s welfare…this is exactly what we share with them(women). The article is disturbing, not because of some revelatory study, but because it suggests some women’s advocates and some academics ‘still don’t get’ the dynamics of woman abuse despite 40 years of experts – survivors themselves and feminist frontline workers – explaining it to them. This also implies that we ‘haven’t’ been telling (women) this, which is shocking and astounding to me.”  said “S” from Ontario

Alison Brewin, gender consultant and former executive director, West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund shared these thoughts, “…but does this research surprise you at all? Anyone who understands women’s lives understands the complexities of loyalty, love and the profound pressure to keep a family together…our society is designed to support women keeping their men and fathers of their children in the nuclear family unit and it usually results in women doing a whole lot of ‘compromising’ including keeping an abusive and violent spouse in the home for the social and economic ‘benefits’ that entails.”

Curiously, the study characterizes the actions of the perpetrators as “witness tampering”, and the U.S. has witness tampering laws.   Canada doesn’t have “witness tampering” laws per se, however Section 139 of the Criminal Code is close.  Contemplating these manipulative actions of perpetrators as obstructing the legal proceedings could benefit from more legal analysis.  As a legal strategy for crown prosecutors, this may have benefit and a measure of balance for women who are forced to navigate a violent abusive partner and a criminal legal system that needs it’s witnesses.  I have never heard of a case where a perpetrator was further charged under this section for manipulating women victims to recant.  I have, however, seen and heard numerous instances where women victims are punished by the criminal legal system for failing to participate in the criminal legal proceedings as witnesses to their own assault.  At Battered Women’s Support Services, we have often heard criminal legal system personnel refer to women victims as “reluctant” witnesses and how problematic that is for them and for the criminal legal system.  Marjaneh Aghamohseni, Battered Women’s Support Services Victim Service Worker said, “Some abused women recant out of fears/terror/distress since they are afraid of further violence by him. Based on women’s experiences with the police, they know that the accused will be released on conditions after arrest. If there is a protection order in place, it gets complicated if he pretends that he wants to see his child. Police tend to be on his side. But we know that this is another tactic from the abuser to continue his abusive behaviours.”

When it comes to violence against women in intimate relationships, through our work at Battered Women’s Support Services we have identified at least three areas that the criminal legal system can’t navigate…well:

1. Women who self-defend (here’s what we have written on women arrests,  resources we have written for women and advocates and stay tuned, there is more to come)
2. Women who “recant”
3. Survivor-based and/or feminist anti violence activist knowledge and experience

“E” from Vancouver had these thoughts, “Really when you think about it, the recant issue is something that has been going on for a very long time.  Though women who have been charged with assault (in the numbers we are seeing these days) is comparatively new, in both of these situations the feminist anti violence activists knowledge isn’t acknowledged, foremost, in these discussions even though we would have seen these things long before the system.”

“S” from Ontario further added, “If this study provides ‘proof’ of what survivors, feminists, advocates and countless authors have been saying all along about male violence against women, well I can only ask why four decades of women’s voices wasn’t proof enough?”

Annie Zhang, Battered Women’s Support Services Legal Advocate shared this regarding the women who self-defend and the women who recant,  "The issues in both categories, in my opinion, demonstrate the shortcomings of the criminal justice system not only in providing protection toward battered women, but in achieving its own ends of convicting the guilty while protecting the innocent.”

When Women Became Victims Series:

Risk Assessment – E-Learnings

Social Justice VS Criminal Justice

In consultation with the University of Calgary Moot team and in preparation for the 2011 Kawaskimhon Moot held in Vancouver from March 5-7, 2011, Battered Women’s Support Services initiated a call for a Royal Commission on Violence against Aboriginal Girls and Women. A royal commission has the ability to address the historic, social, legal, economic, child welfare and political challenges facing Aboriginal girls and women across Canada, while recognizing that violence against Aboriginal girls and women is a grave national concern.

In order to redress systemic inequality and to eliminate this violence, BWSS stresses that there is a responsibility by all to address this issue. BWSS is recommending this Royal Commission on Violence Against Aboriginal Girls and Women not only to address the gaps and to address issues affecting Aboriginal women and girls, but to also make concrete and specific recommendations to end violence against Aboriginal women and girls at a national level.

Read the entire document here.

A Journey to Freedom: Supporting Refugee Women Who Are Dealing with Violence
By Rosa Elena Arteaga, Manager, Direct Services & Programs

At BWSS we have been supporting a number of refugee women who have experienced violence and who are going through their refugee process. During the last twelve months a high percentage of the women who accessed our services and who were going through their refugee process had their claims accepted.

