The arrest of large numbers of women under laws originally designed to protect them from male violence tells us very little about women’s use of violence against their intimate partners. However, it does tell us about the difficulties of organizing to protect women from violence and about some of the unanticipated challenges of engaging the legal and criminal justice systems as ways of protecting women from violence. The authors offer strategies that activists can use to advocate for women who have been victims of domestic violence and who have been arrested for using domestic violence.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abrams, K. (1991). Hearing the call of stories. California Law Review, 79, 971-1052.
2.
Bhattachajee, A. (2001). Whose safety? Women of color and the violence of law enforcement (A Justice Visions Working Paper). Philadelphia, PA: American Friends Service Committee, Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment.
3.
Currie, D. (1993). Battered women and the state: From a failure of theory to a theory of failure. In K. Faith & D. Currie (Eds.), Seeking shelter: A state of battered women (pp. 37-60). Vancouver, Canada: Collective Press.
4.
Dasgupta, S. D. (2002). A framework for understanding women’s use of nonlethal violence in intimate heterosexual relationships. Violence Against Women, 8, 1368-1393.
Dobash, R., &Dobash, R. E. (1992). Women, violence, and social change. London: Routledge.
7.
Fox, A. F., &Zawitz, M. W. (1999). Homicide trends in the U.S.: Intimate homicide. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
8.
Gamache, D., & Asmus, M. (1999). Enhancing networking among service providers: Elements of successful coordination strategies. In M. F. Shepard & E. L. Pence (Eds.), Coordinating community responses to domestic violence: Lessons from Duluth and beyond (pp. 65-87). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
9.
George, L., & Wilson, A. (2002). Community-based analysis of the U.S. legal system’s interventions in domestic abuse cases involving indigenous women. Unpublished report, National Institute of Justice. (Available from MPDI Inc., 202 East Superior Street, Duluth, MN 55806)
10.
Gotell, L. (1998). A critical look at state discourses on “violence against women”: Some implications for feminist politics and women’s citizenship. In M. Tremblay & C. Andrew (Eds.), Women and political representation in Canada (pp. 39-75). Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa Press.
11.
Hirschel, D., &Buzawa, E. (2002). Understanding the context of dual arrest with directions for future research. Violence Against Women, 8, 1449-1473.
12.
hooks, b. (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking Black. Boston: South End.
13.
Loseke, D. (1992). The battered woman and shelters: The social construction of wife abuse. Albany: State University of New York Press.
14.
Monture-Okanee, P. (1992). The violence we women do: A First Nations’ perspective. In C. Blackhouse & D. H. Flaherty (Eds.), Challenging times: The women’s movement in Canada and the United States (pp. 193-203). Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
15.
Pence, E. (2001). Advocacy on behalf of battered women. In C. M. Renzetti, J. L. Edleson, & R. K. Bergen (Eds.), Sourcebook on violence against women (pp. 329-343). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
16.
Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1993). Education groups for men who batter: The Duluth model. New York: Springer.
17.
Piven, F., & Cloward, R. (1979). Poor people’s movements: Why they succeed, how they fail. New York: Vintage, Random House.
18.
Pleck, E. (1989). Criminal approaches to family violence 1640-1980. Crime and Justice, 11, 19-58.
19.
Richie, B. (2001, October 3-4). Women and crime. Paper presented at Ulupono: A Conference on Violence Against Women, Honolulu, HI.
20.
Ritmeester, T., & Pence, E. (1992). A cynical twist of fate: How processes of ruling in the criminal justice system and the social sciences impede justice for battered women. Southern California Review of Law and Women’s Studies, 2, 255-292.
Ruttenberg, M. H. (1994). Feminist critique of mandatory arrest: An analysis of race and gender in domestic violence policy. Gender and Law, 2, 171-199.
Singh, J. (2002). Ecofeminism and linguistic violence. Unpublished manuscript, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
25.
Smith, D. (1999). Writing the social: Critique, theory, and investigation. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
26.
Snider, L. (1994). Criminalization: Panacea for men who assault women but anathema for corporate criminals. In D. Currie &B. MacLean (Eds.), Social inequality, social justice (pp. 101-124.) Vancouver, Canada: Collective Press.
27.
Straus, M. A. (1979). Measuring intrafamily conflict and violence: The Conflict Tactics (CT) Scale. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41, 75-88.
28.
Straus, M. A. (1980). Victims and aggressors in marital violence. American Behavioral Scientist, 23, 681-704.
29.
Sturgeon, N. (1997). Ecofeminist natures: Race, gender, feminist theory and political action. New York: Routledge.
Zorza, J. (2001, August/September). The problem with proxy measures: The inaccuracy of the Conflict Tactic Scale and other crime surveys in measuring intimate partner violence. Domestic Violence Report, pp. 83-87.
