Engaging Men As Allies To End Domestic Violence

Bob Davis

Welcome to Patchwork. Before we get started, we want you to know that in this episode we discuss gender-based violence. The content might not be suitable for all ages and it might be upsetting for some listeners. If you or someone in your life is struggling with these issues, please know that caring and helpful people are available right now to support you and help guide you to safety. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is (800) 799-7233 and they can also be found online at thehotline.org.

Today, we're joined by Tony Lowden. He's the Executive Director of the Federal Interagency Council on Crime Prevention and Improving Reentry at the White House.

Tony, thank you for joining us, especially during Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Tony Lowden

Oh, thank you very much. Just honored to be here today. Thank you for the great work that you guys are doing. 

Bob Davis

Thank you. You know, one of the main goals here at OVW is to engage men as active partners in the effort to stop domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. I'm eager to hear how you address these issues of domestic violence with the men you counsel. But first, I'm really curious about what you're doing in this role with crime prevention at the White House. Tell us a little bit more about that first. 

Tony Lowden

Well, one of the things that the President, has chosen me to do is to help organize the Interagency Council on Crime Prevention, where all 17 and right agencies are working together with the Department of Justice to look at ways of how we come up with crime prevention and preventing men and women from going back and forth and on prisons across the nation. And so we've been working collectively. In the past, we've all worked in silos and this is an opportunity for us to have Health and Human Services Department of Labor, Department of Energy, Department of Justice, Department of Agriculture, all the federal agencies working together to move the needle. As you know, Bob, we've been talking about crime prevention, criminal justice reform, prison reform, reentry, domestic violence. We've been talking about those issues for decades. We haven't been able to move the needle. So to be to get all our agencies working together, change the communities made the communities better, safe policing, stop our pipeline from going inside our facilities with our youth and our children. That's the best way to do it, I call it, smart government. Making government work. And so in the past few months, I've been traveling all around the nation, even during this pandemic, meeting with individuals who are doing some of the greatest work around the country, as well as looking at ways of how we replicate those best practices to keep men and women from going in and out of our prisons. I can tell you this- I'm excited about the work that we're doing across the nation. When you can take crime prevention, Department of HUD, Department of Labor, and Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Department of Education and others, and strategize to change these distressed communities across the nation, I believe crime will go down, I believe will stop men and women from one of our prisons in our communities that will change our community, that will no longer have the violence that you've seen in so many of our communities, no longer having our children fill up the pipelines and our juvenile justice system and then enter into our prisons.

Bob Davis

Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's dive into domestic violence. That's obviously a problem that cuts across all demographics across the country. It affects all communities. When you are talking to men and engaging men in this area, tell me a little bit about some of the discussions you've had working with folks to reduce domestic violence. 

Tony Lowden

One of the things that I tried to share with them is the collateral consequences. I had the opportunity to go down to Florida where there was a program called Children of Inmates, and it broke my heart to see these children whose parents in some cases are doing life in prison.  And this program connects, reconnects, the children with their parents who are locked up in prisons. And every now and then you hear one talks about them, “my fathers in prison for beating up on my mom” or “murdering my mom” and or vice versa. And it breaks my heart to see the children crying. And they want their parents, but because of domestic violence and because of our laws, they can no longer have that complete whole family. I share with them what it was like growing up as a kid into a domestic violence situation that I grew up in, watching my mom be beat by several men and watching those same men abuse my sisters, and then being a child and calling the police on the man that was beating on my mom and then get a beating for calling the police. I talk about how this cycle must end. Because if not, then the children end up repeating that same cycle. I talk about the fact is you have this accountability that they don't want their children to be displaced and raised by government or they don't want to be able to have to try to raise the children from behind bars. This is something they have to take a personal ownership in and be able to change the directions of this whole domestic violence and own up to what they're doing and get help immediately if they're involved in it. 

Bob Davis

How does that… I appreciate you sharing that personal story. That's very heavy to hear. How does that, how does that impact the folks that you're dealing with? That makes it very real for everyone, I would imagine. 

Tony Lowden

I think coming from them as a man and looking them directly in the eye and saying that there’s some responsibility, that they're accountable for what they're doing and their actions. And that only way this is going to change is that they're going to have to lead and get help that they need so that their sons and their daughters don't grow up in that same situation. And then I get real with them. How would they feel if their daughter married someone thinking that domestic violence was the way to go? Or if they had a boyfriend in high school thinking that domestic violence is the way to go. And I tell them how easily it could happen to their daughters because one in four women experienced violence in partners in their relationships. One in four women are sexually abused before they're 18 years of age. And would you want that whole situation to be on your daughter? And I try to make it personal. Hit them right where the things that they care about the most. And you can see a light bulb come on. If you're incarcerated, you’re on probation and you can't be around your family. Imagine this male who is not able to protect his children, who may go through similar things with other relationships that may help outside of their homes and a light bulb comes on.

