It is generally admitted that media representation of crime has an impact on the common knowledge of the population. The latter takes as granted what they read or watch in media. Berns depicts the role of media as a “popular tour guide” (Berns, 2004). Bukkock and Cubert summarised effect of media: “News coverage can be framed to give distinctly different views of social problems, influencing how audience members see their world, its problems, and the solutions to those problems.” (Entman, 1991, 1993; Loseke, 1989; Pan & Kosicki, 1993; Tuchman, 1978, cited in Bullock and Cubert, 2002, 475). Despite misrepresentation and overrepresentation of crimes in mass media, there is still, as stated by Bottomley, a gap in our knowledge of the true extend …show more content…
The second section will address the question in relation to the efficiency of criminal justice system responses that are prevention and prosecution.

The Home Office gives the definition of Domestic Violence and Abuse as any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. The abuse can encompass, but is not limited to: psychological; physical; sexual; financial; emotional (Home Office, 2013).
According to the official statistics, Domestic Violence affects 1 in 4 women in their lifetime and 1 in 8 to 1 in 10 women experience annually in UK (Walby and Allen, 2004; also see Dodd et al., 2004). This cannot be considered as complete extend of the issue because a majority difficulty in estimating the nature and the extent of marital violence is the problem of under-reporting, sometimes knows as ‘dark figure’ (Bourlet, …show more content…
(see Miller and Wellford, 1997). Of course, not all causes will be invoked. There are three approaches to explain causes of Domestic Violence. It is either relative to individual pathology like mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, poverty etc. Violence is seen as resulting from various psychological abnormalities, such as inadequate self-control, sadism, and psychopathology (Gelles and Strauss, 1979 cited in Miller and Wellford, 1997); or resulting from family dysfunction. In other words, intimate violence is essentially learned behaviour. (Miller and Wellford, 1997). The last approach, called feminist approach, concerned with structural conditions. In these perspectives, the pervasive subordination of women associated with patriarchal societies becomes the key to understanding intimate violence (Bograd, 1988 cited in Miller and Wellford, 1997).
A complex issue like Domestic Violence cannot be explained with simple reasons like those quoted previously. Indeed, concerning individual causes, although violent abuser are often drinking when they engage in abuse, this behaviour does not in and of itself explain where these violent tendencies originate or why alcohol and drugs do not lead to similar results for everyone who uses alcohol (Burges and Draper, 1989 cited in Miller and Wellford, 1997). Gelles and Strauss