Sentences for vehicular assault often depend on the severity of the victim’s injury. A sentence can range from probation with no jail to eight or more years in prison.
Spousal assault
Also known as domestic assault or intimate partner violence, spousal assault usually involves violence between domestic partners and is most often committed by men toward women. Female victims of such violence are usually emotionally attached and often financially dependent on their abusers, which may lead them to go through what’s known as the cycle of domestic violence (see Figure 5-1).
Domestic violence victim services are much more commonplace today than 20 years ago. These services include short-term shelters for women and children fleeing from violence, along with counseling and employment services to help victims break the cycle. Perhaps not coincidentally, victimization survey results show that incidents of domestic violence in the United States have been steadily declining since 1993. (Check out Chapter 3 for more on victimization surveys and Chapter 4 for more on victim services.)
FIGURE 5-1: The cycle of domestic violence.
In cases of spousal assault, conflicts sometimes occur between law enforcement officers and victim service providers. Law enforcement officers are generally concerned with obtaining evidence to punish the violent offender. On the other hand, victim service providers want to protect the victim. In doing so, they may take actions that inhibit an investigation, such as refusing to disclose the victim’s location to police.
Fortunately, as victims’ rights have become a more significant part of the criminal justice system, such conflicts are becoming less common (see Chapter 4 for more on victims’ rights). Nonetheless, finding a female domestic violence victim who is willing to cooperate with the prosecution against an offender is still unusual. Often, the victim refuses to cooperate.
Because most domestic violence doesn’t involve severe injuries, a typical sentence for a spousal assault charge involves probation and some jail time, along with requirements to complete anger management training and perhaps drug or alcohol treatment. Sometimes, however, spousal abuse does result in serious injury to the victim. When that occurs, the offenders may receive prison sentences of one to ten years or more.
Child abuse
Traditionally, courts have shown great deference to parents with regard to child-rearing strategies, but criminal child abuse or child neglect is generally far beyond anything that can be considered “parenting.” For example, in the homes of parents who are drug addicts, it’s common to find pet and human feces throughout the house, garbage piled up so that the floor isn’t even visible, and drug paraphernalia strewn about. Children may regularly watch their parents do drugs, and they may go without proper food or medical care for extended periods of time.
In addition to narcotics abuse, which is an issue in many child abuse cases, parents may also abuse children because they learned the behavior from their own parents. If parents were abused as children, they may not know other skills for dealing with children and may resort to violence when they’re angry or frustrated. Such violence can include physically beating a child, hitting a child with a belt or bat, burning a child’s skin with a cigarette, and shaking a baby. (Because an infant’s brain is so vulnerable, just one or two violent shakes can result in serious injury or even death — a situation called shaken baby syndrome.)
Like violent crime in general, incidents of child abuse have been dropping over the last 25 years. Still, an estimated 1,600 children died as a result of abuse or neglect in 2016. And over 74 percent of child abuse takes the form of neglect — failing to provide basic, essential services rather than physical or sexual violence.
Sentences for child abuse can range from probation to lengthy prison sentences. Judges prefer to keep families intact — if doing so won’t put the child in danger — so probationary sentences that require the defendant to undergo parenting education and drug or alcohol treatment are fairly common.
Forty-eight states now require certain professionals, such as teachers and health care providers to report to child welfare agencies if they see evidence of abuse. These are known as mandatory child abuse reporting laws, and are a significant tool in the fight against child abuse.
Forcing Sexual Contact: Rape, Sodomy, and Child Molestation
Sexual violence can take many forms, from improper sexual touching to sodomy and rape, and most states have numerous laws that punish each and every one. For example, a state may have several degrees of rape, sodomy, and sexual abuse that vary based on the age and mental capacity of the victim and on the offender’s use of force.
In this section, I take a closer look at what constitutes rape, sodomy, and child molestation, as well as what sentences these crimes carry with them.
Rape and sodomy
The crime of rape traditionally requires proof that someone (usually a man) forcibly compelled someone else (usually a woman) to have sexual intercourse. However, rape can also involve consensual sexual intercourse between an adult and a partner under the age of 18 (a crime called statutory rape) or intercourse with someone whom the law deems incapable of consent because of a mental handicap. The word sodomy refers to forced anal or oral sex or to those same acts when they’re done consensually between an adult and a juvenile.
Society once believed that rape and sodomy were offenses committed by men unable to control their sexual desires. But in the past 30 years or so, society has come to see crimes such as rape and sodomy as violent acts that result in lasting physical and emotional damage to the victim.
For example, date rape, a kind of rape that appears most often in campus settings, is when someone you know forces you to have sexual intercourse, usually at the end of a date or other social outing. One reason why date rape appears in campus settings is because a large percentage of all rapes are committed by men under the age of 25. Higher levels of alcohol and