Reimagining VAWA: Why Criminalization Is a Failed Policy and What a Non-Carceral VAWA Could Look Like

Abstract

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is the signature federal legislative accomplishment of the anti-violence movement and has ensured that criminalization is the primary response to intimate partner violence in the United States. But at the time of its passage, some anti-violence activists, particularly women of color, warned that criminalization would be problematic for a number of reasons, a caution that has borne fruit in the 25 years since VAWA’s passage. This article critiques the effectiveness of criminalization as anti-domestic violence policy and imagines what a non-carceral VAWA could look like.

Colluding With and Resisting the State: Organizing Against Gender Violence in the U.S.

“…On the left, VAWA is emblematic of S/state-sponsored, heteronormative control of female lives and bodies, heightened use of policing against trans/queer folx, poor, immigrant, and indigenous and people of color communities, and widespread promotion of carceral policies under the guise of victim protection (Burns, 2013;Coker, 2014;INCITE!, 2016;Rivera, 1996;Whittier, 2016). Even with both VAWA and FVPSA's reauthorizations to include people of color, LGBTQ and other cultural identities-affiliations, all of these programs are still embedded in and closely aligned with state-sponsored policies, and particularly in the case of VAWA, with those governmental entities most aligned with carceral institutions and structures (Goodmark, 2020;Thuma, 2019).…”

“…With both FVPSA and VAWA, the two primary and largest governmental funding sources for domestic violence programming in the U.S., we understand in hindsight that whether or not the quarter century build-up of the carceral state was intentional for those who embedded this legislation within the 1994 crime bill (see Ray & Galston, 2020), it was never the intent of movement activists and advocates, particularly those representing BIPOC, LGBTQ, immigrant, and other communities that bringing domestic violence into the mainstream would be through increased surveillance and incarceration of individuals, families, and communities by the very State we proposed to rely upon for protection, and ultimately, to end violence against women (Goodmark, 2020).…”

Why Criminalise Coercive Control? The Complicity of the Criminal Law in Punishing Women Through Furthering the Power of the State

“…This issue was demonstrated by the work of Berk and others (1992) 28 years ago when revisiting the efficacy of the mandatory arrest policy, in which the longer-term consequences for ethnic minority women were documented. Goodmark (2018) argues that many of these kinds of policies have added to the hyper-incarceration of ethnic minority men (especially in the United States) and have ultimately committed police and criminal justice resources in ways in which it is difficult to see what good effect they might have had (see also Goodmark 2020). Goodmark (2018) is clearly commenting on the effect that this move towards criminalisation has had in the United States, and reminiscent of the agenda posited by Wilson (1983), she goes on to make a case for more holistic responses to domestic/family violence(s) against women (see also Royal Commission into Family Violence 2016).…”

Restorative and Transformative Justice Responses to Sexual Violence

“…In addition, the law created new crimes for the violation of a protection order by requiring states and territories to enforce protection orders issued by other states, tribes, and territories (Stupakis, 2019). Furthermore, as of 2019, the two largest grant programs associated with the law provided $268 million every year to criminal legal responses such as policing, prosecution, and legal services (Goodmark, 2020). However, the support for VAWA is mixed.…”

“…Many praise the law for creating a systems-level change (Aday, 2015), funding victim services (Stupakis, 2019), and reducing the rate of rape and assault (Boba & Lilley, 2008), and are concerned about the negative consequences of failure to reauthorize it (Stupakis, 2019). Others, especially advocates and scholars of color (Resistance & Incite!, 2003), critique VAWA for its contribution to the growth of the prison industrial complex (Goodmark, 2020;Kim, 2018), which disproportionally harms poor and communities of color, without keeping survivors safe (Resistance & Incite!, 2003), nor reducing the rates of violence (Goodmark, 2020). This critique is foundational to the Social Science Protocols, January 2021, 1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.7565/ssp.v4.5231 3 emergence of the public's interests in RJ and TJ as approaches to preventing and intervening in gender-based violence, including sexual violence, without relying on the carceral system.…”