Lopez

Maria Lopez
UWRT 1103
Professor Blandford
11/04/15
Extended Inquiry: Domestic Abuse Survivors Behind Bars
When I first chose my topic, incarcerated survivors of domestic abuse, I was ignorant of
the matter outside of the tidbits of information I gathered several months ago from a
documentary entitled Crime After Crime. In the beginning, I had an idle interest in the sociology
of women in prison. After reading two books and a dozen articles featuring interviews with
convicted survivors, watching three documentaries on the subject (Sin by Silence being the
highlight) and writing three letters to women in prison (but receiving no replies), my
understanding of the topic drastically improved, and my perception of battered women in prison
changed completely. The more information I gained, the more difficult it became to remain
impartial on a subject that I was increasingly passionate about. I dismissed my initial attempts to
write an objective account after I realized that this inquiry is a reflection on my composing
processes and critical reading skills. My literary voice for this piece is different from the
nonpartisan and academic tone I have taken for past research assignments in similar English
classes. Being genuinely interested in my topic, as macabre a topic as it may be, was a
motivating factor throughout my approach. Learning to question my sources, think critically and
reflect on my writing gave me the insight to engage in discourse about my topic. During the
hours I spent in the J. Murrey Atkins library, I learned as much about writing and composing as I
did about the plight of convicted survivors.

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The majority of my research was depressing. I discovered, for instance, that the United
States is the world leader in imprisoning its citizens (Leonard 57). Today, over 2,000,000 adults
live in our countrys massive prison system. 200,000 of those prisoners are women. According to
Convicted Survivors: The Imprisonment of Battered Women Who Kill, most female prisoners in
the United States are low income, disproportionately African and Hispanic, undereducated,
unskilled with sporadic employment histories and mostly young, single, heads of households,
with the majority having at least two children (Leonard 58). Disturbingly, many female inmates
are also survivors of domestic violence, with nearly eight in ten admitting to physical abuse
during their lifetime. These women have been repeatedly abused, physically, sexually, and/or
psychologically They have suffered cuts, bruises, lacerations, broken noses, broken bones
dislocations, miscarriages, serious internal bleeding, concussions, and subdural hematomas
(Leonard 58). Government surveys estimate that 50% of women in prison have experienced
violence at the hands of an intimate partner. A Department of Corrections study employed in a
Chicago womens prison found that 40% of inmates convicted of murder or manslaughter had
killed partners who continually abused them; often, these same women repeatedly and
unsuccessfully attempted to obtain police protection before resorting to acts of violence
themselves (Snell & Morton 80). The high rates of victimization that these women have
experienced throughout their lives increase the likelihood that they will enter the justice system
as a defendant (Leonard 25).
However, most battered women either suffer in silence or successfully remove
themselves from the toxic relationship, with only a small percentage of domestic abuse victims
ultimately taking their abusers life. Studies on battered women, who kill abusive partners in
self-defense, such as Leonards oft-quoted Convicted Survivors, show how women can become

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trapped in toxic relationships by repeated incidents of severe violence. Leonard profiles women
serving time for killing their abuser as: approximately forty-seven years old (thirteen years older
than the median age of the average female inmate) and likely to have been financially supported
by a partner until the incident in question (Leonard 59). Compared to survivors of domestic
abuse who do not become violent, women who take the life of their abuser are more likely to
suffer exceptionally chronic and acute abuse, including brutal sexual assault and frequent death
threats, especially threats of retaliation for leaving the relationship. They endure more severe
injuries, and deeper social isolation, than their peers (Ewing 593).
Encouragingly, a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that the number of
intimate partner homicides in the United States dropped by over 60% from 1976 to 1998. The
largest drop was for women who kill their partners. A 1989 study by Browne and Williams
entitled Exploring the Effect of Resource Availability and the Likelihood of Female-Perpetrated
Homicides suggested that this decrease could be due to the increased availability of domestic
violence services for women. Women who previously had no resources to help facilitate their
escape from an abusive relationship suddenly had advocates, such as the National Domestic
Violence Hotline.
Unsurprisingly, considering the distressing subject matter, the rhetoric I encountered was
strongly opinionated and highly persuasive. Un-Domesticating Violence: Criminalizing
Survivors and U.S. Mass Incarceration in particular contained a contagious rate towards the
system. Some of the sources, including an outrageously indignant guerilla feminist periodical
entitled Off Our Backs, I encountered were so irate in their tone and one-sided in perspective that
I refrained from using them. A few of my chosen sources, like Psychological Self-Defense: A
Proposed Justification for Battered Women Who Kill were breakdowns of legislature and case

