Identifying public policies: Public Defenders and men who broke the Maria da Penha Law

Abstract

The evaluation of the assistance services provided by the Public Defender’s Office allows to identify demands and problems for public policies. This article presents the results of an observation research that evaluated the services of the Núcleo de Atendimento ao Homem Autor de Violência Doméstica e Familiar (Neah) (Support Center for men who committed Domestic and Family Violence), considering the testimonies of people assisted by the institution and their partners. From the results, it is possible to identify future actions and public policies aimed to prevent, promote self-reflection, and change the perception related to aggressive men. The results of the empirical observation highlight the paradox of the public policies of assistance to men accused of domestic violence, since the spouses’ evaluation about the police assistance and the assistance services offered by the DP-PA shows a dissatisfaction with the results of the services their partners receive. Men who participated in the therapeutic group expressed during the interviews that they experienced a change in behavior toward their spouses and their view about women.

Keywords:
Public Defender System of the State of Pará; domestic violence; evaluation of public services

Resumo

A avaliação dos serviços de assistência prestados pela Defensoria Pública possibilita a identificação de demandas e problemas que constituirão a origem de futuras políticas públicas. Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma observação na qual se avaliaram os serviços de assistência prestados pelo Núcleo de Atendimento ao Homem Autor de Violência Doméstica e Familiar (Neah), a partir de depoimentos dos assistidos e de suas companheiras. Como resultado, identificam-se futuros serviços e políticas públicas voltados à prevenção, autorreflexão e mudança de percepção dos homens agressores. Os resultados da observação empírica ressaltam o paradoxo das políticas públicas de atendimento a homens acusados de violência doméstica: enquanto a avaliação dos serviços de assistência prestados pela DP-PA e do atendimento policial por parte das mulheres cônjuges manifesta uma insatisfação pelos resultados do atendimento recebido na DP-PA, com relação aos seus parceiros. Os homens que participaram do grupo terapêutico manifestaram nas entrevistas haver experimentado uma mudança de comportamento com relação às suas cônjuges e sobre a visão da mulher.

Palavras-chave:
Defensoria Pública do Estado do Pará; violência doméstica; avaliação de serviços públicos

Resumen

La evaluación de los servicios de asistencia prestados por la Defensoría Pública permite identificar demandas y problemas que constituirán el origen de futuras políticas públicas. Este artículo presenta los resultados de una observación en la que se evaluaron los servicios de asistencia prestados por el Núcleo de Atención al Hombre Autor de Violencia Doméstica y Familiar (Neah) a partir de testimonios de los asistidos y sus cónyuges. Como resultado, se identifican futuros servicios y políticas públicas dirigidas a la prevención, autorreflexión y cambio de percepción de los hombres agresores. Los resultados de la observación empírica resaltan la paradoja de las políticas públicas de atención a los hombres acusados de violencia doméstica: mientras que la evaluación de los servicios de asistencia ofrecidos por la DP-PA y de la atención policial por parte de las mujeres cónyuges manifiesta una insatisfacción por los resultados de la atención recibida en la DP-PA con relación a sus compañeros. Los hombres que participaron en el grupo terapéutico manifestaron en las entrevistas que habían experimentado un cambio de comportamiento con relación a sus cónyuges y sobre la visión de la mujer.

Palabras clave:
Defensoría Pública del Estado de Pará; violencia doméstica; evaluación de servicios públicos

1. INTRODUCTION

Government in every country intends to evaluate the working of its public service. This fact supports the establishment of a range of complex and sophisticated proposals to provide data to politicians, manager, and to community, regarding the success or failure form of the governmental organization. Researchers focus their attention on the efficiency of public service and on the decisive parameters of the work in public organizations.

In Brazil, the number of studies published in recent years outweighs the possibility of their synthesizing by this work. In the specific context of accessing the legal system, this study highlights the legal operators’ perceptions and the limits for the Maria da Penha Law (2006) enforcement (Dias, 2007; Paniato, 2015). The Public Defender’s Office addresses the problem from a human rights perspective, that is, to the extent that they are respected, the women rights are respected as well. There are still few investigations in the Public Defender’s Office, most notably those carried out by Schreiber, D’Oliveira, and Couto (2009), Medeiros and Guareschi (2009), Bentes (2013), and Vidal (2010, 2012, 2014). Regarding the relationship between gender-based violence and public policies, the Ibam (2015) and Garcia and Ribeiro’s work (2007) are highlighted. In its defense legal action, the Public Defender’s Office actions also allow identifying the work to prevent domestic violence and possible proposals for future public policies. The Public Defender’s Office of the State of Pará (DP, Portuguese acronym) is an innovative experience, available to the Customer Care Center for Women Victims of Domestic Violence (Naem, Portuguese acronym) and the Customer Care Center for men who committed Domestic and Family Violence (Neah, Portuguese acronym) until 2016.

