Restorative Justice Today by Katherine S. van Wormer Lorenn Walker

Author:Katherine S. van Wormer, Lorenn Walker [Katherine S. van Wormer, Lorenn Walker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781452219912
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2012-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

RJ in Situations of Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate family violence (IPV) can be likened to chronic disease blighting the private lives of many in our communities. Although we know they are there, we don’t talk about them. This chapter looks at IPV and sexual violence, and their impact on families. The potential of restorative justice processes offers hope to the many afflicted by these forms of violence. But its use in these areas is not without controversy and is inappropriate in many situations. Power and safety issues come to the forefront of concerns expressed.

No discussion about IPV is complete without the inclusion of power. A major theme of empowerment theory is a concern with the need for personal power or choice. Choice is the hallmark of social work’s strengths model, its aim is to help clients find their own way, to carve out their own paths to wholeness. The focus of empowerment theory, similarly, is on the process rather than simply on outcomes (Gutiérrez & Lewis, 1999) and on means rather than ends. Frederick and Lizdas (2010) found in their study of victims of domestic violence that many of the women affected by family violence had little faith in the criminal justice system. The women expressed a desire to retain choice and be treated as mature adults in any decisions that were made about how to stop the abuse.

The dilemma facing abuse victims’ advocates is whether the process—giving the victim the power of choice of how to proceed—or whether the outcome—pursuing IPV cases to the full extent of the law regardless of the victim’s wishes—is more important. The criminalization of IPV following the creation of the Duluth model of power and control in domestic violence (Minnesota) represented the most progressive thinking of the 1970s through the 1990s. Pro-arrest policies made arrest of abusive partners mandatory, and in some jurisdictions jail terms were also mandatory. Victims who filed charges were not allowed to drop them and sometimes forced to testify against their partners. All this was done for the victim’s protection and it seemed to make a lot of sense at the time. However, it took away from victims their decision-making power regarding how they dealt with the violence. They might not have wanted their partner arrested and perhaps had just wanted the violence to stop (Morris & Gelsthorpe, 2000; van Wormer, 2009.)

It is important for us to remember that the coercion of victims/survivors is inconsistent with the feminist movement’s and social work’s goal of self-determination (Presser & Gaarder, 2004). Research from the 1990s to the present (Morris & Gelsthorpe, 2000; Hayden 2011) has shown that IPV victims who have a say in legal or less formal proceedings may feel more empowered to get help if not to terminate the abusive relationship. Thus, their rights to determine their own needs and the means of attaining them are more likely to be protected than in a criminal justice jurisdiction on its own. Hayden’s 2011 research findings, which supported this perspective, will be discussed more fully later.

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