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By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON
Rappahannock News Contributing Writer
What crime strikes one of every three American families?
What crime accounts for a quarter of the offenses reported to police in most major jurisdictions yet remains the single most unreported crime?
What crime occurs three times as often as rape?
The answer is spouse abuse, according to D.C. policeman John Deane, speaker at the Warren County Council on Domestic Violence’s fund raising dinner held recently.
Deane follows the tradition established by former First Lady Betty Ford when she publicly acknowledged her problems with drug and alcohol abuse. Deane is a former spouse abuser, a former wife batterer.
"I say former and not recovering because I know I’ll never batter again. It’s not a disease like alcoholism or drug addiction. It’s learned behavior and so it can be unlearned.”
Like most batterers, Deane grew up in a family where violence was the norm. He saw his father beat his mother. He fought with his nine brothers and sisters. He was beaten by his father. “I learned early that the more powerful, the more of a bully you are, the more control you have over people. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave that part of my life behind me when I left home,” Deane told the audience at Front Royal's Calvary Episcopal Church.
For nine years, he beat his wife. The violence ended after he’d thrown her bodily out of the house - with their two small children and his parents watching. Only then did he seek help from Turning Points, a counseling program in Prince William County. He stopped battering — forever he says — when he joined that group four years ago.
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