Reading this sub, the topic of domestic violence comes up a lot. I've lurked long enough to know the general gist of the arguments brought up here. Gender parity, skewed official statistics, an utter lack of male DV shelters, etc.

One point I have not seen brought up is domestic violence committed through official means. If a man (A) and a woman (B) get into a heated argument, or decide to separate, women do commit domestic violence at comparable rates to men but one tactic that is used more much more often by women than men, is the use of the authorities. This could mean calling the police to have the man A taken to jail for the night or filing a restraining order to remove him from the place of residence and their children. In the end, it's all enforced at the point of a gun.

I believe that the involvement of law enforcement does not change the fact that it is violence. If anything, the fact that certain kinds of domestic abuse are an official function of western government, makes it even worse.

Woman B can pick up the phone and call a hotline to have uniformed agents show up at her front door, beat her partner senseless, remove him at gunpoint from his home, throw him in a cage with hardened criminals, and have it all be completely legal and done at taxpayer expense. The morality of the act does not change whether she did these things herself or asked someone else to do it for her.

For some reason, society at large is ok with this. We don't see the use of the authorities as a use of force i.e. justifiable when used to defend against an unprovoked attack but not when it is used for frivolous reasons.

Now my question. Is there any way to get a reasonable accounting of misuse of the police and courts and use it in domestic abuse statistics? I'd like to see how these numbers compare.