Using restorative justice approaches to police domestic violence and abuse

Abstract

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No longer a civil matter? The design and use of protection orders for domestic violence in England and Wales

“…This pattern echoes previous studies which identified a police tendency to downgrade domestic abuse-related charges to breach (e.g. Douglas 2008), or to downgrade DV in terms of the wider criminal justice system (Westmarland et al 2018).…”

“…Yet in parallel, the enforcement of orders issued in criminal and civil proceedings are diverging, with some evidence that ROs are being privileged over NMOs in terms of criminal justice enforcement. This is having an effect of downgrading the criminal severity with which some domestic violence incidents are being treatedin keeping with a wider tendency for the CJS to downgrade DV as identified by Westmarland et al (2018).…”

“…There are other concerns, too, about hybridisation; for instance, that availability of quasi-criminal measures may deter the police from pursuing substantive criminal charges. There is some evidence that police are already using short-term summary tools at their disposal to 'manage' domestic violencesuch as arrest and release without action, or breach of the peaceparticularly where a couple remain together or the victim is 'non-cooperative' (Hester, 2006;Westmarland et al 2018). On the other hand, victims may be less likely to apply for orders such as NMOs because they fear criminalising their partners and/or not having the choice themselves.…”

Restorative Justice Treatment for Domestic Violence Crimes: A Qualitative Study

“…RJ interventions in various fields have been implemented and evaluated since the 1990s with positive results overall (Renzetti, 2017). However, there is a paucity of literature examining RJ-based programs for DV or IPV (Gang et al, 2019; Westmarland et al, 2018). One possible reason for this lack of literature may be the controversy surrounding the use of RJ approaches in the context of DV/IPV (Stubbs, 2007).…”

Challenging Anti-Carceral Feminism: Criminalisation, Justice and Continuum Thinking

“…There is a growing body of work, for example, investigating the use of restorative justice processes for domestic and sexual violence (Daly, 2006;McGlynn et al, 2012;Ptacek, 2010;Westmarland et al, 2018;Zinsstag & Keenan, 2017), with the aim of shifting perceptions away from conventional justice approaches. Further work emphasises transformative justice processes providing the accountability and vindication survivors seek, but without the potentially harmful and traumatising effects of criminal justice systems (Kim, 2018;Dixon & Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2020;Davis et al, 2022;Pali & Canning, 2022).…”