Bob Davis

Once that light bulb comes on, do you have tips for them? What are some practical things that they can do or what advice do you give them? 

Tony Lowden

One of the advice that I asked them is to look at ways to try to diffuse whatever situation they going through but more importantly to get help. That's the most important thing. There's so many different programs out there that you can go and get help and be able to address your anger issues or your situations causing you to explode. You know, we hear all the time that domestic violence goes up when there's Super Bowl or a big game or something like that has taking place in our country. But this pandemic is one of the reasons why I believe that it's very important for me to bring it up even more because everyone's feeling this pressure of being locked inside the house. People losing their jobs. And so many folks take this out and not know how to respond by ways of anger and fighting and domestic violence. And that has to stop. So I give them those tips that one, look for ways to get help, looking to get spiritual counseling or leave the situation. If you think you have to leave the violence, leave the home and make sure that your children are not a part of that. 

Bob Davis

How does that go over with them? Sometimes that advice doesn't sound very manly, right? There's a masculine, macho kind of reaction... tell me what it's like talking to folks and getting them to see things a little bit differently in that way. 

Tony Lowden

I think a lot of them are really starting to see it, Bob, I really do, because these situations have been highlighted and I share the stories of men who are doing time in prison for doing life because they murdered their loved one. I share with them young kids whose life has been taken because of domestic violence and jealousy. I share with them about young kids who have been sexually abused because of domestic violence and things that have grown up in their lives. And right away it clicks so that they can understand that they need to get help. This is a very important situation, a very important topic that we can't sugarcoat and continue to allow it to hide. During this pandemic our assault cases have went up. I would like to add this. You know, there's a lot of times you have to be direct when you're talking to men about it. You have to talk directly about them about extreme jealousy. You have to talk to them about isolating family and friends and needing constant excessive text message and calls to those people. 

You have to talk about showing fear and anger around a partner. You have to talk about those unexplained injuries that you can't explain you have afflicted on your family members. You have to talk or intimidation. You have to talk to them about that, because some of them don't realize that this is not normal the way they are growing up. I mean, they may think this is something normal, this is just something that they grew up in but it's something abnormal. 

Bob Davis

I pause because it's very troubling to think about the people who are out there in a stressful situation and may need some resources to get help. So I just want to remind folks again that there are resources available right now 24/7. I hope people will reach out and get the help they need.

When did it shift for you? It was as you shared, you grew up with it. So it must have seemed normal to you up to a moment. When do you recall that the light bulb went off for you? 

Tony Lowden

I think the light bulb went off me bulb moment that I took a beating with the braided extension cord from my mom because I called the police on a man that was beating her. And then I realized this is not normal. This is not something that any child or any mother should be growing up and I realized that the reason my mother was going through this. She thought this is her way of survival. Growing up in the inner cities, in the ghettos, and what we call a trap house or a bootleg house or drug infested house during that time, people thought it was normal in those inner city communities, it was a normal way of life. And somehow as a child, I knew it was wrong. I wish they had these reporting agencies back then when I was a child. Now they do. They have more agencies that you can report those instances to. I grew up watching it and I knew it was wrong. I used to say to myself, as a child, I never want to live like that and so I thank God for this Domestic Violence Awareness Month but, let me tell you something - we need this every day. 

Bob Davis

Yeah. Yeah, well said.  And as you're speaking, I wonder what the how we can engage men so that maybe the neighbor, the friend, someone who is aware, someone who hears the noises, you know, how can we engage men to play an active role if they're a bystander, if they're aware of this or if they have a friend who is reacting with violence.

Tony Lowden

We have to report and we have to hold those people accountable. We have to offer help and we have to get them resources. And we got to be able to support our friends and families. We have to talk about it in churches, we have to talk about in all the denominations of churches. Some churches have this where the man is a head and a woman is to be submissive and they teach that so wrongly. We've got to get to the point where we'd be able to get all these resources and different platforms, not just on social media, not just on the Internet, but down to the level where we can educate those folks, where women and some cases and men can go get help from a domestic violence situation. We can't stand around or just making an awareness for one month. I'm advocating that domestic violence is something that we should treat just like a pandemic, just like a pandemic on drugs, the same way we highlight opioids. We don't just do that one month. We fight this every day of the year and we have to do the same with domestic violence. 

