“Who Can We Tell Survivors to Call?” The Institutionalization of Criminal-Legal Interventions in a Domestic Violence Organization

Abstract

Although criminal-legal interventions became accepted as the best response to domestic violence early in the battered women’s movement, recent literature suggests that such interventions are often ineffective in reducing rates of violence. Despite this evidence, domestic violence advocates still emphasize criminal-legal interventions over alternatives when working with victims of violence. The author spent thirteen months observing domestic violence advocates in a feminist nonprofit organization to learn how the paradoxical reliance on criminal-legal interventions is reproduced. The paper identifies three mechanisms. First, information on criminal-legal interventions is emphasized more than other interventions in advocate training. Second, nonprofit staff present extreme examples of abuse and their associated criminal-legal interventions while training advocates rather than describing the types of abuse more typically brought to the organization. Finally, staff establish protocols for handling advocates’ discontent with criminal-legal interventions which makes further collaboration between volunteers and the police possible. Together, these mechanisms reproduce criminal-legal interventions by limiting advocates’ knowledge of the variety of alternative interventions. Practically, this work suggests several ways for advocates to destabilize ineffective organizational practices. Theoretically, the author shows that normative institutions are reproduced not just through socialization and coercion, but also through a lack of alternatives.

Using Text as Data to Reveal Changing Organizational Perspectives on Violence Against Women in the United States

“…However, while anti-violence work is increasingly multifaceted, our analysis also supports, using text as data, earlier research showing that the anti-violence space has departed from its grassroots and politicized origins. The nonprofit incorporation of antiviolence advocacy may impose bureaucratic management strategies on advocates, and feminists have long argued that the growth and professionalization of anti-violence work might lead to a narrower conception of violence against women that eschews long-term change (Ferguson 1984;Johnson 1981;Lehrner and Allen 2008;Mehrotra, Kimball and Wahab 2016;Schechter 1982;Sweet 2019;Weiss 2020;2021). Employing dictionaries developed to explicitly understand nonprofit bureaucratization (Brandtner 2021;Korff, Oberg, and Powell 2015), we find that between one third and one half of all anti-violence organizations reference managerial discourse or rational-technical terminology when discussing their efforts to confront violence against women.…”

“…2001;Kim 2013;Mehrotra et al 2016;Richie 2012). Weiss (2020Weiss ( , 2021 argues that the integration of policing with activism has led organizations to compartmentalize violence against women into distinct criminal activities (such as stalking, sexual assault, and domestic violence), to the neglect of a comprehensive approach. Organizational definitions of violence against women also now discipline women's selfnarratives about their experiences and circumscribe the range of responses available to them (Sweet 2019).…”

“…VAWA also institutionalized violence against women as a specific domain of crime (Modi, Palmer, and Armstrong 2014:254), creating funding sources for domestic violence shelters while emphasizing the importance of coordination between law enforcement and shelter services. The blending of policing and anti-violence work has made criminal-legal interventions central to the work of advocacy organizations, who now prioritize efforts to report victimization or otherwise cooperate with law enforcement (McDermott and Garofalo 2004; Weiss 2020). However, criminalization may not benefit all women and may have unintended consequences for marginalized populations (INCITE!…”

“…Contemporary knowledge about violence against women is informed by not only activists, but also by legislation, criminal and civil legal systems, and hospitals that increasingly fund and integrate with anti-violence services. These institutions understand violence against women in specific ways, and advocates have raised concerns about the importation of frameworks from policing and medicine into anti-violence advocacy (Kim 2013; Mehrotra, Kimball, and Wahab 2016; Nichols 2013; 2011; Weiss 2020). Critics also suggest that the anti-violence field has “bureaucratized” as it has grown, fracturing broader efforts toward social change (Lehrner and Allen 2008; Mehrotra, Kimball, and Wahab 2016; Nichols 2013; Sweet 2019).…”

To Punish, Parent, or Palliate: Governing Urban Poverty through Institutional Failure

“…Palliation for frontline actors is often a moral and ethical project, in which they exert a great degree of agency to redress the institutional mismanagement of suffering (Fassin et al 2015). At times, frontline actors may strategically enact their roles to minimize the potential harm they or other actors could cause vulnerable subjects (Greenberg 2021; Weiss 2020). Authorities and subjects sometimes collaborate in developing “band-aid” interventions in the shadow of institutional sanction.…”