Criminological Perspectives On Domestic Violence

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Introduction Domestic violence is the “violence between spouses, or spousal abuse but can also include cohabitant and non-married intimate partners” (Office of Justice Programs, 2015). In other words domestic violence refers to harm done to family/household members and/or those who are in a relationship with the offender, otherwise known as intimate partner violence. This violence is not limited to physical abuse, emotional and sexual abuse is included when discussing domestic violence. Examples of domestic violence includes hitting, throwing things, yelling, controlling the victim’s actions, and/or forcing the victim to perform sexual actions (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2015). Another commonly known fact is that domestic …show more content…
Criminologist can contribute knowledge to the above social factors “by listening to the concerns and priorities of survivors of violence and thinking carefully about the persistent gender, class, and racialized inequalities that lead to violence” (Dragiewicz, 2014). Targeting this information can assist with creating policies and other preventive measures. Critical feminist see the need for more social programs to reduce the harm caused by violence and abuse. Although criminologist still see a need for our legal system in some form. Past criminological research on domestic violence and law has focused on arrest policies and protection orders, not considering the reasons behind the violence, the social factors, policing or other factors that play a role in domestic violence cases. Another important contribution would include criminologist asking or surveying offenders about why they use violence and a potential way to prevent their future use of violence. Overall, the most beneficial knowledge and policy implications comes from research on effective …show more content…
As a part of these randomized designs there is a group that participates in the program, and a group that does not participate. Unsurprisingly, domestic violence programs are designed for male offenders, however women are also required or sent to participate in these programs by judges (Tollesfson, & Phillips, 2015). Reintergrative Shaming is one of the programs addressed in the literature and diverts offenders away from court and they were seen to less likely offend than those who went through the program (Mills, Barocas, and Ariel, 2012). Other program research have backed this belief using court issued orders of protection that where officers communicated with the victims often. Regardless of the courts intensive involvement, offenders were still as likely to re-offend as offenders whose victims were not assigned an officer to stay in close contact with (Brame, Kaukinen, Gover, & Latimore, 2014). Overall, the most common form of rehabilitation is the use of groups, and being sent to these groups has become standard sanction by the criminal justice system in domestic violence cases (Tollesfson, & Phillips,

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