Introduction
There are myriad types of crimes that do not resemble the nonprofessional’s understanding of the term crime. In this case, family violence means the art of mistreatment of one family member to another. It can also be referred to as the violence that occurs between two people who are living in a close relationship. This may include spouses, people of the same sex, and other family members among other parties. The history of the Victorian women is widely known for their experiences against family violence. If not taken care of, family violence can lead to death, which is logically referred to as preventable death (Dziedzic, 2009). Besides that, it can lead to artificial disability and illness in the victims of the circumstance. To be precise, family violence appears as a threatening, coercive and controlling behavior that families. It may incorporate physical injury, which directs threats to one of the parties that are involved. Some of the threats are followed by sexual assault, emotional as well as psychological torment, and damage of the acquired property, intentional economic control, and social isolation among other weird behavior that may lead to fear. Family violence can be categorically being termed as one domestic crime. This means that its effects can be adversely such that they extend to the entire fraternity in the family. This includes the children who may not be the initial initiators of this violence.
Ideally, family violence can be subdivided into different subtopics. Some of these subtopics include child abuse, intimate partners, and elder abuse. The larger the concept is, the larger the effect of family violence is. For instance, it is characterized by criminal offenses, behavioral acts as well as medical glitches. Most cases where family violence is dominant, the victim of family violence are usually the women. Many cases support the opinion that the people who face trouble during the domestically related violence are the women.
Lissette Ochoa domestic violence case is one of the proofs of the most of the cases that show the meaning of family violence. This case occurred in Columbia between spouses. Like stated in the earlier analysis of family violence, this family violence occurred because of differences in the elite social status. The case was before Lissete Ochoa and she husband whose name was Rafael Dangond. Their violence story is like many other stories (Dziedzic, 2009). To start with, the husband and the wife originated from divinely constructed cultural backgrounds. Despite the fact that they came from different cultures, they did not have solid and substantial differences that could have caused a misunderstanding between them. Time to time, the difference in culture is usually one of the reasons for a lovely family relationship to be torn apart in a matter of a very short time.
Rafael is the perpetrator of the crime against his spouse. He came from a very humble background. In his culture, he was taught two kinds of social attributes that do not rhyme with the act that he expressed to his lovely wife. These two important values included non-violence attitudes and tolerance. The culture observed the need to promote non-violence, not only in family matters, but also in incidences of other communal activities, as well as economic participation. Ideally, besides being nonviolent figures, they were also required by the culture to be tolerant. It is clear that the two values rhymed in a manner that one of them led to the development of the other. Tolerance is deemed to lead to a nonviolent personality (Dziedzic, 2009). This meant that his cultural background could not have led to the incidence of violence acts that were perpetrated by Rafael.
On the other hand, he came from a middle class family. This means that most of the basic amenities that a child requires when growing were present with him. His parents were teachers. The parents’ had very strict religious believes. . This meant that they could not have led to this mischief. They were very friendly and understanding as deemed in their earlier lives according to their son Rafael. Despite the fact that there were not enough resources to take Rafael and his siblings to expensive private schools, they managed to go through school and earned good academic credentials (Hattery, 2012). However, a one-night situation was different from the normal livelihood of the family. His mother was alleged to having cheated on their father for some time. This incidence led to a constant disorientation of the father. According the change that occurred to his father’s psychological status, he could stand the pressure. He fought against his wife to a situation of nearly taking away her life. The latter situations led to a divorce in the family where the mother was excommunicated. Later in that year, the mother took away her life by hanging. Despite the fact, the mother was the wrong one in that incident; the psychological effect could have been installed in Rafael’s mind in terms of losing his parent through suicide.
The family used to have a series of quarrels on what was considered as normal family issues. However, the quarrels started after nine years of marriage. They began because of some economic recession period that required them to have partition on the expenditure. This means that each of the members of the family, Rafael and his wife had a responsibility to carry. As soon as Lissette was fired from a good paying job, complex economic environment did not support any extra expenditure. These situations lead the wife to go seeking part time jobs. It would be considered unfortunate that she acquired one with former schoolmate man. This was not mesmerizing to the husband, Rafael. He felt a sense of insecurity that led to his drinking and taking consolation substances to help him forget the possibility of his wife cheating on him. However, this did not go on for a very long time until the situation where a man felt that his insecurity was consuming him. They started having quarrels that were astonishing due to the loud noises as well as the terms that they used against each other.