In this context, key questions arise: (a) “How were these care services provided by Neah and DP evaluated by the assisted men and their partners?”; (b) “Is the institutional coordination involving the Court, Neah (DP), and the reference Customer Care Centers efficient?”; and (c) “Which issues were found regarding the identification of future public policies?” It is clear that the complexity of the phenomenon and its subjectivity require special methodological care. Due to the complexity observed, this paper presents two levels, the methodological process and the results of the observation of the care services provided by Neah of DP from 2014 to 2016, in the city of Belém, Pará State, Brazil. The investigation focus was limited to the second level, the review of the care services provided by Neah in PD. At the conceptual level, the study was based on the recent input of public care evaluation and on the institutional coordination, showing that the cooperation from different parties involved is needed. The work of public defenders and technical personnel of services linked to the care of the male offenders allows the identification of a series of problems that are the basis of future public policies.

This article is structured in three parts: (a) exposition of the recent debate about the possibilities of a qualitative evaluation from public care; (b) description of the complexities of the methodological process of observation in PD; and (c) presentation of the results of the observation.

2. QUALITATIVE EVALUATION OF CARE SERVICES PROVIDED AND PUBLIC ACTIONS

The institutional capacity of public departments linked to the care of men who violated the Maria da Penha Law was analyzed, based on the reconstruction of the institutional structure of policies and the networking flow chart, whose purpose is to determine the institutional ability level and identify future public policies. To this end, the institutional strengths, the degree of coordination of the performers to implement policies, and the possible problems in policy management were identified, aiming to suggest institutional actions for strengthening through the technical-administrative and management procedures evaluation.

The public programs and services evaluation are a needed tool to improve this kind of action and evaluate its impacts. The use of qualitative methods has gradually acquired relevance in the evaluations, since it allows exploring and perceiving details and precise information at great length, regarding the improvement of the care services quality and the professionals’ work. Studies on the qualitative evaluation of policies and services in Brazil are, however, recent, with emphasis on health care (Uchimura & Bosi, 2002) and on social programs (Ala-Harja & Helgason, 2000; Gasparini & Furtado, 2014; Silva, 2001).

2.1 Customer care Center for Man from the Public Defender’s office (Neah)

Neah is part of the Public Defender’s Office in the State of Pará. The target group is composed by perpetrators of domestic and family violence against women. Most of them are referred to the Judicial Court of Domestic and Family Violence Against Women, the Judicial Court of Penalty Enforcement, and/or the Alternative Measures Execution Court. Neah aims to guarantee the defense of the aggressor man using psychotherapeutic approaches in therapeutic group for reflection (Group Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Domestic Violence) (created in January 2012) and for overcoming the after-effects resulting of violence, as well as the option to take part in socio-educational activities aiming at their reeducation and rehabilitation and to prevent further violence practices. In these groups, reflection, activities, and discussions are promoted, regarding preventive actions stimulating a culture of peace.

The evaluation and monitoring process of the assisted people by the Public Defender’s Office consists of different follow-up phases, aiming to perform a personal diagnosis of values and attitudes and analyze possible changes after their participation in the therapeutic group.

3. METHODOLOGICAL PROCESS

The quality of the service provided by Neah was evaluated in this paper under an observational exploratory perspective with a qualitative technique. Despite basic methodological care [stage of selecting the cases to be interviewed, stage for entry into the field (arrangement of interviews), and exit stage (the field interruption)], biases due to arbitrary analysis (conscious and unconscious) by the beholder always appear in an observation. To avoid them to the maximum, a strategy of multi-perspective methodology is proposed, combining segment and analysis of a focus group and semi-structured interviews among the assisted men and their partners.

