Domestic Abuse (persuasive essay)

Here it is. I know I have some run on sentences but can not figure out how to reword it. Thank you for your help.

Persuasive Essay about Domestic Abuse

When I was a child and still living with my parents, I dealt with domestic abuse every single day. My father would return home drunk at night after a day of drinking and would be mad about everything that went wrong with his day therefore he would take it all out on me. He would sit there and talk about how I was a mistake, I am the reason why he drinks, I think I am god but I am truly nothing, and would go on and on about how I am such a horrible child who thinks that I know better than everyone around me. It did not matter how hard I tried to get away from my father and the abuse I could not manage to get away from it. Every time that I tried to run my father would stop me and the abuse would just be that much worse. I would go to school and talk to my teachers and my principal or I would go to a friend's house and tell his or her parents, but it no matter who I talked to or how many times it was reported to the police nothing happened because my father and most of the time my mother would lie to the cops. My father would get away with it due to the police officers believing him and my mother over me. My parents would sit there and say that I was lying and saying that I was doing it for attention and that I did not listen to them. It was not very long at all before the police were trying to say that I was just saying these things time and time again for attention because the abuse situation was reported pretty much every day. Every time that the reports were denied the abuse continued to go on and would continue to get that much worse. Not only did I go through abuse from my father, but also from an ex-boyfriend. I was once in a relationship in which I was severally abused by my boyfriend at the time. While in that relationship my ex-boyfriend would punch me with a closed fist, throw me down the steps, kick me in the stomach, and was always abusing me. He abused me so much that I was terrified to call the cops in fear that he would beat me to death and I feared that the cops would not believe me. I thought that if I called the cops my ex-boyfriend would say that I beat myself and left bruises not only for attention, but to get him in trouble at the same time.

This visual shows a teenager that is a high school football player, it also shows that he is a gang member. This is one of the finger signs of a gang member, is he an innocent victim or an undercover gang?

Everyone says that there are too many law enforcement officers, but I do not believe that there are enough law enforcement officers around in the communities, or even total in the United States to address anywhere near the amount of abuse cases that there are in the United States and all around the world. There have been reports of police doing everything in their power to respond to domestic abuse cases and trying to stop abuse from happening, but yet the abuse continues to happen more and more everyday and there are getting to be so many cases of domestic abuse that so many cases go unsolved or have not been dealt with and the police officers cannot keep up with the amount of domestic abuse cases that are happening and continue to happen. Police officers respond and take actions to all the abuse cases that they can and to get domestic abuse under control, but they are still happening every day.

A community gets together to work on supporting the curfew laws to stop teen violence. In this community teen crime has become the topic of discussion.

There have been and continue to be reports of domestic abuse to the police that go unanswered because law enforcement does not have the manpower to respond quickly and thoroughly to investigate every case that is reported. Most police departments are too occupied with other, more endangering crimes respond to domestic abuse cases which allow the domestic abuse to continue and to get a lot worse. There needs to be more strict punishments' and laws against domestic abuse cases.

While officers do everything they possibly can to solve domestic abuse cases, perpetrators are getting off with a slap on the wrist and therefore, many victims feel as if it will do no good to involve the law because there is not enough punishment to go along with the crime being committed and the case of domestic abuse in his or her situation may end up going unanswered. There are too many cases where the abuser is allowed to return to the home without any consequences and therefore, the abusers are repeat offenders, which is another reason why there needs to be harsher punishment and more law enforcement, so that there are not repeat offenders along with more victims being abused and scarred for life. Those abusers who get away with a slap on the hand are repeat offenders because they look at it as if they got away with it once, so therefore, he or she will get away with it time and time again. Most abusers do not fear the consequences of their actions and therefore he or she ends up having a lot more victims.

This visual shows a minister speaking to the people of one community while in church about how to stop teens from killing one another. He speaks on supporting the curfew for teens to be off the streets by 10 p.m.

There is not enough preventative action being taken by law enforcement these days and even though the police officers may do what they can it is not enough, in fact, it is far from being enough. The punishment that is given to the abusers is not enough to stop the abuser from abusing again and needs to be a lot stricter so that hopefully the rate of abuse comes down and there a not near as many is any victims at all. In all domestic abuse cases the abuser gets away with what he or she did because the punishment is weak and therefore the domestic abuse continues to happen a lot more frequently and a lot more intense and severe instead of being prevented when the abuse is happening and the reports are coming in. There need to be a lot more law enforcement officers so that there are no cases that go unattended, unsolved, and so that the rates of domestic abuse start going down and the abuse begins to stop. Abusers should get a much stronger punishment in the case that it will help prevent at least one case of domestic abuse and there will hopefully not be as many victims if any at all.

1 out of 4 women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. It is estimated that for each male or female who seeks help, at least four or five of them remain silent. Over 70% of Domestic Abuse is non-physical also known as coercive. Some types of non-physical abuse include emotional abuse, psychological abuse, economic abuse and sexual abuse. In a phone survey that was done over 2,800 women, 26% of women making more than $50,000 a year, admitted to being in an abusive relationship.

There has been no evidence, however, that girls who witness their mothers' being abused having a higher risk of being abused as adults.
There are over 8.8 million children who witness domestic violence each year. 61% of domestic violence cases go unreported due to the victims thinking the police will not believe him or her.

