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Criminalizing “Private” Torture, Tania Tetlow

William & Mary Law Review

This Article proposes a state crime against torture by private actors as a far better way to capture the harm of serious domestic violence. Current criminal law misses the cumulative terror of domestic violence by fracturing it into individualized, misdemeanor batteries. Instead, a torture statute would punish a pattern crime— the batterer’s use of repeated violence and threats for the purpose of controlling his victim. And, for the first time, a torture statute would ban nonviolent techniques committed with the intent to cause severe pain and suffering, including psychological torture, sexual degradation, and sleep deprivation.

Because serious domestic violence routinely …

Must Be 18 Or Older: How Current Domestic Violence Policies Dismiss Teen Dating Violence, Rebecca Pensak

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Financial Freedom: Women, Money, And Domestic Abuse, Dana Harrington Conner

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Collateral Consequences Of Masculinizing Violence, Jamie R. Abrams

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Before an enraged gunman fired thirty-six deadly shots into an exercise class filled with women, on August 4, 2009, in Pennsylvania, he blogged that his killing spree was the result of his failure to meet society’s expectations of him as a man. This violent act tragically affirms that hegemonic masculinity — a dominant form of masculinity whereby some types of men have power over women and over some other men — can directly cause violence against women and reveals both an underlying connection between masculinities scholarship and feminist scholarship and the value in exploring that linkage further in both theory …

What Counts As Domestic Violence? A Conceptual Analysis, Michelle Madden Dempsey

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This article analyzes the conceptual structure of domestic violence and critiques various influential accounts of domestic violence operating in the criminal justice system, legal and sociological academia, and the domestic violence advocacy community. Part I presents a preliminary philosophical analysis of domestic violence with the goal of furthering our understanding of the correct use of this concept. This analysis centers around three key elements of domestic violence: violence, domesticity, and structural inequality. Part II develops an explanatory model of domestic violence based upon these key elements. Part III examines and critiques four principal accounts of domestic violence, each of which …