It has been a long journey for the women to reach an official answer that acknowledges that they have the right to protection and freedom from abuse. Each woman has a journey that stems from their strength to escape from their abusive partners, from their country of origin, to the strength to come to an unknown country with the only hope to finally become free from violence. However, at their arrival, they had to face a system that does not understand violence against women and its effects as well as a system that does not understand the migration of abuse across the lifecycle, which follows girls and women through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and as elders.

What did it take for the women to succeed with their claim for freedom? For some of them, it took the support from a family member, a friend, or a neighbour who helped them to escape to Canada. In Canada, it took the support of an anti-violence women’s organization, BWSS, which assisted them to access the right lawyer, the right interpreter, and the right counsellor. BWSS team supported each by identifying and understanding the range of needs from forced migration, sexual violence, and intimate violence to the spectrum of cultural needs. It took an approach which identifies the strength, barriers, needs and support needed from settlement to empowerment.

It took the consistency and commitment of the BWSS team to support each woman’s journey through its programming such as legal advocacy, Stopping The Violence counselling, language specific support groups, and employment program. For the majority of the women their refugee process took more than a year and during that year they were consistently accessing BWSS programs. In addition, it took the willingness of their immigration lawyers to learn and understand about the impacts of abuse. The lawyers became aware that women’s lost of memory, lack of trust, and their overwhelming fear does not relate to their intellectual capacity, cultural background or the veracity of their story, rather it relates to the impact of the violence that they have experienced though their whole life.

Finally, it took the women’s strength and resilience to escape from violence, to expose themselves to strangers and tell their stories, their consistency in contacting their friends, neighbours, family, women’s organizations in their countries of origin so they could gather evidence and expose that gender violence is a social issue and that women’s right to protection is not merely granted.

After a long and painful journey each woman has identified her unique strength, her value, her success and her right to live free from violence. We at BWSS stand and work in solidarity with all women who are on a journey to freedom.

Inspiring Stories, Amazing Women, Ending Violence
By Angela Marie MacDougall

Think about Battered Women’s Support Services as concentric circles or a web of interconnected experiences, lives and stories steeped in survival, hope and effective change.  At the centre are women who access our services, on a continuum of living with power and control including physical and sexual violence.  Women who are seeking safety, living the complex reality of staying in an abusive relationship with the hope that “he will change”, leaving for a while, getting a taste of freedom and being pulled back by fear, societal pressures, systemic barriers, returning with the hope that “things will change”.

Throughout that process reaching out to lean on another through our support groups, our crisis line, our counselling, our legal advocacy, our workshops, our employment program, our specialized services and finding other women who are also finding a sense of personal power and empowerment.  Who are living free of violence.

Statistically, women will stay, leave and return seven times before leaving for good, and some women never leave.  As one 86 year old woman said, “if I had support like I have received at BWSS when I was younger I would have left a long time ago.”

Yes, all women of all ages, 14 – 86 who are dealing with power and control in their relationships including sexual and physical violence access BWSS.  Each woman, or girl, with a painful journey of injustice and harm who are writing strength, survival and hope into their story through their contact with Battered Women’s Support Services, this year well over 8,000.

Women Who Volunteer

Women who volunteer with us who are also on a continuum who through their experiences have decided that they want to connect or reconnect with a community of women giving back to help other women find a way to live violence free.  On Thursday, March 31, 2011, eight-six women attended our annual Volunteer Appreciation Event.  Though we like to think we are demonstrating appreciation to women who volunteer with us every day, our annual event is the only time when all volunteers, staff and board members get together to acknowledge, recognize and celebrate.

Women who volunteer at BWSS are a true reflection of our communities and tell the story of women’s survival and women’s liberation.  This year was our biggest and best event ever.  With the microphone open, women shared their stories of the connections, relationships and positive impact volunteering at BWSS has made in their lives and the impact they’ve been able to make in the lives of other women, children and men.

Staff Team

Our staff team, women who are committing their lives to the work of ending violence against women as a personal mission statement dovetailing with the mission of Battered Women’s Support Services. Indigenous women from Indigenous communities in Canada reaching out to Indigenous women living in the urban settings and on reserves linking the abuse in their intimate relationships to the very making of this nation as a nation and that personal safety is linked to Indigenous sovereignty.  Recent Immigrant women delivering information, counselling, support groups in languages including Farsi, Punjabi and Spanish integrating critical cultural nuances that speak deeply and profoundly.  BWSS Women counsellors working with women who are so impacted by lives filled with physical and sexual violence the trauma lives deep inside well after the abuser(s) have left assisting women unravel the experiences, piecing back together that which has been fractured, shattered…

Board Members

Our board members, strong women leaders, leading change in their respective professional and personal lives while lending their wisdom and guidance to the governance and strategic direction of Battered Women’s Support Services.  Strong leadership growing authentically from years of experience ending violence in the diverse communities of women and feminist organizing.

