Sleeping with the Enemy: Victimization Perspective on Criminal Justice

Sleeping with the Enemy
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Domestic violence is one of the most pressing problems globally because it significantly negatively impacts the victims’ quality of life. It encompasses physical, mental, emotional, and psychological abuse that may result in morbidity and mortality of the abused. Additionally, this also involves coercion of the perpetrator with the abuse resulting in erroneous behaviors (Gulati & Kelly, 2020). To have a good illustration of domestic violence, we shall connect this with a film. Sleeping with the Enemy is a 1991 film that depicts the story of intimate partner violence behind a façade of love and a life of perfection and shows how women can fight against the most dreadful acts of violence by faking one’s death and bringing the event into justice (Ruben, 1991). In this paper, we shall discuss violence against women and the current programs or policies that have been strategized to minimize the cases and punish the perpetrator.
According to the World Health Organization (2021), violence against women is rampant worldwide, and one in three women, or 30%, suffer from it. Three-fourths of women globally, ages 15 to 49 years, experience domestic violence at least once. The statistics show that it is most prevalent in the highly industrialized regions, such as America (33%) and Europe (25%). However, there are also many cases in the marginalized regions such as Africa (31%) and Southeast Asia (33%).
The film Sleeping with the Enemy is an excellent depiction of victimization. This tells a story of a perfect husband, who has all the wealth, charm, and good qualities on the outside, and a wife who lives in fear as soon as they are alone in their house. The husband was abusive and coercive, forcing the wife to act and demonstrate behaviors against her will. Due to this, the wife lived in fear, prompting her to fake her death to escape a living hell. However, the husband soon found out that the wife was still alive, and the wife had no choice but to fight for her life again. In the end, the wife killed the husband via three gunshots to protect her and the love of her life (Ruben, 1991).
The film demonstrated the impact of domestic violence on women. First, the violence resulted in the inevitable separation of the couple. A study revealed that this perpetuates distrust and dishonesty, forcing relationships to end via a divorce or, in the film’s case, intentionally leaving the relationship without the perpetrator’s knowledge. Second, it results in negative psychological impact, resulting in unexplainable fear, guilt, shame, confusion, depression, and low self-confidence. Lastly, it can result in physical injuries, including fractures and internal bleeding (Omorogiuwa, 2017).
Moreover, the film also demonstrated that the abused women are capable of the murder of their perpetrator secondary to the sufferings that they experienced, placing them into a state of mental instability. At the end of the film, the police came to rescue, and the wife told the police that she murdered an intruder, then suddenly shot the husband (Ruben, 1991). The wife’s action may probably occur due to society’s negative notion against abused women, making them the enemy instead of offering help to them. In a simple perspective, although the wife suffered from abuse, the wife still committed murder, and a legal consequence may be inevitable, but this is dependent on the land on which the crime was committed. Davis (2005) explained this situation by stating that in most criminal justice systems, the primary aggressor initiated the violence, and the act negates a defensive behavior, making it establish the intent of the action (i.e., murder).
In this case, the arrest may be made based on the existing laws of the state or the country. For instance, the crime was committed in Connecticut. The Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Inc. (2018), dual arrest transpires upon discovering a probable cause and arrests all the parties involved with the family violence, even the abused. Walshe (2014) also supported David’s explanation, stating that dual arrests ensue secondary to the poor training of ...