Legal Responses to Wife Assault
Current Trends and Evaluation
Edited by:
- N. Zoe Hilton - Ministry of Health, Ontario
July 1993 | 344 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
An increase in the legal response to wife assault is evident in North America, largely in reaction to earlier calls for greater responsiveness by the legal system. However--not one change has occurred without controversy. Legal Responses to Wife Assault offers in-depth coverage of four major themes: historical framework of legal response to wife assault; police attitudes and action (or inaction); prosecution, mediation, and treatment within the court system; and victims as defendants and participants in the legal system. Chapters examine past and present policies of specific branches of the legal system, discuss the merits and demerits of those approaches, and explore implications for the future.
The authors not only pull together recent evaluation research in an accessible form, but they highlight their own work as well. Human services and legal professionals, as well as students and researchers in these areas, will find the book invaluable.
PART ONE: OVERVIEW
N Zoe Hilton
Introduction
Daniel G Saunders
Husbands Who Assault
PART TWO: POLICE
N Zoe Hilton
Police Intervention and Public Opinion
Peter G Jaffe et al
The Impact of Police Laying Charges
Kathleen J Ferraro and Lucille Pope
Irreconcilable Differences
PART THREE: COURTS
David A Ford and Mary Jean Regoli
The Criminal Prosecution of Wife Assaulters
Desmond Ellis
Family Courts, Marital Conflict Mediation, and Wife Assault
L Kevin Hamberger and James E Hastings
Court-Mandated Treatment of Men Who Assault Their Partner
PART FOUR: VICTIMS
Lenore E A Walker
Battered Women as Defendants
Alan J Tomkins et al
Self-Defense Jury Instructions in Trials of Battered Women Who Kill Their Partner
PART FIVE: SUMMARY
Ronald Roesch, Stephen D Hart and Laurene J Wilson
Legal Responses to Wife Assault