The Politicization of Safety

Author(s):  
Jane Stoever

Domestic violence is commonly assumed to be a bipartisan, nonpolitical issue, with politicians welcoming headlines saying they are working against family violence. Nevertheless, the Violence Against Women Act expired for over 500 days between 2012 and 2013 due to disagreements between the U.S. Senate and House, demonstrating that legal protections for survivors of domestic abuse are both highly political and highly vulnerable. Racial and gender politics, the move toward criminalization, reproductive justice concerns, gun control debates, and other factors and political interests are increasingly shaping responses to domestic violence, demonstrating the necessity for a true understanding of the dynamic between politics, domestic violence, and the law. The Politicization of Safety will provide a critical historical perspective on domestic violence responses in the United States. It will grapple with the ways in which child welfare systems and civil and criminal justice responses intersect, and considers the different, overlapping ways in which survivors of domestic abuse are forced to cope with institutionalized discrimination, including arenas of race, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status, not to mention cases of police-perpetrated domestic abuse.

Author(s):  
Jane K. Stoever

The book, THE POLITICIZATION OF SAFETY, will critically explore political dimensions of interventions in or failures to intervene in domestic violence. The Introduction identifies how domestic violence is commonly assumed to be a bipartisan, nonpolitical issue, yet racial and gender politics, the move toward criminalization, reproductive justice concerns, gun control debates, and other factors and political interests significantly shape responses to domestic violence. The development of the anti-domestic violence movement and has a complex history, and the way forward during the Trump Era will certainly be fraught as protections and services for survivors of gender-based violence are under siege.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-101
Author(s):  
Leigh Goodmark

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is the signature federal legislative accomplishment of the anti-violence movement and has ensured that criminalization is the primary response to intimate partner violence in the United States. But at the time of its passage, some anti-violence activists, particularly women of color, warned that criminalization would be problematic for a number of reasons, a caution that has borne fruit in the 25 years since VAWA’s passage. This article critiques the effectiveness of criminalization as anti-domestic violence policy and imagines what a non-carceral VAWA could look like.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 122
Author(s):  
Listiyanti Jaya Arum ◽  
Anindya Firda Khairunnisa

Homelessness is a chronic problem worldwide, including in the United States. The country’s biggest homeless population occupies major cities like New York and Los Angeles. The fight against homelessness in L.A. has been going on for years, with the homeless population flooding places like Venice Beach, Echo Park, Hollywood, and its most famous homeless encampment, Skid Row. One of the groups constantly vulnerable to the threat of homelessness are women, and the intersection between women's homelessness and domestic violence remains to be a challenging subject. Enriching previous scholarship, this paper critically analyzes housing programs targeting female domestic violence survivors in Los Angeles. In order to get an in-depth examination, the focus is directed to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Housing Policy managed by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). The paper employs gender theory to examine the program’s shortcomings. Using Jeff Hearn’s conception of the ‘public men,’ this paper proposes that the program’s limitations stem from the prevailing patriarchy, which cultivates from home and extends to public policy through the domination of men. Furthermore, the policy is insufficient in combatting women's homelessness due to the absence of programs such as trauma centers, financial security & education program, and childcare unit that are vital to address the unique experience of domestic violence survivors. Thus, evaluation of the housing policy is immediately needed to overcome the problem of homelessness due to domestic violence.


10.18060/170 ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shreya Bhandari

The issue of domestic violence among South Asian immigrant population in the United States is examined in the light of the Violence Against Women Act. The paper gives a background to the issue of domestic violence in the South Asian community and examines the Violence Against Women Acts of 1994, 2000 and 2005 with regard to issues affecting South Asian women. It addresses issues around marriage and has emphasized the difficulties of women with dependent immigration status. Policy alternatives are examined and discussed with regard to efficacy and efficiency of the policy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107755952110026
Author(s):  
Bryan G. Victor ◽  
Ashley N. Rousson ◽  
Colleen Henry ◽  
Haresh B. Dalvi ◽  
E. Susana Mariscal

The purpose of this study was to examine the range of policy approaches used by child welfare systems in the United States to guide workers in classifying and substantiating child exposure to domestic violence (CEDV) as an actionable form of maltreatment. To that end, we conducted a qualitative document analysis of child protective services (CPS) policy manuals from all state-administered child welfare systems in the U.S. ( N = 41). Our findings indicate that a majority of state-administered systems (71%) have adopted policy requiring workers to demonstrate that children have endured harm or the threat of harm before substantiating CEDV-related maltreatment. Many state systems (51%) also include policy directives that require workers to identify a primary aggressor during CPS investigations involving CEDV, while far fewer (37%) provide language that potentially exonerates survivors of domestic violence from being held accountable for failure to protect on the basis of their own victimization. Based on our findings and identification of policy exemplars, we offer a recommended set of quality policy indicators for states to consider in the formulation of their policy guidelines for substantiating children’s exposure to domestic violence that promotes the safety and wellbeing of both children and adult survivors of domestic violence.