Ending Violence

And the activism, BWSS staff, help women prepare, then accompany and successfully advocate for Refugee women to achieve refugee status, when after 20+ years of dismissing deaths of marginalized women (disproportionately Indigenous women) our staff who occupied the Vancouver Police department and said in no uncertain terms “enough is enough”, our staff who stand up to government policies like changes to Family Relations Act, restructuring of Bridging Employment programs, changes to immigration sponsorship that will disproportionally impact abused Immigrant women, proactively addressing bad practices in co-ed emergency shelters where women have been sexually assaulted, our staff who take the streets to stand up for women who are missing and who didn’t survive.  And will do it again, in a moment’s notice.

Each amazing woman with a story of overcoming, embracing and embodying survival and empowerment; grounding herself in her personal experience fueling her forward to effective change in her life, in her relationships, in her community and in the larger society, like ripples in a pond reaching our larger community regionally, provincially, nationally and internationally.

Our current issue of Women Making Waves is going to print; it has taken a while to get to this issue because we’ve been busy ending violence against girls and women.  In this issue we celebrate our positive and effective change, inspiring stories, and all the amazing women who are ending violence.

Battered Women’s Support Services will march in the International Day for the Elimination of Racism on Sunday, March 20th in downtown Vancouver-Coast Salish Territories. We will be marching alongside community members coming together to commemorate the struggle and strength of Indigenous and racialized people while we continue our fight against all forms of oppression.

The march will begin from the Waterfront Skytrain Station at 2:00 pm.

For more information, click here.

This website was created by two sisters working on their PhD’s in Utah and has a mandate to expose unrealistic ideals of beauty in the media and “take back” beauty for women and girls.

Read about Photoshopping in the media and how the objectification of women is a key contributing factor in violence; see how media representations play mind games.

Tips on how to “take back beauty” for Boys and Men

An evening of music for downtown eastside residents

Thank you, February 14th Women’s Memorial March Committee, for this vision and the steadfast leadership of women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, bringing courage and commitment to remember and honour the missing and murdered women of the downtown eastside. Now in its 20th year, the February 14th Women’s Memorial March is an immensely powerful women’s action that anchors the tenacious fight for remembrance and justice to end violence against women.

Friday, February 11, 2011
Doors at 7 • Show from 8PM to Midnight
W2 – 151 West Cordova

No charge • Alcohol free • Child friendly event
Food + Beverages available

Their Spirits Live Within Us final line up has been confirmed:

Whyte Feather
Murray Porter
SPIN EL Poeta
Little Hawk
Bitterly Divine
Dalannah Bowen
JB The First Lady
Arlette Alcock
Stephanie Pedraza
M’Girl
Faith Nolan

To Reserve seats email endingviolence@bwss.org

“It’s hard enough to get a job today. Imagine trying to enter the workforce after spending nearly two decades in a refugee camp. That’s the harsh reality for more than 40 million people around the globe who are currently displaced by armed conflict, human rights abuses and natural disasters. Forced to flee their homes and their jobs, they’ve been thrust into a world with little means of supporting themselves and their families.”

Read the entire article about the Women’s Refugee Commission is working on that problem in its three-year Livelihoods Project and watch a video on Care2.com

Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), is a network of feminists and activists working for economic and gender justice and political transformation in the Economic South. From the 20-23 of November 2010, several feminists from South Africa gathered in Accra, Ghana for the Regional Consultation and Training on Gender, Economic and Environmental Justice. Together, they have asserted a statement on Gender, Economic and Environmental which can be found on the DAWN website.

This statement includes an acknowledgment of the importance of the African Women’s Decade, a celebration of the African Union Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, a call to ratify and implement the Maputo Protocol, a call for solutions to climate change based on social justice and human rights, and a demand that governments end policies which threaten food sovereignty.

To read more, add your support to the statement, or download the PDF, click here. You will be redirected to the DAWN website.

Battered Women’s Support Services announces a strategic leadership program for all women interested in specialized training that will empower their roles in ending violence against women.

In its mission to end violence against women, Battered Women’s Support Services is offering the training program at no charge to attendees and invites all interested women to reserve their spot early as space is limited.

Please download the following information leaflet to learn more about this exciting opportunity: