This book addresses the intersection of two current major concerns in Australia: law and justice responses to domestic violence - including harsher punitive measures - and the over-representation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system, which are similar concerns in New Zealand, Canada and the US. Nancarrow re-conceptualises typologies of violence and provides a means of understanding and explaining female use of violence without undermining the hard-won gains of the women’s movement. It does, however, argue for a paradigm shift, which has implications for every aspect of the system we have built to stop men’s violence against women (law, police policy and practice, counselling and advocacy for victims, and interventions for those who perpetrate violence). The book is based on quantitative and qualitative research and explores the nature of Indigenous intimate partner violence and the types of violence that domestic violence law sought to address.
Decriminalizing Domestic Violence asks the crucial, yet often overlooked, question of why and how the criminal legal system became the primary response to intimate partner violence in the United States. It introduces readers, both new and well versed in the subject, to the ways in which the criminal legal system harms rather than helps those who are subjected to abuse and violence in their homes and communities, and shares how it drives, rather than deters, intimate partner violence. The book examines how social, legal, and financial resources are diverted into a criminal legal apparatus that is often unable to deliver justice or safety to victims or to prevent intimate partner violence in the first place. Envisioned for both courses and research topics in domestic violence, family violence, gender and law, and sociology of law, the book challenges readers to understand intimate partner violence not solely, or even primarily, as a criminal law concern but as an economic, public health, community, and human rights problem. It also argues that only by viewing intimate partner violence through these lenses can we develop a balanced policy agenda for addressing it. At a moment when we are examining our national addiction to punishment, Decriminalizing Domestic Violence offers a thoughtful, pragmatic roadmap to real reform.
place of prosecutorial discretion. Protection orders that prohibit all contact between suspected abusers and their partners are designed to end relationships - even over victims' objections. The law's rapidly changing picture of the home has fundamentally moved the boundary between public and private space. The result, unintended by domestic violence reformers, is to reduce the autonomy of women in relation to the state." --Book Jacket.
That family violence injures and kills its victims both physically and psychologically was established over two decades ago by early researchers in this field. Abused and Battered heralds the second generation of domestic abuse research: it examines the implications of the legal and social responses to both victims and offenders by systematically addressing the intended and unintended consequences of programs and procedures designed to ameliorate the effects of spousal and child abuse. Contributors to this multidisciplinary volume represent the leading perspectives in public health, law and criminal justice, psychology, and sociology. They provide new and sophisticated insights regarding the etiology of the multiple forms of family abuse and they suggest innovative strategies for mitigating the anguish resulting from physical and emotional violence against adults and children within households. The results of this research will be of interest to students and practitioners in sociology, public health, psychology and family studies, and to clinicians and therapists who treat victims or offenders.
Many feminists grapple with the problem of hyper-incarceration in the United States, and yet commentators on gender crime continue to assert that criminal law is not tough enough. This punitive impulse, prominent legal scholar Aya Gruber argues, is dangerous and counterproductive. In their quest to secure women’s protection from domestic violence and rape, American feminists have become soldiers in the war on crime by emphasizing white female victimhood, expanding the power of police and prosecutors, touting the problem-solving power of incarceration, and diverting resources toward law enforcement and away from marginalized communities. Deploying vivid cases and unflinching analysis, The Feminist War on Crime documents the failure of the state to combat sexual and domestic violence through law and punishment. Zero-tolerance anti-violence law and policy tend to make women less safe and more fragile. Mandatory arrests, no-drop prosecutions, forced separation, and incarceration embroil poor women of color in a criminal justice system that is historically hostile to them. This carceral approach exacerbates social inequalities by diverting more power and resources toward a fundamentally flawed criminal justice system, further harming victims, perpetrators, and communities alike. In order to reverse this troubling course, Gruber contends that we must abandon the conventional feminist wisdom, fight violence against women without reinforcing the American prison state, and use criminalization as a technique of last—not first—resort.
Drawing on cases, Stark identifies the problems with our current approach to domestic violence, outlines the components of coercive control, and then uses this alternate framework to analyse the cases of battered women charged with criminal offenses directed at their abusers.
Reports of mistreated children, domestic violence, and abuse of elderly persons continue to strain the capacity of police, courts, social services agencies, and medical centers. At the same time, myriad treatment and prevention programs are providing services to victims and offenders. Although limited research knowledge exists regarding the effectiveness of these programs, such information is often scattered, inaccessible, and difficult to obtain. Violence in Families takes the first hard look at the successes and failures of family violence interventions. It offers recommendations to guide services, programs, policy, and research on victim support and assistance, treatments and penalties for offenders, and law enforcement. Included is an analysis of more than 100 evaluation studies on the outcomes of different kinds of programs and services. Violence in Families provides the most comprehensive review on the topic to date. It explores the scope and complexity of family violence, including identification of the multiple types of victims and offenders, who require different approaches to intervention. The book outlines new strategies that offer promising approaches for service providers and researchers and for improving the evaluation of prevention and treatment services. Violence in Families discusses issues that underlie all types of family violence, such as the tension between family support and the protection of children, risk factors that contribute to violent behavior in families, and the balance between family privacy and community interventions. The core of the book is a research-based review of interventions used in three institutional sectors--social services, health, and law enforcement settings--and how to measure their effectiveness in combating maltreatment of children, domestic violence, and abuse of the elderly. Among the questions explored by the committee: Does the child protective services system work? Does the threat of arrest deter batterers? The volume discusses the strength of the evidence and highlights emerging links among interventions in different institutional settings. Thorough, readable, and well organized, Violence in Families synthesizes what is known and outlines what needs to be discovered. This volume will be of great interest to policymakers, social services providers, health care professionals, police and court officials, victim advocates, researchers, and concerned individuals.
Domestic Violence Laws in the United States and India is a comparative study of the domestic violence laws in India and the United States, seeking to illuminate the critical issues of intimate partner violence through the lenses of these two societies.
