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One of North America’s leading scholars on domestic violence is trying to persuade the B.C. government that it has adopted a failing approach to a serious problem.

UBC psychology professor Don Dutton, who has studied domestic violence for 40 years and written eight books, has told the B.C. Liberal government it has adopted a “false” premise that will do little to diminish partner-on-partner violence.

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“It is understandable how an uninformed observer in British Columbia would tend to believe that family violence perpetrators are male and victims are female,” Dutton wrote in a recent letter to Premier Christy Clark.

“But that assumption could not be more incorrect,” Dutton said, objecting to the way virtually all B.C. government documents describe domestic violence as being perpetrated by men, with women as the victims.

As a result, Dutton said, B.C.’s police procedures, court policy and prevention programs are based on a misleading theory.