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 Law professor and Attorney Dr. Vahit Bıçak agreed. "Prisons in Turkey are not places to rehabilitate inmates, whether domestic violence offenders or otherwise," he told Sunday"™s Zaman. Bıçak, who has done extensive research on violence against women and the related legal infrastructure, said Turkey"™s prisons are more akin to "crime schools."
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-270499-rehab-for-domestic-violence-offenders----is-turkey-ready.html
Law professor and Attorney Dr. Vahit Bıçak agreed. "Prisons in Turkey are not places to rehabilitate inmates, whether domestic violence offenders or otherwise," he told Sunday"™s Zaman.
Bıçak, who has done extensive research on violence against women and the related legal infrastructure, said Turkey"™s prisons are more akin to "crime schools."
5 February 2012 / ALYSON NEEL , İSTANBUL
Last year two women were brutally attacked in Turkey by men who had already served prison time for domestic violence.
Ayasun K., who had grown weary of her husband"™s beatings, came forward and filed a domestic complaint against him. Three months later Giyasettin K. was released from prison. Not one week had passed, though, when the newly released offender took his wife for a drive to a river between two Bingöl villages and proceeded to cut off her ears and nose.
He then abandoned Ayasun K., then seven months pregnant and a mother of four, at the entrance to a hospital.
Gıyasettin K. has landed himself back in jail for assaulting his wife.
In another incident in Konya, the mutilated remains of Ayşe Demir, who had gone missing the previous year, were found buried beneath a picnic area.
Though he denied involvement at first, her husband, Yaşar K., finally confessed to cutting his wife into pieces and burying her. According to police reports, he had previously spent three years in jail for killing his wife"™s mother a decade earlier.
Unfortunately, cases like these -- in which domestic abuse offenders go to prison, are released, and then repeat a similar, if not worse, crime -- are all too common, not just in Turkey but around the world, women"™s rights activists and legal and sociological experts agree.
Many countries have responded by redefining their criminal justice systems and the general functions of their prisons to include rehabilitation techniques in addition to their primary focus on punishment.
According to Leyla Welkin, a clinical psychologist and professor of cross-cultural psychology for nearly 30 years, punitive measures alone cannot be effective in preventing violence. "Sure, imprisonment prevents violence in that a man in jail cannot beat his family while he is there. But what happens when he is released?"
Welkin pointed to Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and parts of the United States as some of the great pioneers in domestic violence prison rehabilitation.
The rehabilitation of offenders is a key component of the criminal justice system in the UK, where Welkin has trained and studied its progressive model. Every UK prison employs various methods to rehabilitate convicts, and not simply punish them, to prevent repeat offenses.
She and women"™s rights activist and researcher Pınar İlkkaracan hold up the internationally respected Duluth Model, or Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, as evidence that prison rehabilitation can be effective in reducing domestic violence. The program, developed by a nonprofit in Duluth, Minnesota, is based on a "violence is patriarchal" model.
"The Duluth Model was the first of many programs to recognize that domestic violence is rooted in gender inequality," İlkkaracan told Sunday"™s Zaman. According to a 2002 national study by the federal government, batterers who complete programs based on the Duluth Model are less likely to repeat acts of domestic violence than those who do not complete any rehabilitative program.
Welkin, a Gaziantep-born American who has been involved in the fight against gender-based violence since the 1980s in both countries, is among those pushing for a more rehabilitative approach in Turkey"™s prisons.
"Prison rehabilitation is important for prevention if we want to reduce violence against women in Turkey over the long haul," Welkin told Sunday"™s Zaman in an exclusive interview.
But Turkey currently offers no prison rehabilitation programs for its domestic violence offenders.
Sociologist Yasin Aktay, who told Sunday"™s Zaman he supports the rehabilitative model, said the contemporary view of prisons is more rehabilitative and educational than punitive. "But for Turkey, the punishment function is more important than the rehabilitation function," said Aktay.
