Protection, Prevention, Rehabilitation or Justice? Women's Use of the Law to Challenge Domestic Violence*
| Author | Kate Cavanagh,Ruth Lewis,Rebecca Emerson Dobash,Russell P. Dobash |
| Date | 01 January 2000 |
| Published date | 01 January 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026975800000700310 |
Domestic
Violence:
Global
Responses,
pp.179-205
©
2000
A B
Academic
Publishers
Printed
in
Great Britain
PROTECTION,
PREVENTION,
REHABILITATION
OR
JUSTICE?
WOMEN'S
USE
OF
THE
LAW
TO
CHALLENGE
DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE*
RUTH
LEWISt,
RU~SELLP.
DOBASH
#,REBECCA
EMERSON
DOBASH#
and
KATE
CAVANAGH
t Department of
Sociology
and
Social
Policy,
University
of
Newcastle,
NEl
7RU,
UK
#Department of Social Policy &
Social
Work,
University
of
Manchester,
M13
9PL,
UK
*Department of
Social
Policy
&
Social
Work,
University
of
Glasgow,
Gl2
8RT,
UK
ABSTRACT
This
article
addresses
the
neglected
question
of
what
women
who
experience 'domestic violence'
want
from
the
law
and
examines
the
ways
in
which
women
actively
engage
with
the
legal
system.
Viewing
women
as
agents
trying
to
survive
abuse,
we
examine
their
interaction
with
both
civil
and
criminal legal
systems
as
part
of their 'active negotiation
and
strategic
resistance'
to
men's violence.
This
represents
a
break
from
the
tradition
which
has
tended
to
view
women
survivors
as
passive
recipients of
the
law
and
has
focused
on
outcomes
oflegal intervention
to
the
exclusion of
process.
Using
data
from
a British evaluation of
criminal
justice
responses
to
domestic
violence,
we
analyse
legal
processes
which
support
or
fail
to
support
women
and
argue
that
legal
interventions
can
contribute
to
women's improved
safety
and
quality
of
life.
INTRODUCTION
At the heart
of
the project directed at the reduction
of
violence against women by
male partners has been a concern with the
law.
1 Understanding legal responses
to men's violence, with a view to transforming those responses, has taxed the
minds
of
many researchers, activists and practitioners on the international stage.
This interest has occurred at the same time
as
a thorough-going critique has
developed
of
the delivery
of
justice, particularly in Great Britain and North
America. Arguably, all this attention has produced material progress so that life
for a woman in the 1990s who experiences domestic violence is, in many
important ways, very different from that
of
a woman in the 1960s. But the debates
continue.
We
argue that they are limited by their tendency to view women
survivors
of
abuse as passive recipients of legal intervention, and to focus on
outcomes (e.g., repeat violence)
to
the exclusion
of
processes (the impact
of
contact with the justice system on any aspect
of
the individual's life, relationship,
behaviour).
* The
authors
wish
to
acknowledge
the
support
of
the
Home
Office
and
Scottish
Office
who
funded
the
research
project
on
which
this
paper
is
based.
The
authors
also
wish
to
thank
the
anonymous
reviewers
who
made
useful
comments
on
an
earlier
version
of
this
paper.
180
This
paper
seeks
to
break
from
tradition
by
approaching
the
problem
through
an
understanding of
women
as
active
agents,
engaged
in
a
complex
process of
'active negotiation
and
strategic resistance'
both
with
their
partners
and
with
the
range
of
helping
agencies,
in
their
struggle
for
safety
and
'justice'.
The
results
stem
from
research
which
evaluated
criminal
justice
sanctions
for
domestic
violence
offences.
The
longitudinal,
comparative
design
incorporated
in-depth
interviews
with
women
and
men
which
enable
exploration,
from
their perspec-
tives,
of contact
with
the
justice
system.
Consideration
of
women
and
men's
experiences
builds
an
awareness
of
women
as
agents
who
use
the
justice system
in
the
context of a strategic response
to
domestic
violence.
This
paper examines
the
context
in
which
legal
intervention
occurs
and
considers
the
process
of
intervention, rather
than
relying
on
the
more
commonly
used
measure
of
outcome
to
determine
efficacy.
In
this
paper
we
adopt
a contextualised
analysis
of
the
process oflegal_intervention
from
the
perspectives of
women,
which
alerts
us
to
the
value
of aspects of
both
criminal
and
civil
law.
Thus
we
argue
that legal
intervention
in
the
context of a national social
and
political
strategy
for
tackling
domestic
violence
can
help
release
women
from
the
grip
of
violent
and
abusive
partners.
LEGAL
INSTITUTIONS AND
DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE
While
some
domestic
violence
researchers
reason
that
practical
changes
can
be
made
to
the
justice
system
to
improve
the
protection of
and
justice
for
women,
others
argue
that
the
law
is
so
intrinsically
gendered
and
has
been
so
thoroughly
implicated
in
previous
injustices
to
women,
that
efforts
to
use
it
are
misguided.
Each
contribution
to
the
debate
is
grounded
in
a particular
assumption,
some-
times
explicit,
sometimes
implicit,
about
the
purposes
which
law
can
serve.
Within
this
body
of research,
the
following
perspectives
are
amongst
those
drawn
upon
for
this
paper:
deterrence
(the
focus
here
is
generally
on
the
impact of
arrest); reform
and
rehabilitation
(premised
on
the
belief that violence
is
learned
behaviour
which
can
be
'unlearned');
and
'criminal
law
sceptics', embracing
those
who
focus
on
feminist
jurisprudence,
abolition
and
community
conferenc-
ing
(although diverse,
these
perspectives
are
connected
by
their
pessimism about
the
ability of
the
law
to
affect
violence).
Deterrence
The
key
task
for
those
who
focus
on
deterrence
is
to
assess
the
impact
of criminal
justice sanctions, particularly
arrest,
on
levels
of
domestic
violence.
Against a
backdrop of widespread
and
extensive criticism of police practice
in
domestic
violence
cases
(for
example,
Bowker,
1982;
Cannings,
1984;
Dobash
and
Do-
bash,
1979;
Faragher,
1985;
Oppenlander,
1982),
numerous
arrest
studies
have
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