In response to this I would say that the studies here overrely on self report, which is inherently flawed when asking someone to report on a character flaw
I go back the philosophical question: if you beat your partner would you reveal this to an academic who is going to put it on the record?
The original source of the oft-spread “40%” figure also counted incidents where the one reporting was the victim. If cop/civilian couple had “a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger” within the relationship, with the cop being on the receiving end of the civilian spouse’s ‘abuse’, that relationship was tossed into the ‘domestic violence’ bucket, because it was actually counting relationships, not cops.
My point is that yes, you can definitely argue one might be reluctant to admit to one’s own acts of DV, but I don’t think anonymously reporting your spouse’s acts against you would be ‘stifled’ the same way.
I agree with you in that it wouldn’t stifled the same way but I still think it would be an inherently flawed measure in determining the true number of cases, which is probably impossible. Going back to my original post even if you allowed anonymous reporting I’m betting a lot of partners would still not speak out due to intimidation and you would probably get some false positives (though admittedly this is probably significantly less of a concern)
Doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing as it would probably get you something closer to an accurate number but the accurate number is likely impossible to measure
At the same time, any effect like this would likely be present to an equal or very similar degree in any measurement of DV among the general population, so while it could be harder to confidently report an absolute figure, you could much more confidently compare them relative to each other (such that you can easily refute “three times more likely” claims like in the OP).
In response to this I would say that the studies here overrely on self report, which is inherently flawed when asking someone to report on a character flaw
I go back the philosophical question: if you beat your partner would you reveal this to an academic who is going to put it on the record?
Some may, but a lot won’t. Inherently flawed.
The original source of the oft-spread “40%” figure also counted incidents where the one reporting was the victim. If cop/civilian couple had “a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger” within the relationship, with the cop being on the receiving end of the civilian spouse’s ‘abuse’, that relationship was tossed into the ‘domestic violence’ bucket, because it was actually counting relationships, not cops.
My point is that yes, you can definitely argue one might be reluctant to admit to one’s own acts of DV, but I don’t think anonymously reporting your spouse’s acts against you would be ‘stifled’ the same way.
I agree with you in that it wouldn’t stifled the same way but I still think it would be an inherently flawed measure in determining the true number of cases, which is probably impossible. Going back to my original post even if you allowed anonymous reporting I’m betting a lot of partners would still not speak out due to intimidation and you would probably get some false positives (though admittedly this is probably significantly less of a concern)
Doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing as it would probably get you something closer to an accurate number but the accurate number is likely impossible to measure
At the same time, any effect like this would likely be present to an equal or very similar degree in any measurement of DV among the general population, so while it could be harder to confidently report an absolute figure, you could much more confidently compare them relative to each other (such that you can easily refute “three times more likely” claims like in the OP).