Hate the Players, or the Game? The Role of Court Mediators and Hearing Officers in the Civil Protection Order Process

Abstract

Civil Protection Orders (CPOs) are among the most common legal tools that victims of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPV/A) use to protect themselves. The current study adds to the CPO research by using quantitative data to look at how female survivors' experiences with court personnel (attorneys, mediators, and hearing officers) shape their satisfaction with the court process, and what types of individual and court-related factors are related to perceived fairness of court personnel. The current study uses in-depth quantitative data collected from women over the age of 18 who sought a CPO due to violence from a male current or former partner. The findings indicate that women's satisfaction with the court process is significantly impacted by the perceived fairness of court personnel. In turn, specific behaviors by court personnel predict women's ratings of fairness of those personnel. Additionally, women's socioeconomic status impacts how fair they perceive the hearing officers to be. Court personnel play an integral role in helping victims navigate the legal system in ways that could protect their safety and influence how they perceive the CPO system as it relates to the abuse they have experienced.

From Academic to Practitioner: Tips for Increasing Engagement With Your Research (Essay on Best Practices)

“…Turning back to the article I highlighted in the beginning of this essay, I want to outline one of the more important findings of our paper (and consequently the most important finding to myself as a court administrator). That being the finding that women in our sample were statistically significantly more likely to report higher levels of satisfaction with the overall court process when they also perceived the mediators and hearing officers as being fair to them (Carcirieri et al, 2019). Below, I show how we outlined our model when looking at our sample's satisfaction with the CPO court process (sentences not involving the mentioned finding have been removed to consolidate the section):…”

“…One of the last articles I published as an academic (using the data collected from the court where I was employed) focused on Family Court mediators and hearing officers, and how they may influence domestic violence victims’ perceptions of fairness of the civil protection order (CPO) process (Carcirieri et al, 2019). Some of our findings were significant and suggested that negative behaviors committed by mediators and hearing officers influenced how women perceived the CPO process; therefore, the recommendations made were as follows: The findings indicate that interpersonal training for court staff should emphasize the importance of court personnel listening to and validating petitioners’ experiences with abuse, and to be more encouraging of victims’ right to seek protection in whatever form they feel is best, whether that be through a consent order or an appearance before a hearing officer .…”

“…It is important to reiterate here that bridging this gap will lead to better research projects and findings that can inform changes within systems that directly affect the livelihood of individuals embedded within the justice system. civil protection order (CPO) process (Carcirieri et al, 2019). Some of our findings were significant and suggested that negative behaviors committed by mediators and hearing officers influenced how women perceived the CPO process; therefore, the recommendations made were as follows:…”

“…Practitioner research often is considered and conducted separately, for different purposes, and often is not a collaborative effort (Carr, 2006;Grant, 2008). Academics and theorists often are sequestered within academia, playing within their own "field" (Bourdieu, 1984), rarely exploring how their research findings actively contribute to practically improve the systems that they spend years studying and writing about. Moreover, much of academics' recommendations within their findings are generalized to the extent that local systems they are analyzing cannot use their findings and recommendations in any useful way.…”

“…While having an attorney in and of itself did not significantly predict whether women thought the overall process was fair, women with attorneys were highly satisfied with them, suggesting that attorneys may still play an important role in the CPO process. (Carcirieri et al, 2019) To begin, it is important to note that none of the above recommendations are bad or should not be in the paper at all. Rather, as a practitioner reading this, there is nothing useful to glean from the recommendations section that was not already known to the practitioner upon reading this.…”