NCJ Number
197297
Journal
Prosecutor Volume: 36 Issue: 5 Dated: September/October 2002 Pages: 32- 34,45
Date Published
September 2002
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article addresses issues that are important to prosecutors handling domestic violence cases involving children.
Abstract
Focusing on the effects of domestic violence on children, this article presents important issues prosecutors should recognize when handling domestic violence cases involving children. After arguing that children who witness domestic violence often manifest behavioral and emotional problems, poor academic performance, and delinquency, the author contends that child protection agencies often remove children from violent homes too quickly, blaming women for the actions of abusive partners. This article maintains that in order to better serve children of domestic violence cases, police officers are now encouraged to note the presence of children when responding to domestic violence calls with child protection agencies involved in instituting training protocols to better identify domestic violence cases. According to this author, in order to better understand how prosecutors are responding to the changing attitudes concerning domestic violence, researchers asked them a series of questions in order to assess how they would respond to different scenarios involving children and domestic violence. Researchers found that prosecutors in States with laws either creating or enhancing penalties for domestic violence in the presence of children were more likely to report battered mothers for failure to protect their children from abuse. The author concludes that prosecutors should aim to prosecute domestic violence offenders on concurrent charges of child endangerment in order to work toward protecting both battered women and their children. 17 Endnotes