The worse condition was experienced on 29 July 2009 when these normal incidences could not prevail. The two were invited for the wedding preparation party at a normal exclusive club that was situated in a near town; the two attended the party in good faith. They drunk out their wits, and it was time to dance. Rafael faced an annoying situation. Most spouses danced together. This never happened with Rafael. Instead, Lissette, his wife, went ahead and held hands with his old time school mate who was also his part time employer. This situation was not enjoyable enough for Rafael to wait. He headed for the Bathroom and cocked his gun. He later propelled towards the exit and then pulled his wife away in a bid to attract the room for discussion. The wife triggered his anger by pushing him aside and made him fall. As if not enough, Rafael dragged her to the car and drove off in astonishing silence. After arriving at home, he dragged her out of the car and shot her aimlessly due to instability of the alcohol he had taken together with other inhalants that he had started using. The close friends came to her rescue and rushed her to the hospital. It was very fortunate that he shot her from her left arm. The police were alarmed, and he was taken to custody for questioning. Despite the fact that Rafael was trying to drive his point home to his wife that he did not approve of the intimacy between her and the employer, he seemed to have lost it all. That is, he had lost his family’s confidence and love, and he was added to the state’s record of criminals and drug addicts.
After a detailed analysis and research the factors that led to such an act, there was a series of confessions that were retrieved from Rafael. Initially, he had psychological problems. This was closely attributed to the history. Dating back when he was young, he felt the risk of losing his wife to her employer as it happened with his father. In addition to that, he felt that he could not manage to divorce his wife based on something that he believed he could have handled since he had experienced the pain in his life. His overprotective attitude led to a partial mental illness. Psychology determines that when one element disturbs someone from time to time, then one acquires some partial permanence in that mentality. This means that one cannot easily get that mentality, not unless continued monitoring and acceptance to adopt something different is exercised (Dziedzic, 2009). Psychological problem was one of the confessions that Rafael made to the authorities.
Besides the psychological problem, Rafael also confessed after a medical checkup that he was over-possessive with his wife. However, he did not have a way to express it to her that he feared that what happened to his father was likely to happen to him. In a bid to forget all that, he went ahead and took drugs that could have resulted to partial madness. His constant use of alcohol and cocaine resulted to illusion thoughts. The use of drugs was one of the reasons why he managed to shot at his spouse. The continued substance use of any hard drug by someone who is not used to him or her can lead to permanent damage of the brain (Hattery, 2012). That is, the person in question can engage in activities without taking precaution of the sanity behind it.
Any crime is subject to punishment or forgiveness. However, this decision always lies upon the hands of the victim of the judicial system. After this case went to the media, the public demanded immediate justice. The people who rescued the woman made this intervention public. They took photographs of the incidence and uploaded them over the internet. Because of the complete knowledge of the concerned activists, Rafael did not have a choice but to end up in jail. However, it was very ironical to find that there was a different perspective of dealing with issues affecting the home. To start with, Lissette wrote a letter of concern (Hattery, 2012). The content of the letter was determined to show the meaning the heart of a matrimonial home. In her conscious state, she was said to have dropped the charges thus leading to the termination of the criminal proceedings as well as the divorce that was being prepared. The used a very possessive statement, “Raphael is mine.” Besides that, she cut all the communication between her and her parents. She did this to react against the pressure that she received from her parents and relatives to let the law take its course.
This incidence is a proposal on the best corrective measures that can be carried out to such perpetrators. The first element understands. After that, this person is supposed to undergo legalized rehabilitation. This starts by medical rehabilitation for him or her to regain a sane status. After this, the mental and psychological mentorship can be done. The reason why the first thing that is proposed for this kind of perpetrator is not punishment is that it becomes very hard to determine the reason behind his actions. Punishment could not be a recommendable process. This event involved life and death and the followed by forgiveness brought about need for social awareness and revision on the procedure that the law is believed to take upon such cases. Family violence is usually an internal incidence, which can cause death or disability. It is, therefore, the responsibility of social organisations to create awareness to prevent such incidences from happening.
References
Davis, R. L. (2008). Domestic violence: Intervention, prevention, policies, and solutions. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Dziedzic, N. G. (2009). Family violence. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press.
Family Violence Prevention Fund (U.S.) (2005). Family violence prevention and health practice: An e-journal of the Family Violence Prevention Fund. San Francisco, CA: Family Violence Prevention Fund.
Hattery, A., & Smith, E. (2012). The social dynamics of family violence. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press.