A child being exposed to the father abusing the mother is the strongest risk factor for continuing violent behavior from one generation to the next. Every day there are about 30,000 active orders of protection in the State of Illinois.

The victim of assaultive behavior has no part in the attacks against her, no matter how provocative or inappropriate the woman's behavior, it neither justifies nor excuses the man's abuse.

What can or will you do the next time that you witness domestic abuse or know that there is domestic abuse currently happening to someone you know or love to make sure that the abuser gets the punishment that he or she deserves and does not get away with just a slap on and finding more victims to abuse?

References
CNET Networks. (2008). In the CNET Networks, Inc BNET. Retrieved 01-10-2009, from findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_7_71/ai_89973 552
Washington State Office of the Attorney General. Retrieved 01-10-2009, from atg.wa.gov/page.aspx?ID=2344
American Institute on Domestic Violence (2001). Retrieved on 01-10-2009, from, aidv-usa.com/Statistics.htm.

"Everyone says that there are too many law enforcement officers," Everyone? Really? No one at all is calling for more police officers to be hired anywhere in America? (Hint: these are rhetorical questions. A large segment of the public, generally those who self-identify as conservative, tends to generally favor strong police forces.)

"This visual shows a teenager that is a high school football player, it also shows that he is a gang member. This is one of the finger signs of a gang member, is he an innocent victim or an undercover gang?" With the "this visual" thing, which you use again later, will there actually be visual aids as part of a presentation? If not, this is confusing. Also, the two visuals seem to have nothing to do with domestic abuse, per se.

What exactly is your argument? You say that we need more police officers, but also that the punishment for domestic abuse isn't strong enough. These could both be true, but you present them together, as if they were both part of the same argument rather than two separate arguments. If the punishment for domestic abuse is too light to be an effective deterrent, then having more police officers won't help. If the punishment is increased, but police don't have the resources to prosecute domestic abusers, then that won't help either. So, you can argue that we need to both increase the number of police officers and the severity of sentences, but you have to say this, instead of leaving it for the reader to figure out.

Also, you might want to deal with some of the other reasons domestic abuse cases are problematic for police. For instance:

In the event of non-physical, non-sexual abuse, most of the behavior that qualifies is verbal, and not even considered illegal.

Even many acts of physical or sexual abuse leave little trace evidence. Those attacks that do leave obvious bruising/tearing/scarring tend to occur in the home, with no witnesses. This means that many abuse cases come down to he said/she said affairs in court, with the victim's word pitted against that of the accused. Given that our legal system assumes the accused (in any crime) is innocent until proven guilty, this makes abuse case difficult to prosecute, especially if there is little or no physical evidence of abuse.

In many cases of physical abuse, the victim will not agree to testify against her abuser, or will back out afterwards, either because she believes her abuser will change, or because she is still emotionally in thrall to her abuser, or because she is reliant on her abuser for financial support, or for some combination of these reasons.

Police hate dealing with domestic abuse calls, because, especially in cases of spousal abuse, the victim (usually the wife) may well turn on the police as soon as they attempt to restrain her husband / boyfriend.

Finally, with the exception of child abuse, it is difficult for most people to understand why someone in an abusive domestic relationship would not leave the person who was abusing them. This influences the other problems listed above. For instance, a man who is brought to court is accused by his wife of abusing her for a period of twenty years. She has some photos of bruising as evidence, but there are no witnesses to any of the attacks, and no record of injuries requiring hospitalization. The husband calls several character witnesses in his defense, and claims that his wife is alleging abuse with a view to winning a more favorable divorce settlement. It would be difficult enough for the prosecution to win such a case, but the defense also has the powerful counter -- "well, if he was such an abusive monster, why did his wife stay with him for twenty years?"

Hmmmm . . . this post is getting longer than I intended. However, you get the point -- there are many, many reasons why domestic abuse remains a serious social problem, and your essay needs to deal with more of them than it currently does if it is to be effective.

Wow, Sean gives really excellent feedback. To me, and perhaps to other readers, this is a valuable piece of writing because it bears your soul. It's hard to be eloquent when doing that, so I bet you have a special introspective strength that will make you great for certain things. I bet you write great poetry... with this essay, it is just not good as a persuasive essay!

Er... this is a persuasive essay, so let's follow a strong format.

First sentence should grab the reader's attention. Say something unexpected and intriguing.

Next, end the first paragraph with a statement of the specific argument you are trying to make.

For a few paragraphs, support that argument with strong evidence.

With one brief paragraph, acknowledge the OPPOSITE argument and tel why it is incorrect.

Write a conclusion paragraph where you review the argument you made.

You know, your background is obviously a source of great strength and insight because of the way adversity leads to wisdom -- isn't it strange how an essay about this sort of background is so common because suffering results from alcohol abuse so commonly... you can't have your essay be common, so adjust that MAIN ARGUMENT to be unique and intriguing.

One more point: In a persuasive essay, you want to energize the reader and inspire him or her to adopt your view. That means tha you cannot drain the reader's energy by including unnecessary sentences. Cut out all unnhelpful sentences. The way to do that is to read the essay as if you had never seen it, and notice what effect each sentence has on you.

Cut,cut, cut! And refine that central argument so that it's clear from the start.