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.

Recovering from the trauma of sexual and domestic violence is a process that can lead you to find your own strength. Shaped by a faith identity incongruent with her reality as a survivor of sexual and physical abuse, Ellis Davis became intimately familiar with domestic violence and the church’s reluctance to intervene. Then, using marriages as a touchstone for self-discovery only led her into increasingly violent relationships. Even while navigating the process to wholeness as a woman police officer, Ellis Davis was not assured an expedient process through the courts nor protection from male police officers. Determined to define her worth for herself, Ellis Davis shares with liberating vulnerability decades of blessings and betrayals as she self-actualized from being a victim of domestic violence and sexual traumas to becoming victoriously accomplished and deeply content. This book provides hope for survivors, pastoral wisdom for seminarians, cultural sensitivity for service providers, and is useful as a guide for faith-based study groups.

This Research Handbook examines the evolution of understandings and legal definitions of domestic abuse, illustrating the importance of expanding these beyond physical violence to encompass coercive control. Drawing on academic literature, legal doctrine and the lived experiences of victims and survivors, it highlights how responses to domestic abuse can be improved in civil, family and criminal justice systems.

A fresh look at the response to domestic violence in the United States today by experts in their field. Responding to Domestic Violence explores the response to domestic and intimate partner violence by the criminal justice system as well as public and non-profit social service and health care agencies. After providing a brief theoretical overview of the causes of domestic violence and its prevalence in society, the expert author team covers such key topics as barriers to intervention, variations in arrest practices, the role of state and federal legislation, and case prosecution. Focusing on both survivors and offenders, the book provides a thorough exploration of modern strategies to address the realities and needs of all survivors. The new edition offers new chapters on Special Populations at Risk, Victim Services, Coercive Control, Intimate Partner Stalking, and Civil and Criminal Protection Orders. All remaining chapters have been substantially or completely rewritten to reflect the growing body of research in the field.

Over the past 40 years, considerable progress has been made in lowering rates of domestic violence in our communities. This progress has been uneven, however, due to continuing misconceptions about the causes and dynamics of domestic violence, which include an exaggerated focus on males as perpetrators and females as victims, as well as a heavy-handed law enforcement response that compromises the rights of criminal defendants without necessarily reducing violence. Gender and Domestic Violence presents empirical research findings and reform recommendations for prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, policy makers and intervention providers with the aim of rectifying shortcomings in legal and law enforcement responses to domestic violence. The volume's editors and chapter authors confront the notion that certain beliefs shared among victim advocates, legal actors, and other stakeholders -- principally that domestic violence is bound by gender, and is primarily a crime against women -- have led to the use of ineffective and potentially harmful one-size-fits-all intervention policies that can jeopardize defendant due process and victim safety. Domestic violence experts, legal scholars, and practicing attorneys present how gendered aspects of domestic violence affect legal decision-making and practice and provide strategies for becoming more inclusive in the adjudicative process, intervention/prevention, and practice. Gender and Domestic Violence: Contemporary Legal Practice and Intervention Reforms provides the foundation from which we can begin to move beyond the gender paradigm by recognizing disparities and applying tools that improve research, policing, and practice, allowing us to progress toward eradicating domestic violence, and to move closer to equality.

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.

Often examined separately, this timely volume provides a detailed exploration of the nexus between family violence and sexual offending. Recognising family and sexual violence as highly interrelated issues, it uncovers the challenges and paradoxes of addressing them as separate versus coinciding problems. What is lost and gained when we treat family violence and sexual offending according to the same framework? Light is shed on the nature and dynamics of offending; various terminology (e.g., domestic abuse, intimate partner violence, grooming, coercive control); political and policy contexts; myths and misconceptions; policing and investigative responses; children as overlooked victim-survivors; and the punishment and treatment of offenders. Drawing on international literature, case studies, and stakeholder interviews, the book encourages critical consideration to inform future policy, practise, and research, ultimately prompting stronger approaches to reflect victim-survivors’ realities and needs. The book is relevant to the work of professionals in the social service and criminal justice sectors (e.g., police, policymakers, social workers, advocates, and counsellors), and will be of key interest to researchers and students in diverse academic fields such as criminology, forensic psychology, social work, and socio-legal studies.

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.

This edited volume represents a joint effort by international experts to analyze the prevalence and nature of gender-based domestic violence across the globe and how it is dealt with at both national and international levels. With studies being conducted in 20 different countries and 4 distinct regions, the contributors to this volume shed light on the ways in which contextual particularities shape the practices and strategies of addressing the socio-cultural and legal problem of gender-based domestic violence in the countries or regions where they do research. Special attention is devoted to developing countries where there is a lack of a consistent legal definition of gender-based domestic violence and where violence against women is widely considered a private matter. The authors of the chapters share a common goal of raising public awareness of the significance in nuanced local experiences of women and other individuals from gender and sexual minority groups facing gender-based violence. Furthermore, the authors attend, analytically, to the newly emerging, overlapping influences of COVID-19 and global warming. Their research findings acknowledge and provide a detailed account of how the two ecological and socio-economic crises can combine to produce economic devastation, disconnect victims from necessary social services and assistance, and create a large degree of panic and uncertainty. In addition, they intend to offer insights into next steps to not only adjust existing public policies, legislation, and social services to the ever-changing national and global contexts, but also to make new ones. The book is intended for a wide range of scholars (both professors and students) and practitioners in a large number of areas, including but not limited to criminal justice, criminology, law, human rights, social justice, social work, nursing, sociology, and political or public affairs.

The raw, uplifting, and unforgettable memoir from the CEO and president of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence chronicling her personal battle against abuse, violence, and even a murder attempt. Ruth M. Glenn wasn’t surprised the first time her husband beat her. She was hurt and disappointed but after a childhood in a broken and violent home, she was not surprised. After all, this was just the way things were, right? It was only after she lay bleeding in a carwash parking lot, after being shot three times by him, that Glenn resolved—if she managed to survive—to spend the rest of her life standing up to domestic violence. Now, she brings her full story to the forefront with this survivor’s tale crossed with a rousing call to action. She reveals her difficult but ultimately rewarding journey from that parking lot to sacrificing everything to obtain her advanced degrees. With her evocative and thoughtful voice, Glenn explores the dynamics of domestic violence, why women and children are seen as lesser in our society, how to stop victim-blaming, and how to demystify domestic violence to stop it once and for all. A memoir of resilience and courage, Everything I Never Dreamed is a necessary book that proves that abuse does not have to define a survivor’s entire life.