Law professor and Police Academy instructor Dr. Vahit Bıçak agreed. "Prisons in Turkey are not places to rehabilitate inmates, whether domestic violence offenders or otherwise," he told Sunday"™s Zaman.
Bıçak, who has done extensive research on violence against women and the related legal infrastructure, said Turkey"™s prisons are more akin to "crime schools."
Even so, Welkin said she has witnessed Turkey take impressive leaps in the short time since she has moved back.
"I do not yet see Turkey moving to a rehabilitative model, but in the past three-and-a-half years that I have been here, I have seen really positive developments," said Welkin, pointing to increased public awareness as one example.
"When I first moved back to Turkey, I remember people telling me, 'We don"™t have a domestic violence problem."™ But that isn"™t the case anymore. What was once a taboo topic is becoming more a part of the public conversation," she said.
Women"™s rights activists and experts were similarly filled with hope when Turkey became the first country last summer to sign a key Council of Europe (CoE) convention to combat violence against women.
The convention reads, "Integrated services and coordinated services for victims and perpetrators and their families are encouraged," alluding to rehabilitative programs for offenders. Whether or not the international charter has any teeth will be determined by its implementation, activists agree.
But some women"™s rights activists question the effectiveness of rehabilitative programs for domestic violence offenders.
One women"™s rights activist, in comments to Sunday"™s Zaman, said, "I don"™t believe men can change with therapy unless they really want to."
Welkin partly agreed. "That statement is partly true in that we need to look at batterers"™ motivations. But it also means we are not being effective in what we are presenting to these offenders as alternatives that are socially acceptable," she said.
'Rehab pointless without coordination"™
While İlkkaracan agreed that prison rehabilitation can be effective in cases of domestic violence, she told Sunday"™s Zaman she does not think Turkey is ready for such a model yet.
"Rehab programs are only effective in communities where there is a clear message from the state to batterers that domestic violence is both socially and legally unacceptable," İlkkaracan said. "Is this the case in Turkey? What do you think?" she laughed.
Ayşe Kesir, adviser to Family and Social Policy Minister Fatma Şahin, confirmed that rehabilitation for domestic violence offenders has been included in the draft law to protect women from violence, which was presented last week to the Cabinet for approval before it goes to the floor of Parliament.
But both Welkin and İlkkaracan argued the success of any law or rehabilitative program pertaining to cases of violence against women requires real collaboration and commitment among all of the necessary parties.
"For prison rehabilitation to be effective, international research shows there must be a well-coordinated effort among the police, women"™s shelters, women"™s NGOs and the justice and health ministries. That is what made the Duluth Model so successful," she emphasized. "And that is Turkey"™s greatest problem -- coordination."
"If the draft law does not guarantee coordinated efforts, rehabilitation should be taken out," İlkkaracan stated matter-of-factly.
Common myths debunked
Welkin and İlkkaracan said the plethora of misguided polices designed to end gender-based violence reflects a deeper misunderstanding of violence against women.
"People are always warning against the stranger who lurks in the shadows and can attack at any given moment," Welkin said. "But the fact is that most women are assaulted by men they know."
While the fact that women"™s attackers are more likely to be their husbands or boyfriends than strangers on the street may be even more terrifying, experts added that most domestic violence offenders do not have psychological disorders or problems. "While there are some really sick guys out there, those domestic violence offenders are in the minority," Welkin said.
According to İlkkaracan and Welkin, only 12-15 percent of men who engage in domestic violence have psychological or psychiatric problems. "They are the exceptions," İlkkaracan said.
But if these offenders are not "sick," then what is the problem?
Violence against women, experts agreed, is not a manifestation of some disorder but instead inequality between men and women. "Let"™s start with the 80 percent," Welkin urged.
While Turkey has made advances in addressing its gender-based violence malady, experts and activists alike recognize the republic is far from finding the cure.
"Are we taking positive steps in Turkey? Absolutely. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely," Welkin emphasized.
Perhaps the brutal attacks against Aysun K. and Ayşe Demir could not have been prevented even if their previously jailed husbands had undergone rehabilitation. But perhaps they could have. |
