Document Type
Article
Publication Title
American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law
Abstract
In Engaging with the State, a chapter in the remarkable history, analysis, and vision that is her book Battered Women & Feminist Lawmaking, Professor Elizabeth M. Schneider writes, " [w]ith both mandatory arrest legislation and VAWA [the Violence Against Women Act of 1994], familiar tensions are replicated- public and private, victimization and agency- which reemerge in the process of enforcement and raise questions concerning the potential utility and effectiveness of these statutes." She challenges the reader to "understand the roles of the state, other institutions, law, and culture in encouraging, legitimizing, and perpetuating violence" and "to critically examine the murky middle ground between total rejection and total endorsement of working with the state." This Essay is a very preliminary response to Professor Schneider's challenge. With gratitude I draw on the work of symposium participants and other advocates, activists, and scholars as I focus on mandatory arrest and no-drop prosecution policies and what we do and do not know about their utility and effectiveness in keeping battered women safe. My modest proposal, like those of most of the people whose insights have informed mine, is that we recognize that the mandatory arrest train has left the station in over half of the states; that we work to ameliorate its effects in those places by convincing prosecutors to exercise discretion in making a determination whether prosecution in a particular case will contribute to increased safety or escalating danger; that we push for funding for studies that examine the real effect of the existing policies; and that in the meantime we do all we can to avoid doing more danger and do not encourage additional states to pass mandatory arrest legislation or support more prosecutors' decisions to adopt no-drop stances. It is my view that, once the research is available, it will be possible to convince legislators and prosecutors to reverse this damaging trend toward mandatory interventions.
First Page
427
Volume
11
Publication Date
2003
Recommended Citation
Maguigan, Holly, "Wading into Professor Schneider’s "Murky Middle Ground" Between Acceptance and Rejection of Criminal Justice Responses to Domestic Violence" (2003). Faculty Articles. 745.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-articles/745