Author(s):  
Caroline Bettinger-López

International human rights treaties and monitoring bodies have repeatedly called upon governments to develop national plans of action to eliminate violence against women. Although the U.S. is a global leader in the violence against women arena, it has never developed a national plan of action. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), despite its substantial contributions, does not contain some of the core features of a national action plan—such as a strategic vision for ending violence against women, or a declaration that violence against women is a human rights violation and a form of sex discrimination, or a set of goals or benchmarks to measure progress. This chapter examines the key elements of national action plans on violence against women, and ultimately argues that in the Trump era, a national action plan can best be developed through coordinated action at the state and local levels.


2020 ◽  
pp. 112-128
Author(s):  
Ray Brescia

This chapter studies the effort to reauthorize and expand the reach of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). In September of 1994, after years of grassroots advocacy, U.S. Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and President Clinton signed it into law. VAWA provides federal funding for enhanced law enforcement, social services, and legal services for victims of domestic violence. The legislation was originally enacted with a sunset provision that required that Congress reauthorize it after five years, a feature that was repeated in subsequent reauthorization bills. When the law was due for reauthorization in 2011, however, the process did not go as smoothly as it had before. Instead, although VAWA had bipartisan support, advocates wanted to strengthen it with provisions they saw as essential to keeping all survivors of domestic violence safe. These additional protections were met with resistance in Congress. In advance of the 2012 presidential election, advocates sought to amend the legislation in ways that would strengthen the protections offered to Native Americans, undocumented immigrants, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) communities. In the last reauthorization battle, the ability of advocates to harness the medium, their networks, and their message provides a contemporary example of the social change matrix at work in the age of social media.


Author(s):  
Tjokorda Istri Putra Astiti

This study specifically aims to assess synchronization and differentiation between the judge's decision, both horizontally and vertically, especially with regard todomestic violence cases. In addition, this study also intends to study about rule  whichare  applied by the Judges on the cases, and  reveal whether the  decision  under reviewreflects the gender justice This research is a legal normative research using case approach which wasexamined by studying the Judge’s decision in concrete cases, especially with regard todomestic violence. The number of decisions that were examined are six decisions whichconsists of three decisions of the District Court (Pengadilan Negeri) and  threedecisions  of the High Court (Pengadilan Tinggi). The decisions are determined bypurposive sampling.  Based on the analysis of the six decisions mentioned above ,  can be concludedas following:1)  The rule applied by the judge in hanling the concrete cases  regarding domestic violence particularly violence against women is on the Domestic Violence Act ( ActNo. 23/2004 ) with the application of a kind of sanction of imprisonment rangingfrom 1-3 months, that varied there the defendant was arrested some are droppedwith conditional (pidana bersyarat) (not being held prisoner) 2)  Among the three decisions of the District Court and the three decitions of the HighCourt which have analysed,  in one hand show synchronization and the other hand show differentiation.  In this case, synchronization and differentiation  can be seen vertically (between the District Court and the High Court decision), andhorizontally (between the District Court to each other) or between the decision ofthe High Court to each other).  3)  That the decision of the District and the High Court,  either have reflected gendersensitively and gender equity.


2020 ◽  
pp. 101269022097971
Author(s):  
Cathy van Ingen

This article presents a biographical narrative of Christy Martin, a former world champion boxer who survived being stabbed and shot by her trainer/husband. Rooted in a sociological imagination, this biographic research chronicles Martin’s boxing career and its entanglements with gender-based violence. The boxing industry has a widely acknowledged, yet under-reported, problem with men’s violence against women. This article aims to illustrate that women’s boxing should be critically examined for the ways in which it functions both as a site of and a sanctuary from gender-based violence. Within this paper, I draw from media coverage of Christy Martin’s boxing career, over 700 pages of transcripts from the subsequent criminal trial, an interview with Martin, as well as my own research in women’s boxing, including work with survivors of domestic violence.


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