User:STLwiki/Domestic violence court

Specialized domestic violence courts are designed to improve victim safety and enhance defendant accountability. There is no one set definition of a specialized violence court, although these types of courts can be either civil or criminal and typically hear the majority of an area’s domestic violence cases on a separate calendar. Additionally, these courts are typically led by specially assigned judges who can make more informed and consistent decisions based on their expertise and experience with the unique legal and personal issues in domestic violence cases.^[1]

Specialized domestic violence courts emerged as a problem-solving court in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of challenges and reforms to the criminal-legal system's approach to domestic violence such as Thurman v. City of Torrington.^[2] This reform led to changes in police and prosecutor's handling of domestic violence cases, and specialized domestic violence courts were created to address the larger number of domestic violence cases as the criminal-legal system began to take domestic violence more seriously.^[2]

While there are a variety of benefits associated with specialized domestic violence courts, there are concerns that specialized domestic violence courts do not support survivors or address the broader societal causes of domestic violence.

These numbers and the efforts of domestic violence advocates have led, over the last 20 years, to changes in the criminal justice response to such offenses. Prior to the 1960s and 1970s, domestic violence was viewed in the United States as a personal issue to be dealt with in private, rather than through the courts. However, activists in the battered women's movement and anti-rape movement raised awareness of domestic violence as an issue, not just within relationships, but within society more broadly. Activists in these movements initially relied on grassroots work to support survivors and promote change, but some activists turned to more institutionalized methods of change such as legislation and mainstream social services.^[3] Some of the greatest institutional changes as a result of this activism occurred in the 1990s, with the passage of the federal Violence Against Women Act in 1994 and the creation of the first specialized domestic violence court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1991. ^[4] However, some criticize this institutional strategy for relying on the criminal-legal system, which is not meant to promote survivor autonomy. ^[5]

Justice system practitioners, victim advocates, and researchers^[6] have cited the following major benefits of domestic violence courts:

• Enhanced coordination of cases and consistent orders in different cases involving the same parties.
• More comprehensive relief for victims at an earlier stage of the judicial process.
• Advocacy services that assist survivors throughout court processes and support safety planning.
• Greater understanding by judges of how domestic violence affects victims and their children.
• More consistent procedures, treatment of litigants, rulings, and orders.
• Greater availability of mechanisms to hold batterers accountable for the abuse, such as required Batterer Intervention Programs (BIPs), which are programs that are intended to rehabilitate batterers and prevent further abuse.^[7]
• Improved batterer compliance with orders.
• Greater confidence on the part of the community that the justice system is responding effectively to domestic violence.
• Greater system accountability.
• Greater use of Trauma- and violence-informed care in court and advocacy practices. These practices, such as survivor-centered advocacy, culturally specific programs, narrow the gap between service delivery and the needs of survivors.^[8]
  

Susan Keilitz notes a number of concerns about domestic violence courts. The need for judges to specialize, for instance, may lead to a loss of neutrality among judges or “the assignment of judges who are not motivated to acquire the knowledge and skills required to be effective in these cases, or to loss of judicial effectiveness from the stress of fast-paced decisionmaking in difficult and emotionally charged cases every day.” Another concern is that greater efficiency in prosecution may lead to “assembly-line justice that ignores the special needs of victims,” Keilitz wrote.^[9]

Additionally, there are concerns that specialized domestic violence courts exclude and further harm multiply marginalized survivors. When examined through the lens of structural intersectionality, scholars such as Alesha Durfee argue that despite seeming neutral, the policies and procedures in specialized domestic violence courts are actually designed for “White, middle-class, cis, heterosexual, passive wom[en] who [are] not system-involved and [have] experienced documented physical abuse.”^[10] There are concerns that specialized domestic violence courts, like other large institutions, replicate inequalities through mismatches between the assumptions embedded in law and policy about survivors and the lived experiences and oppressions faced by multiple marginalized survivors.

There are also concerns that specialized domestic violence courts exclude and further harm multiply marginalized survivors through carceral feminism. Scholars such as Deer and Barefoot argue that because of the history of state violence at the hands of the police and criminal justice system against marginalized communities, reliance on the criminal justice system through specialized domestic violence courts perpetuates broader inequalities. From Deer and Barefoot’s perspective, “an increase in arrest rates and law enforcement involvement has not led to a decrease in sexual assault and instead leads to more violence,” especially against poor women of color and sexual minorities.^[11]

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