On November 2, responding to a phone call that a child had stopped breathing, the police found a dying
little girl, a boy
tied to a playpen with a length of rope, and a severely battered mother. The
little girl, Lisa Steinberg, was later pronounced brain dead and the world began to understand what went on behind the doors of the Steinberg/Nussbaum home. One of questions that the video, "A Family Secret: The Death of Lisa Steinberg" attempts to
answer is what is the cause of domestic violence? The paper shows that in order to do this, the video gives the audience a lot of information about Joel Steinberg, and focuses on the extensive use of drugs by both adults in the Steinberg/Nussbaum home. However, the use of drugs does little to explain either why Joel Steinberg abused his children or why Hedda Nussbaum permitted the abuse. The paper shows that the answer to those questions is more complex than mere drug use.