Under the punitive aegis: Dependency and the family justice center model
| Author | Victoria Piehowski |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474520972264 |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Under the punitive
aegis: Dependency
and the family justice
center model
Victoria Piehowski
University of Minnesota, USA
Abstract
The San Diego Family Justice Center (FJC) model seeks to lessen the burden on
domestic violence victims by co-locating social service agencies, law enforcement,
and prosecution at one site. Shortly following the inception of the model in 2002, it
gained widespread acclaim (and federal funding), spreading the model across the coun-
try. Using visual and textual discourse analysis, this paper examines the promotional and
procedural material produced by proponents of the San Diego FJC model. FJC materi-
als construct victimhood using discourses of crime control and therapeutic interven-
tion. The resulting discursive formation is that of the passive, dependent battered
woman, curable only through robustly punitive state intervention. In this way, FJC
materials not only advance a distinct construction of victimhood but also a particular
agenda for punishment policy. Extending Jonathan Simon’s contentions regarding the
resonance of victim discourse within American society, I argue that therapeutic dis-
course can bolster the effectiveness of punitive campaigns.
Keywords
crime control, domestic violence, policy, prosecution, therapeutic governance
Corresponding author:
Victoria Piehowski, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, 267 19th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
Email: pieho001@umn.edu
Punishment & Society
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474520972264
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
2022, Vol. 24(2) 221–240
Introduction
The Family Justice Center (FJC) is a domestic violence response model that co-
locates social service agencies (domestic violence counseling and advocacy groups,
housing services, medical care, immigration legal aid, chaplaincy, etc.) with pros-
ecutors and law enforcement. This “one-stop shop” aims to foster connections
between these groups and alleviate the burden a victim experiences when seeking
help from multiple sources. During the 1990s, domestic violence coalitions across
the country began co-locating social services and law enforcement, and in 2002, the
San Diego Family Justice Center opened its doors (Gwinn et al., 2007). Similar
models appeared around this time in Minnesota and Indiana (U.S. Department of
Justice, 2004).
However, neither the Minnesota nor the Indianapolis model garnered the insti-
tutional traction, national attention, or funding of the San Diego FJC. Shortly
after the model’s inception, San Diego experienced a 95% reduction in domestic
violence homicides. Advocates of the FJC attributed the drop to the model, earn-
ing it a feature on the Oprah Winfrey Show. By the end of 2003, Attorney General
John Ashcroft announced President Bush’s Family Justice Center Initiative, which
allocated $20 million dollars to the opening of FJCs across the country. The San
Diego FJC received the largest award of any of locality and was designated an
“expert” technical assistance provider for the others (U.S. Department of Justice,
2004). Mary Beth Buchanan, former Acting Director of the Office on Violence
Against Women, described the FJC as the “common sense” model for domestic
violence services (U.S. Department of Justice, 2007). Eventually, San Diego FJC
founder Casey Gwinn helped export the model internationally, consulting on the
opening of FJCs in Jordan, South Africa, and England (Gwinn and Strack, 2010).
All told, these developments enshrined the model as the best way to combat
domestic violence.
At the core of this success was a promotion machine, driven by social actors
deploying salient narratives of victimhood. In doing so, they engaged with the
politics of “governing through crime,” mobilizing the threat of victimization to
channel state intervention (Simon, 2007). Domestic violence victimhood, however,
requires a distinct set of discursive practices to gain political traction. Accordingly,
in garnering the resources and legitimacy needed to propagate the model, its
advocates combined two dominant discourses about domestic violence victims:
first, the therapeutic governance discourse, emphasizing the psychological depen-
dency (“learned helplessness”) that victims acquire during violent relationships;
and second, the crime control discourse, emphasizing the violent criminal nature of
domestic abuse. This paper examines what happens when these two discourses
intertwine. What construction of victimhood results, and further, what punishment
practices are proposed in response to this construction?
I argue that the FJC promotional materials “braid” (Hutchinson, 2006) togeth-
er therapeutic and crime control discourses, achieving two outcomes: first, the
victim subject, dependent on her abuser, justifies swift criminal justice intervention;
222 Punishment & Society 24(2)
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