Explores diverse feminist and legal responses to domestic violence across cultures. Argues that domestic violence must be viewed in its social and cultural context and offers suggestions for those dealing with incidents of abuse.
What are the roots of violence between spouses? What do we know about the precursors of wife battering? Who are the victims of domestic abuse? This book discusses causes and precursors of violence, exploring the psychological characteristics of perpetrators of violence, and describing and evaluating potential responses to it. Each chapter contributes to the reader′s understanding of violence in intimate relationships. Part I establishes the "what" and the "who" of violence; Part II examines the interpersonal and situational context that may contribute to violent interaction, or the "how" and "why" that underlie violent interactions; and Part III provides an account of what happens to victims as a result of physical and psychological abuse and how relationships change following violent interactions. The book provides an up-to-date supplemental textbook for courses on a variety of disciplines that deal with violence between spouses and intimate spouses. CONTRIBUTORS: S. Oskamp, X. B. Arriaga, M. A. Straus, A. Holtzworth-Munroe, J. C. Meehan, K. Herron, G. L. Stuart, D. G. Dutton, S. A. Lloyd, K. E. Leonard, I. Arias, P. W. Sharps, J. Campbell, T. N. Bradbury, & E. Lawrence
Domestic Violence and International Law argues that certain forms of domestic violence are a violation of international human rights law. The argument is based on the international law principle that, where a state fails to protect a vulnerable group of people from harm, whether perpetrated by the state or private actors, it has breached its obligations to protect against human rights violation. This book provides a comprehensive legal analysis for why a state should be accountable in international law for allowing women to suffer extreme forms of domestic violence and how this can help individual victims. It is irrelevant that the violence is perpetrated by individuals and not state actors such as soldiers or the police. The state's breach of its responsibility is in its failure to act effectively in domestic violence cases; and in its silent endorsement of the violence, it becomes complicit. The book seeks to reformulate academic and political debate on domestic violence and the responsibility of states under international law. It is based on empirical data combined with an honest assessment of whether or not domestic violence is recognised by the international community as a human rights violation. 'Domestic Violence in International Law [...] provides an original, provocative, and much needed legal framework for the coherent development of a norm against domestic violence in international human rights law...Dr. Meyersfeld has developed a thoroughgoing analysis that asks and answers the most difficult questions often neglected by academics, lawyers and activists who dismiss the possibility that systemic violence against women could violate international law...Most fundamentally, this book is memorable for the hope and optimism it expresses about the transformative possibilities of international law. For without compromising such intensely human values as privacy, autonomy and cultural identity, Dr. Meyersfeld moves her reader with an abiding conviction: that international law, fueled with the power of transnational actors, can propel public actors to protect abused and vulnerable people in their most private worlds.' From the Foreword by Harold Koh, The Legal Adviser, United States Department of State (2009-).
What, exactly, is private property? Or, to ask the question another way, what rights to intrude does the public have in what is generally accepted as private property? The answer, perhaps surprisingly to some, is that the public has not only a significant interest in regulating the use of private property but also in defining it, and establishing its contour and texture. In The Public Nature of Private Property, therefore, scholars from the United States and the United Kingdom challenge traditional conceptions of private property while presenting a range of views on both the meaning of private property, and on the ability, some might say the requirement, of the state to regulate it.
Domestic violence - domestic hooliganism it has been called - is one of the cancers of our age. This volume offers a challenging selection of materials as a picture of a multi-faceted problem. The issues embraced range from criminal and civil law responses and the value of mediation, to the impact on children, and to the cultural context. The materials are derived from a variety of sources and from different disciplines to offer the reader an understanding of the problem not easily culled from standard library resources.
This book argues that past inattentive treatment by state criminal justice agencies in relation to domestic abuse is now being self-consciously reversed by neoliberal governing agendas intent on denouncing crime and holding offenders to account. Criminal prosecutions are key to the UK government’s strategy to end Violence Against Women and Girls. Crown Prosecution Service policy affirms that domestic abuse offences are ‘particularly serious’ and prosecutors are reminded that it will be rare that the ‘public interest’ will not require of such offences through the criminal courts. Seeking to unpick some of the discourses and perspectives that may have contributed to the current prosecutorial commitment, the book considers its emergence within the context of the women’s movement, feminist scholarship and an era of neoliberalism. Three empirical chapters explore the prosecution commitment on the one hand, and the impact on women’s lives on the other. The book’s final substantive chapter offers a distinctive normative conceptual framework through which practitioners may think about women who have experienced domestic abuse that will have both intellectual appeal and practical application.
Explores diverse feminist and legal responses to domestic violence across cultures. Argues that domestic violence must be viewed in its social and cultural context and offers suggestions for those dealing with incidents of abuse.
Violence against women is one factor in the growing wave of alarm about violence in American society. High-profile cases such as the O.J. Simpson trial call attention to the thousands of lesser-known but no less tragic situations in which women's lives are shattered by beatings or sexual assault. The search for solutions has highlighted not only what we know about violence against women but also what we do not know. How can we achieve the best understanding of this problem and its complex ramifications? What research efforts will yield the greatest benefit? What are the questions that must be answered? Understanding Violence Against Women presents a comprehensive overview of current knowledge and identifies four areas with the greatest potential return from a research investment by increasing the understanding of and responding to domestic violence and rape: What interventions are designed to do, whom they are reaching, and how to reach the many victims who do not seek help. Factors that put people at risk of violence and that precipitate violence, including characteristics of offenders. The scope of domestic violence and sexual assault in America and its conequences to individuals, families, and society, including costs. How to structure the study of violence against women to yield more useful knowledge. Despite the news coverage and talk shows, the real fundamental nature of violence against women remains unexplored and often misunderstood. Understanding Violence Against Women provides direction for increasing knowledge that can help ameliorate this national problem.
Over the Threshold is the first in-depth work to explore the topic of intimate violence in the American colonies and the early Republic. The essays examine domestic violence in both urban and frontier environments, between husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and slaves. This compelling collection puts commonly held notions about intimate violence under strict historical scrutiny, often producing surprising results.
This book aims to examine legal responses to domestic violence in a holistic way. In England and Wales, as in other jurisdictions, much attention has been paid to the criminal justice response to domestic violence. The response of the civil justice system has not been ignored, but has been somewhat marginalized. Legal Responses to Domestic Violence takes a systematic approach to examining legal responses, encompassing the full range of decision makers within the legal system to analyze developments in substantive law and practice, in particular the movement towards an integrated justice approach.