Call 911 in an Emergency or if You or Someone Else is in Imminent Danger
Caution: Please take care when searching for resources. Phone, tablet, computer and other device activity may be monitored. Visited websites may be tracked or viewed by another person. It may be safer for victims and survivors to obtain information using a device a perpetrator does not have potential access to.
For more information, visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The Hotline can also be contacted at 800.799.7233 or 800.787.3224 (TTY) for assistance.
Federal and California laws and CSU/Cal State LA policies prohibit dating and domestic violence, sexual violence and stalking. This prohibition applies to students, employees, and others. These laws and policies apply to conduct both on and off-campus.
Campus sanctions include suspension, expulsion, and employment termination. Perpetrators may face arrest and criminal prosecution. Offenders may have to compensate victims for crime and misconduct related expenses.
Survivors and victims have numerous rights granted by federal and state laws. These rights include fair treatment, confidentiality and campus-based accommodations.
Domestic Violence Knows No Boundaries
Healthy Relationships
Healthy relationships, from Saturday night hookups to "long-term" relationships, are based on a foundation of respect. In healthy relationships:
- Each partner feels safe.
- There is open and honest communication.
- Partners trust each other.
- Boundaries are respected.
- There is fair negotiation.
- Partners encourage and allow each other to spend time with family and friends.
- Partners are able to express themselves without fear.
- Consent is a cornerstone.
- There is equality.
- Partners are considerate and support each other's wellbeing.
- Each person is dependable and responsible.
- Partners aren't required to check in.
- Conflicts are resolved in a fair manner without intimidation or the threat of violence.
- Each partner values the other.
- Partners respect each other's right to privacy.
Take a look at the National Domestic Violence Hotline's Relationship Spectrum to assess how a relationship measures up — healthy, unhealthy or abusive.
Abusive Relationships
Overview
Whether abuse is committed by an intimate partner, immediate family member or other relative, or another individual, abusive relationships are based on inequality and the nonconsensual exercising of power and control over another person.
Abusers use a variety of tactics designed to establish fear and exert control. The warning signs or the specifics of what these tactics look like vary depending on the individuals involved. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intimate partner violence can include sexual violence, physical violence, stalking, and psychological aggression.
Abuse can comprise non-criminal and criminal conduct. Non-criminal behaviors often lead to and occur simultaneously with criminal conduct. This might include withholding assistive devices or hormones, threatening to "out" a partner, and other controlling behaviors. Like criminal dating and domestic violence, abusive activities that are not criminal acts are perpetrated to exert control, humiliate, and harm.
Signs of an Abusive Relationship
The Power and Control Wheel
The Power and Control Wheel was developed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) of Duluth, MN to illustrate what female victims of domestic violence commonly experience. The Wheel describes strategies used by abusers to exert power and control over their victims. These tactics include coercion and threats; economic abuse; emotional abuse; intimidation; isolation; male privilege; minimizing, denying and blaming; using children; and violence (physical and sexual).
Dating and domestic violence in LGBT relationships, abuse in immigrant populations, cultural and societal contexts, and other adaptions have also been developed by DAIP and other agencies. The original Wheel and subsequent adaptations are useful tools in identifying and understanding abusive relationships.
For information on the original Power and Control Wheel and adaptations, click on The Duluth Model.
Are You Being Abused?
The National Domestic Violence Hotline's Relationship Spectrum is a useful first step to determine how a relationship measures up — healthy, unhealthy or abusive.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline encourages everyone to watch out for these and other red flags. If you're experiencing one or more in your relationship, consider calling the hotline at 800-799-7233 or 800-787-3224 (TTY) to talk about what's going on.
Does your partner?
- Tell you that you can never do anything right.
- Embarrass or shame you with put-downs.
- Look at you or act in ways that scare you.
- Tell you that you are a bad parent or threaten to harm or take away your children.
- Intimidate you with guns, knives or other weapons.
-
Show jealousy of your friends and time spent away.
- Control every penny spent in the household.
- Control who you see, where you go, or what you do.
- Prevent you from working or attending school.
- Destroy your property or threaten to hurt or kill your pets.
- Pressure you to have sex when you don't want to or do things sexually you're not comfortable with.
- Keep you or discourage you from seeing friends or family members.
- Take your money or refuse to give you money for expenses.
- Prevent you from making your own decisions.
