Criminalization of Woman Battering: Planned Change Experiences in New York State (From Helping Battered Women: New Perspectives and Remedies, P 102-131, 1996, Albert R Roberts, ed. -- See NCJ-163226)

• NCJ Number: 163234
• Author(s): L A Frisch; J M Caruso
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 30 pages
• Sale Source: Oxford University Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Planned change experiments in New York are detailed that concern the criminalization of woman battering, with emphasis on the reactive criminalization process and efforts to improve law enforcement.

Abstract

The term criminalization describes the process by which substantive and procedural criminal laws are written, amended, and applied to specific behaviors. Reactive change is generated primarily in an adversarial context in which public officials are pressured by diverse special interests and constituency groups to change official policies and procedures. Much of the effort to change the criminal justice system's response to battered women during the 1970's and 1980's concentrated on changing the law. Between 1979 and 1986, legislative changes in New York helped clarify the ambiguity of existing law and promote more effective legal protection of battered victims. Perhaps the most significant change in New York law occurred with passage of the Family Protection and Domestic Violence Intervention Act in 1994. Efforts to improve the law enforcement response to domestic violence are discussed in the context of civil litigation, research, and policymaking. Proactive criminalization of woman battering is viewed as a planned change process, and a political interaction model to structured planned change in New York is described based on three environments (policy formulation, policy implementation, and policy evaluation and assessment). 66 references and 10 notes