NCJ Number
161174
Journal
Law and Social Inquiry Volume: 19 Issue: 4 Dated: (Fall 1994) Pages: 923- 966
Date Published
1994
Length
45 pages
Annotation
Information from interviews of social service, criminal justice, and policymaking agency personnel in Washington, D.C. and Madrid, Spain formed the basis of an analysis of responses to domestic assault within each country's sociolegal and cultural context.
Abstract
Results revealed that although both countries have patriarchal structures, great differences exist in the history, funding, development, and participants of the battered women's movement. For example, from the outset in Spain, the government determined the appropriate response to domestic violence. In contrast, in the United States, the power to frame, fund, and respond to the issue operated through a more insidious process of State cooptation. In both countries, wider social changes did not result. Instead, services were provided as the movements became tied to funding requirements and to satisfying bureaucratic needs. Law enforcement policies have changed, but the attitudes and actions of enforcers have not shifted quickly or completely. In addition, increasing police power entails the risk of further extending the authoritarian potential for intrusion that is attached to increased enforcement activity. Another consequence of expanded police powers is that women are being arrested alongside the men, although their involvement is mainly self-defensive rather than aggressive action. Policy reform and the development of shelters are responses, not solutions. Until females' subordination in the family and other intimate relationships is recognized as political, criminalizing woman battering will not significantly change unequal gender relations or create lasting changes in society. Footnotes (Author abstract modified)