The question formulated is a tool used for understanding the phenomenon in its complexity and uncertainty. The quantitative approach differs, therefore, from the qualitative approach in relation to what the strategy to get knowledge consists, how it was acquired, used, and understood, what the observer’s role was, as well as the way in which data and information are described, using the content analysis technique (Vaterlaus & Higginsbothan, 2011).

The observation is based on a strategy of multi-perspective methodology that combines the segment and analysis of a focus group (therapeutic groups for reflection) concluded at Neah using structured interviews among the assisted men and their partners. Two types of qualitative methods are combined.

The “therapeutic group for reflection” in Neah was analyzed, specifically with regard to: (a) the use by the attendees of a “public value product”; (b) the attempt to directly influence those assisted by the public defender, not only as a defender, but also as an agent of changes in social relationships; and (c) the identification of public policies that could be focused on the prevention of domestic violence. Three explanatory variables were observed: (a) the subjective perspective of the assisted people who took part in the therapeutic group; (b) the evaluation of Neah’s work by the partners; and (c) the evaluation regarding the possibilities for the Care Center carried out by its own technicians and the linked defenders.

All the interviews were recorded in the presence of the researchers and therapist from the Neah. In this investigation, the advantages of these analytical techniques are clear, such as:

1. a) semistructured standardized interviews - In this type of interview, the rigor of a standard or closed interview is not kept. The choice of this kind of interview is due to the complexity of the subject treated, as it involves deep emotional, affective, and psychological aspects in each one of the interviewees. It also allowed the interviewer the freedom to ask and formulate the questions, constantly stimulating the interviewee to talk, without imposing points of views or controversies, aiming to suppress resistances in the interviewee in a conversation; and

2. b) active observation of the therapeutic group - The group management and organization were held by Neah’s therapists and observed through an exploratory analysis combined with the active observation technique (Martins, 2016), and, in a second aspect, by active observation. This technique allowed “focusing on multiple purposes” (Morgan, 1993, p. 227), among them, the one that concerns the way of the evaluation by the public service users.

The set of information allowed to describe and gather the necessary data on the epistemological and practical potential of the Care Centers and on the expectations of its work.

The observation is settled by three explanatory variables: (a) the subject perspective; (b) the perspective of their partners; and (c) the Neah’s evaluation by its own technicians.

The first variable refers to the subjective perspective of the assisted people participants in the Neah’s therapeutic group in 2015, focusing on its performance and evaluation. To gather the data, the following pre-established codes were created: (a) expectations to take part in the therapeutic group; (b) the group subjective importance; and (c) the Neah’s work evaluation of the so-called “therapeutic group for reflection” (Group Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Domestic Violence)¹ by the partners. The interviews are set in three blocks of questions: (a) care evaluation in PD and Neah; (b) therapeutic group evaluation based on the possible changes in attitude of the partner; and (c) changes experienced by their male partners (Box 1).

Box 1
Observation Methodology

The domestic violence observation entails very complex subjective situations for women, implying limitations. The research scope was composed by 57 women, partners of attendees taking part in the therapeutic group, and access them was a challenging, thus, only five interviews were able to be carried out. The first challenge was their localization. Some of them have changed their residences (in many situations, to surroundings of the Belém Metropolitan area). The interviews among the assisted women were exclusively carried out by female researchers and scholarship researcher students, and those carried out among the man’s participants in therapeutic group were all recorded and analyzed using the content analysis technique and carried out by a male researcher (Box 2). The interviews with the assisted women were exclusively carried out by female researchers and scholarship researcher students, and those carried out among the man’s participants in therapeutic group were all recorded and analyzed using the content analysis technique and carried out by a male researcher (Box 2).

Box 2
Interviews carried out with the participants of the therapeutic group

The second challenge was regarding the ones who started a definitive separation process and showed no interest in performing a narrative of recomposing their previous experience. Finally, some women did not want to be interviewed for some reasons. With this fact, the possibility of carrying out the interviews has greatly reduced, and only four interviews could be effective. The materialized interviews with the participants of the therapeutic group were all recorded and analyzed using the content analysis technique (Box 3).

Box 3
Interviews with assisted men’s partners

The thematic approach made it easy for arising many questions related to the care and guidance received in PD. The gathered data had gotten special attention for the findings made (serendipity).

