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The Failure And Promise Of Equity In Domestic Abuse Cases, Jeffrey Baker
The Failure And Promise Of Equity In Domestic Abuse Cases, Jeffrey Baker
Jeffrey R Baker
In a generation, American law has experienced dramatic reforms in response to domestic abuse, including innovative criminal law enforcement schemes, liberalized divorce standards and civil protection orders. Feminist activism prompted and drove these reforms and related cultural understanding of domestic abuse, and they have yielded more effective legal options for victims of domestic violence. Virtually all of these reforms built upon existing structures to afford specific process and remedies to victims of domestic abuse, but why were innovations necessary if existing legal structures could have intervened on their own extant authority? Customary, common law equity might have intervened effectively to …
Enjoining Coercion: Squaring Civil Protection Orders With The Reality Of Domestic Abuse, Jeffrey R. Baker
Enjoining Coercion: Squaring Civil Protection Orders With The Reality Of Domestic Abuse, Jeffrey R. Baker
Jeffrey R Baker
Every state provides civil protection for victims of domestic abuse, but these regimes typically fixate on physical violence. Domestic abuse, however, does not spring from violent tendencies. Rather, abuse arises from a perpetrator’s desire to exert power and control over his victim. Abusers often deploy emotional, economic, political and social tactics to coerce responses from vulnerable partners long before they resort to violence. Violence is the extreme tool to maintain control when a victim challenges the abuser’s power over her life. Civil protection systems should confront domestic abuse more comprehensively by providing relief from oppressive coercion. By empowering victims earlier …