Bob Davis

I agree with you, and that certainly is what we try and do every day at our office and I know that we support folks across the country who make this their daily mission to be there to help folks in their communities so I appreciate you saying that. You know, I wonder, you talk to so many different people in so many different settings, I wonder if there's been anything that's been inspirational or given you hope in some of your conversations. 

Tony Lowden

There has, Bob, there's been a lot of things that have given me hope. I was down in Boca Raton, Florida, where I met a woman who was homeless, who was on the streets. She had been beaten. She had been in prostitution. She was in a domestic violence situation. And a way for her to escape was to be homeless. There were people at a church, a Methodist church that came alongside of her and helped her and got her clothed and put her in a protective situation and helped her from the drugs to try to change what I called her Ps. Her playground, her playmates, her play things and more importantly, give her a purpose. All across the country, I'm starting to see nonprofits address this issue of domestic violence and putting families back together whole. I think that’s so critical that we have to do. But more importantly, we have to give people spaces and places to be able to hide and be able to get help from this situation because they need time outs. And a lot of times we know our court system because of this pandemic and no bail crises that are taking place across our nation where men are not getting locked up for domestic violence. Zero tolerance is not zero tolerance anymore. We got to look at ways of being able to address this right up because it only takes one time for domestic violence situation to become permanent or someone dies in that issue. And we have to be able to look at ways of providing the resources. I'm hopeful because the adjustment in prisons now. I was in Missouri at the Department of Corrections talking about men or how to change your behaviors and how to integrate with their family and children. What does it look like to be a man of a household without trying to control it in a way with violence and intimidation? I'm hopeful that people across the nation are saying, you know what? No more of this, it has to stop. And so I'm excited in my space, where I am, working with Department of Health and Human Services, working with the Department of Labor and Department of Justice. We are making this a platform. We have to because if we don't, we're just going to repeat the cycle. And then when another administration come, we can do the same thing, that it becomes on the back burner. It has to be a priority. And as long as I'm a director of this interagency piece, it'll be a priority for me. 

Bob Davis

I appreciate that very much. You know, one of the questions we get from our one of our listeners recently was “what can we do as average folks out here to help? We're not a provider. We're not in the justice system but we want to we want to do something to help.” What would your answer be to what the average person can do to help engage men in this in this important topic? 

Tony Lowden

I would love to see a lot of churches and non-profits across our nation that have small groups monthly to talk about this issue and bring awareness to it, because in some communities there's a stigma. No one wants to talk about it, right? And it's like mental health in the African-American community. No one wants to talk about it. But is there and the only way we're going to be able to deal with this darkness is by shining some light on it. And let people know what it can do and how they can stop it. More importantly, talk about that. This is something that we just can't tolerate in our society. We've got to look at ways of being able to sit down and talk and be able to identify those issues right away and then show people how to get help. You know, I think the biggest thing that when I was growing up as a child, I saw some of my sisters get involved in relationships that was wrong for them, mirroring relationships that my mother had with several men. We've got to be able to break those cycles because then this process will be repeated if the children think this is something normal and we got to highlight it, we got to let them know this is not what marriage looks like. It's not what relationships look like. And too often in these distressed communities, there's no mirror, there's no image or model of what good looks like. 

Bob Davis

Tony, I've heard you talk about the Four L's before. Tell me about the four L's. 

Tony Lowden

The Four L’s is important, I think is something that we can apply in this space. That is being able to get into round groups and round tables across the nation and nonprofits and churches. All those community leaders include our servant leaders, our politicians to be able to listen. And not only that, we listen, but we listen to what's going on in our communities as well as to learn. Right? I think the learning process goes both ways. And then to be able to lead in this space, if we can if we can listen, learn and lead in this space and find out what's going on here and how to prevent domestic violence across the nation, but more importantly, we do all those three L's and then we can love. I encourage people all across the nation is taking… if you want to know what you can do to help? Listen to those communities. Listen to what's going on in our communities. Listening to those women who may be going to domestic violence, find a way to learn from them and how you can help and more importantly, lead in this space. Don't just listen and gossip. Don't just learn about someone's problem and pass it on to a friend underneath the table but don't do anything to help them, lead in this space so that you can help them. And if you listen, learn and lead, you can show them how much you love them by helping them.

Bob Davis

Tony, thank you. I really appreciate you joining us today.

Tony Lowden

Well, Bob, thank you so much. The work that you guys are doing are absolutely crucial for our nation and we got to do more of it and highlight more of it. And anything I can do to help amplify it, you can always call me and my office. 

Bob Davis

And thank you for listening to Patchwork. Let us know what you'd like to hear on future episodes. By emailing us at patchwork@usdoj.gov, or just give us a call at (202) 307-6026. Please help us expand this conversation by sharing this episode with others. Thanks for listening.