4. THE OBSERVATION: EVALUATION OF THE SERVICE PROVIDED BY NEAH

Participation in the therapeutic group is not a voluntary decision but is determined by a referral from a court. Initially, the expectations to participate in the therapeutic group are high. The therapeutic group is taken by the assisted ones as an opportunity for personal growth, the “growth, the change” (interviewed João). It also provides the opportunity to share anxieties and worries with other men or as a positive support.

Expectations are high and are at odds with the initial negative subjective image: “I thought it was crap, I thought” (interviewed João). Over time, the subjective change is expressed, although it is not certainly in which aspects. By expressing this behavior together with other assisted man, there is a positive psychological effect (Box 4).

Box 4
Identification of care services and public policies

4.1 Female partners or spouses: evaluation of care services provided by Neah

By evaluating the services provided by the DP, the female partners present two types of opinions. On the one hand, a general lack of awareness of DP as in the Elaine`s case, showing a lack of information of the Care Service and PD Centers. There is some disappointment with Neah’s assistance, by the lack of support received and the lack of effectiveness from the preventive measures. The criticism extends to the role played by DP and the legal limitations of the defender’s work. The defender is even seen as who defends and takes sides with the aggressor.

The subjective evaluation (or expectations) of the personal care received from the public defender varies according to the interviewee. For the interviewed Antônia, also the assistance of the defender was not enough: “He did not give me the expected answer”. Regarding the communications between the interviewees and Neah, they were not, according to the interviewee, “adequately fluid” (Box 5).

Box 5
Identification policies and public actions

5. SOME CONCLUSIONS

Results are showed on the evaluation of the care services provided by Neah from qualitative information, concerning the variables of the therapeutic group and the services provided. It is evident that the results presented are not conclusive; however, they offer only tendencies and references for future observations.

The therapeutic group is an essential measure for rehabilitation and reintegration into society, achievement of group work, and violence prevention. It is evaluated positively by the attendees. In observing such phenomenon, it is sought to evaluate a public service that interferes directly with the subjectivity and previous experiences of the assisted men and their female partners, as well as the conceptions regarding the image of the woman. Faced with the same problem as the “right to the defense of the assisted men”, the opinions both of man and woman vary diametrically. While men value the defense received, women consider that men accused of domestic violence should not receive this type of defense (Box 6).

Box 6
Evaluation of DP care services and police response

Public policy analysts agree that public problems are not, at first, identifiable objects; an observer cannot pick them up. In this hypothesis, it is asked about the mechanisms that generate them and that generate the public action (intervention). The hypothesis can be valid for certain problems, although questionable before the domestic violence phenomenon. While the mechanisms that generate it are complex and multiple, the phenomenon itself is clearly identifiable.

Neah is the first step in identifying the problem of domestic violence with care services and actions, as therapeutic group, interdisciplinary care availability, previous intervention in family conflicts, and group care. The violence and its consequences are identified by themselves. Its questioning is, therefore, a collective decision and a demand to be solved (Box 7).

Box 7
Definitions of problems for future policy solutions (from the perspective of the assisted men and their female partners)

The institutional evaluation claims that the institutional coordination between Neah and Centro de Referência Especializado de Assistência Social (Specialized Reference Center for Social Assistance (Creas, Portuguese acronym)) is agile and offers a response to the existing “great demand”. However, bureaucratic problems are identified which make it difficult to the streamline processes (Box 8).

Box 8
Identification of Collective problems for public policies (from an institutional perspective)

In summary, the substantial progress of the Maria da Penha Law for the women’s protection, who are victims of violence are evident. Nonetheless, issues such as the prevention and rehabilitation and reintegration into society of men accused of violence remain pending. A new reading of the law as public policy would allow such an important step towards the man’s mentality changing on the gender view.

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• 1
  The “therapeutic group for reflection” (Group Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Domestic Violence) is settled with men accused of domestic violence, whose participants are required to participate by court order. The group is led by therapists in regular meetings for approximately 10 weeks.
• 2
  Centro de Referência de Assistência Social (Reference Center for Social Assistance) (Cras, Portuguese acronym).
• 3
  Centro de Referência Especializado de Assistência Social (Specialized Reference Center for Social Assistance) (Creas, Portuguese acronym).
• 4
  Police Station Specialized in the assistance to Women.
• 5
  Integrated Operations Center.

• [Translated version] Note: All quotes in English translated by this article’s translator.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  15 July 2019
• Date of issue
  May-Jun 2019

History

• Received
  05 Feb 2018
• Accepted
  03 Aug 2018