- Pressure you to use drugs or alcohol
The National Domestic Violence Hotline also identifies these additional:
Digital Abuse |
Digital abuse is the use of technologies such as texting and social networking to bully, harass, stalk or intimidate a partner. Often this behavior is a form of verbal or emotional abuse perpetrated online. You may be experiencing digital abuse if your partner:
|
Emotional Abuse |
You may be in an emotionally abusive relationship if your partner exerts control through:
|
Financial Abuse |
Economic or financial abuse is when an abusive partner extends their power and control into the area of finances. This abuse can take different forms, including an abusive partner:
|
Physical Abuse |
You may be experiencing physical abuse if your partner has done or repeatedly does any of the following tactics of abuse:
|
Reproductive Coercion |
Reproductive coercion is a form of power and control where one partner strips the other of the ability to control their own reproductive system. It is sometimes difficult to identify this coercion because other forms of abuse are often occurring simultaneously.Reproductive coercion can be exerted in many ways:
Reproductive coercion can also come in the form of pressure, guild and shame from an abusing partner. Some examples are if your abusing partner is constantly talking about having children or making you feel guilty for not having or wanting children with them - especially if you already have kids with someone else. |
Sexual Abuse & Coercion |
Sexually abusive methods of retaining power and control include an abusive partner:
Sexual coercionSexual coercion lies on the 'continuum' of sexually aggressive behavior. It can vary from being egged on and persuaded, to being forced to have contact. It can be verbal and emotional, in the form of statements that make you feel pressure, guilt, or shame. You can also be made to feel forced through more subtle actions. For example, an abusive partner:
Even if your partner isn't forcing you to do sexual acts against your will, being made to feel obligated is coercion in itself. Dating someone, being in a relationship, or being married never means that you owe your partner intimacy of any kind. |
Criminal Dating and Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence Defined
According to California Family Code §6211 and Penal Code §13700, domestic violence is abuse perpetrated against:
-
A spouse or former spouse.
-
A cohabitant or former cohabitant, as defined in §6209.
-
A person with whom the respondent is having or has had a dating or engagement relationship.
-
A person with whom the respondent has had a child.
-
Others (e.g., child, relative) depending on circumstances.
Abuse Defined
Abuse is defined by California Family Code §6203 and Penal Code §13700 as intentionally or recklessly causing or attempting to cause:
-
Bodily injury.
-
Sexual assault.
-
Placing a person in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury to that person or to another.
-
Engaging in any behavior that has been or could be enjoined pursuant to California Family Code §6320.
Related Crimes
Abusive relationships are often associated with crimes (as defined by the California Penal Code) other than domestic violence, including:
-
Battery (§242): Intentional and illegal use of force or violence against another person.
-
Child abuse and neglect (§11164-11174.3): Willful abuse, harming, unlawful corporal punishment or injury, neglect, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation of a child (person under 18 years of age).
-
Child witnessing domestic violence (§1170.76): Committing or attempting sexual battery, an assault with a deadly weapon or inflicting corporal injuries in the presence of a child or where a child has witnessed the crimes.
-
Corporal injury (§273.5): Intentional infliction of a corporal injury which results in a traumatic condition. A traumatic condition is a wound or injury (external or internal) caused by physical force. It includes, but is not limited to, minor and serious injuries caused by strangulation or suffocation (impeding normal breathing or blood flow by applying pressure on the throat or neck.
-
Criminal threats (§422): Threatening to commit a crime which will cause death or significant injury-even when there is no intention of carrying out the threat-that due to circumstances surrounding the threat the threat is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific that the person threatened believes it will be carried out and results in sustained fear for their safety or the safety of their immediate family.
-
Stalking (§646.9): Willful, malicious, and repeated following or harassment of another person that seriously alarms, annoys, torments, or terrorizes the person, and that serves no legitimate purpose; and making a credible threat with the intent to place that person in reasonable fear for his or her safety, or the safety of his or her immediate family.
-
Additional crimes such as sexual assault, theft and robbery, trespassing, violation of protection/restraining orders, vandalism, and murder.
Dating and Domestic Violence as Defined by CSU Policies
Note: CSU Policies 1096 and 1097 are available at CSU Policies.
The CSU prohibits dating and domestic violence, and stalking. Dating and domestic violence, and stalking are often based on gender. CSU prohibits all such misconduct whether or not it is based on gender.
Dating Violence
Dating violence is abuse committed by a person who is or has been in a social or dating relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim. This may include someone the victim just met; i.e., at a party, introduced through a friend, or on a social networking website. For purposes of this definition, "abuse" means intentionally or recklessly causing or attempting to cause bodily injury or placing another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury to self or another. Abuse does not include non-physical, emotional distress or injury.
Domestic Violence
Domestic violence is abuse committed against someone who is a current or former spouse; current or former cohabitant; someone with whom the Respondent has a child; someone with whom the Respondent has or had a dating or engagement relationship; or a person similarly situated under California domestic or family violence law. Cohabitant means two unrelated persons living together for a substantial period of time, resulting in some permanency of relationship. It does not include roommates who do not have a romantic, intimate, or sexual relationship. Factors that may determine whether persons are cohabiting include, but are not limited to: (1) sexual relations between the Parties while sharing the same living quarters; (2) sharing of income or expenses; (3) joint use or ownership of property; (4) whether the Parties hold themselves out as spouses; (5) the continuity of the relationship; and, (6) the length of the relationship. For purposes of this definition, "abuse" means intentionally or recklessly causing or attempting to cause bodily injury or placing another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent serious bodily injury to self, or another. Abuse does not include non-physical, emotional distress or injury.
Resources
See Project SAFE's Resources and:
Help 24/7 ► | 1in6 for Men Who Have Experienced Sexual Abuse or Assault | National Domestic Violence Hotline | National Human Trafficking Hotline | National Sexual Assault Hotline | National Suicide Prevention Lifeline | National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline | Safe Helpline - Sexual Assault Support for the DoD Community | The Trevor Project Helpline for LGBT Youth (Ages 13-24) |