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files, obviously intended for lawyers studying incarcerated survivors. Regardless of the tone and
intended audience, all of the sources I used had one thing in common: the inclusion of brutal,
first-hand accounts of chronic abuse. The literacy surrounding this topic is contingent upon
creating discourse between the reader and the imprisoned women through the use of humanizing
stories. After reading personal narratives, such as the story of Leslie, a woman who lived in a
rural and isolated mobile home with her abusive husband and their two small children, it
becomes easier to understand the manner in which years of physical abuse and claustrophobic
control could make a person snap in defense of their lives. Leslie had no education, no skills
and job. Furthermore, her husband insisted that if she told anyone about the abuse, sought help or
attempted to leave him, he would kill her. The night she finally told someone, he offered her the
choice between killing herself, or having him kill her and their two children the following
morning. She responded by shooting him five times in the head while he slept (Ewing 580).
Shooting a sleeping man seems the act of a cold-blooded psychopath, not one of self-defense,
until the reader is learns the details of battered women syndrome and learned helplessness:
Though these women may not be faced with a choice of killing or being killed,
many are confronted with a dilemma nearly as dreadful. Unable to escape (or
unable to recognize any viable means of escape) from the battering relationship,
they face the choice of killing (either their battered or themselves) or being
reduced to a psychological state in which their continued physical existence will
have little if any meaning or value the result for the battered women is a life
hardly worth living (Ewing 587).
By giving the reader the correct context in which to view the crime of a battered woman killing
her abuser, the rhetoric is made much more persuasive. Furthermore, by emphasizing the mental

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state that repeated violence creates in a person, the exigency of the situation is made urgent and
pleading. The respective authors are adamant about explaining that the issue of women killing
their abusers is complex, and that the system needs to be drastically reformed to prevent these
tragic situations from occurring.
Although the reader may feel that Leslie had a third choice aside from killing herself or
killing her husband, the choice to simply walk away, defenders of battered women are quick to
note that many women are psychologically trapped in an abusive situation that severely limits
their ability to successfully escape the relationship. For many battered women, physical
resistance is their only way to grasp for survival (Duley 83).
In comparison to my literacy memoir, this extended inquiry was more troublesome to
write, when I wrote my memoir, the only research I did was reflecting inwards on my early
experiences with reading and writing. It only took me a few hours, whereas my inquiry has been
a much longer and more involved process, including several days of reading and research. A
second major difference between this assignment and my literacy memoir is that I am now more
comfortable being reflective, and with the knowledge that I will not come up with any definitive
answers or solutions. At the end of my literacy memoir, I attempted to neatly tie everything
together in a concrete way because I did not yet comprehend the nature of rhetoric. With my
extended inquiry, I recognize that my knowledge of battered women in prison has grown, and my
old perceptions have changed, but I have still only scratched the surface when it comes to
understanding the complex identity of convicted survivors.
Truthfully, my research has only led me to more questions. For instance, what preemptive measures should we take as a society to make sure that women (or men) in abusive
relationships have outlets of escape? Why is it so difficult for battered women to gain restraining

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orders against their abusers? Would better laws and resources regarding domestic abuse create an
increased reduction in battered women killing their abusers? Lastly, what is life like for a
convicted battered woman after she is released from prison?
The most interesting aspect of this inquiry has been the slow process through which the
sources changed my perspective on incarcerated survivors of domestic violence. I started off as a
completely uninformed bystander, and I believed that any person who takes another life,
regardless of the conditions surrounding that event, should be persecuted to the full extent of the
law. Now, I truly believe that when battered women kill, their unique, traumatic circumstances
should be considered, most especially since many of the women tried, and failed, to obtain
restraining orders or police intervention before taking matters into their own hands. Although the
intent of this inquiry was to explore an Other identity, I learned much about myself, and how I
relate to other people. Literacy is a powerful tool of understanding capable of changing people;
reading the highly opinionated and informed views of authors like Elizabeth Dermondy and
Kolleen Duley altered me in unexpected ways. I sincerely hope that the imprisoned women I
wrote to will eventually write me back, because I have become sincerely invested in the
predicament that they face.

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Works Cited
"Statistics on Women Offenders- 2015." Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the
District of Columbia. Bureau of Justice, Jan. 2015. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
<http://www.csosa.gov/reentry/news/statistics-on-women-offenders-2015.pdf>.
Browne, A., and K.R. Williams. "Exploring the effect of resource availability and the likelihood
of female-perpetrated homicides." Law and Society Review 23: 75-94. Print.
Duley, Kolleen. Un-Domesticating Violence: Criminalizing Survivors and U.S. Mass
Incarceration. Women & Therapy 29.3 (2008): 75-96. Web. Academic Search Complete.
21. Oct. 2015
Ewing, Charles Patrick. "Psychological Self-Defense: A Proposed Justification for Battered
Women Who Kill." Law and Human Behavior 14.6 (1990): 579-94. JSTOR. Web. 21 Oct.
2015.
Leonard, Elizabeth Dermondy. Convicted Survivors: The Imprisonment of Battered Women
Who Kill. New York: State University of New York Press, 2002. Wed. 24 Oct. 2015.
Peagler, Deborah, perf. Crime After Crime. Dir. Yoav Potash. Sundance Documentary Film
Program, 2011. Web. 5 Sept. 2015.
Snell, Tracy L., and Danielle C. Morton. "Women in Prison." Bureau of Justice Stastics. Bureau
of Justice Statistics, Mar. 1994. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/WOPRIS.PDF>