BCIFV home > Media Releases > June 23, 2000

For Immediate Release
Contact: Penny Bain, (604) 669-7055
June 23, 2000

Media Release:

Ontario murder-suicide tragic but preventable
But to be effective prevention must begin
long before restraining orders become necessary

Investing in violence prevention is like depositing money in a bank account with a high rate of interest compounded daily, says the director of a BC anti-violence group.

"We might think we could spend the money better elsewhere," says Penny Bain, executive director of the BC Institute Against Family Violence. "But by the time our investments mature they will have grown exponentially."

Bain is responding to a husband-wife murder-suicide in Pickering, Ontario earlier this week, in which bail orders and restraining orders failed to save a woman's life. Bain agrees with transition-house workers quoted as saying accurate use of risk-assessment tools and better enforcement of restraining orders should have prevented this tragedy. The Institute is an international leader in the development of risk assessment tools.

But she adds that a situation like this, in which a woman tried to use the system to protect herself, underlines what the BCIFV has been saying for years: Strong and well-enforced intervention measures, such as risk-assessment tools and restraining orders, are essential in the struggle to end family violence, but are not enough.

Prevention is the key, and it must start early.

"If we are to prevent a man from murdering his wife - or parents from murdering their children, or teenagers from murdering each other - we must get to him long before he marries her, before he meets her, even before hormones create in him a sexual attraction to other human beings. We must get to him in infancy."

Bain is referring to research showing that the tendency to respond to conflict with blind violence begins in the developing brain. When infants are exposed to ongoing violence in the form of hitting, shaking, or yelling, their brains release such high and frequent concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol that it can cause permanent damage. This damage can permanently and negatively alter the individual's stress response.

If the violence continues in early childhood, whether the child is being physically, sexually, or emotionally abused, and especially if the violence is reinforced by other sources such as a constant barrage of violent media images, by the time he or she reaches school age the child could already be predisposed to the use of violence to resolve violence.

"By the age of five, a little boy with the right combination of volatile personality and aggressive environment can already be on path to becoming an abusive spouse and parent, and even a murderer," says Bain. This is why it's vital that interventions to prevent violence begin in infancy, by educating parents about the importance of environment to their children's development.

In fact, these interventions should begin before infancy or even conception. They should begin with adolescents who have not yet become pregnant, with school-age children from at-risk families, with pre-schoolers who may best be identified as at risk by day-care and preschool teachers.

"Interventions with today's children should be viewed not only as attempts to save them from the immediate effects of violence, but as protection for the next generation," says Bain.

"Every time we identify and help at-risk children, we increase the possibility that they will one day do better with their children. Every time we get through to a teenager about being prepared for parenthood before they have sex, we increase the likelihood that children will be born to people who are ready to parent them."

Yet when government money is tight, prevention and intervention programs are among the first to be cut, she says.

"We don't seem to have a problem in our society understanding the concept of compound interest," says Bain. "Now we need to extend that understanding to areas where the stakes are higher than money, where what's at stake are human lives."

For information contact Penny Bain, executive director of the BC Institute Against Family Violence, at (604) 669-7055, pbain@bcifv.org, or www.bcifv.org.

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