How Domestic Violence Perpetrators Manipulate Systems

Domestic violence perpetrator manipulation of systems is a critical problem that undermines responses to family violence and deeply impacts adult and child survivors in many ways. Perpetrators manipulate systems to bolster their own power and abuse and to control adult and child survivors further. For example, they use false allegations of criminal behavior, parental alienation, and “failure to protect” to target survivors, their children, and the professionals involved with the family. Perpetrators’ successful manipulation of systems compounds, reinforces, and legitimizes their power, increasing both the survivors’ sense of their own powerlessness and the perpetrator’s seeming omnipotence. Sadly, the perpetrators’ use of these systems is often successful: Adult survivors can lose their freedom, their children, and their physical and mental health. Harassment via repeated reporting and/or litigation can also deplete survivors’ finances in addition to wasting public resources. As a result, adult and child survivors often lose trust in the systems that are supposed to protect them.