DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
EDITED BY SERENA DINESHKUMAR, JULIET DALE, CHUNHUI LI,
GRACE CAMPBELL, ALISON HAGANI, ERIKA HINKLE, ELAINE MCCABE,
LINDSAY SERGI, AND PAYTON GANNON
I. INTRODUCTION ......................................... . 473
II. CURRENT ORGANIZATION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAW . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
A. FEDERAL LAWS RELATING TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ............ 476
1. The Violence Against Women Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
a. Immigrant Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
b. LGBTQIAþIndividuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
c. Native Americans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
d. Ongoing Criticisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
2. The Lautenberg Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
3. Title IX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
B. STATE LAW RELATING TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE .............. 492
1. Criminal Law of Domestic Violence ................... 492
a. Statutory Organization of Domestic Violence Crimes 493
b. Battered Woman Syndrome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
i. Criticism of BWS Testimony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
ii. Legal Consequences of BWS for Male and
LGBTQIAþSurvivors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
c. Law Enforcement and Protection Policies . . . . . . . . . 500
i. Warrantless Arrests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
ii. Mandatory Arrests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
iii. No-Drop Prosecutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
iv. Mandatory No-Contact Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
v. Mandatory Reporting by Health Care
Professionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
2. Civil Law of Domestic Violence ...................... 506
a. Civil Protection Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
b. Tort Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
c. Domestic Violence Resources and Child Custody . . . 509
III. CONCERNS AND TRENDS IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAW .............. 511
A. EDUCATION AND ADVANCEMENT ......................... 511
B. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN THE DIGITAL AGE .................. 512
IV. CONCLUSION ........................................... 516
I. INTRODUCTION
Domestic violence is a problem that affects millions of people regardless of
race, gender, ethnic group, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or age. In
473
the United States, an estimated twenty-three percent of adult women and fourteen
percent of men have experienced an act of severe physical intimate partner vio-
lence within their lifetime.
1
Phyllis H. Niolon, Megan Kearns, Jenny Dills, Kirsten Rambo, Shalon Irving, Theresa L.
Armstead, & Leah Gilbert, Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical
Package of Programs, Policies, and Practices, CTRS. FOR DISEASE CONTROL & PREVENTION, 7 (2017),
https://perma.cc/SDP7-ZNCP.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that there
were 955,930 incidents of violent crime perpetrated by intimate partners in 2022.
2
Alexandra Thompson & Susannah N. Tapp, Criminal Victimization, 2022, THE BUREAU OF JUS.
STATISTICS, U.S. DEP’T OF JUST., 2022, 3 (Sept. 2023), https://perma.cc/X5FH-FY3M.
Intimate partner violence is a pattern of behavior where one intimate partner
coerces, dominates, or isolates another intimate partner to maintain power and
control over the partner and the relationship.
3
Beverly Tillery, Audacia Ray, Eliel Cruz, & Emily Waters, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,
Queer and HIB-Affected Hate and Intimate Partner Violence in 2017, NAT’L COAL. OF ANTI-VIOLENCE
PROGRAMS, 36 (2018), https://perma.cc/3TEV-KVJC.
Compared with intimate partner vi-
olence, domestic violence includes not only violence between spouses or part-
ners, but also includes siblings, parents, and other relatives in a domestic
situation.
4
The Language We Use, WOMEN AGAINST ABUSE, https://perma.cc/Z25G-93FX.
Although domestic violence usually includes violent physical attacks,
it may also include psychological, economic, and sexual abuse, as well as
attempts to isolate the abused partner.
5
What is Domestic Violence?, OFFICE OF VIOLENCE ON WOMEN, U.S. DEP’T OF JUST., https://perma.
cc/5RTL-SB3R.
The effects of domestic violence extend
far beyond the relationship itself.
6
Throughout this Article, “domestic violence”
will be used interchangeably with “intimate partner violence.”
7
Although domestic violence predominantly involves men victimizing women,
it can take other forms: women also perpetrate violence against men, and gay and
lesbian relationships can be similarly characterized by abusive patterns.
8
In 2017,
the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (“NCAVP”) documented six-
teen LGBT intimate partner violence homicides; however, “it is likely that these
numbers only represent a portion of the actual number of intimate partner vio-
lence related homicides of LGBTQ people.”
9
In 2017, NCAVP programs
received 2,144 reports of LGBT intimate partner violence.
10
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. See id. at 490–91 (“Domestic violence is also a significant contributor to job loss, divorce, poverty,
and homelessness, and the U.S. Justice Department Institute has estimated that, when medical costs,
indirect costs, and diminished quality of life costs are taken into account, adult [survivors] of domestic
violence suffer economic costs of $67 billion dollars per year (stated in 1993 U.S. dollars).”).
7. Cf. Leonard D. Pertnoy, Same Violence, Same Sex, Different Standard: An Examination of Same-
Sex Domestic Violence and the Use of Expert Testimony on Battered Woman’s Syndrome in Same-Sex
Domestic Violence Cases, 24 ST. THOMAS L. REV. 544, 547 (2012) (explaining the term domestic
violence as implying nothing specific about the relationship or the people in it).
8. Gendered language is used throughout this Article in part because of its history and current usage
in domestic violence law, especially with respect to Battered Woman Syndrome, and in part, for clarity
and convenience. This is not to suggest that intimate partner violence does not occur in same-sex
relationships or that a woman cannot perpetrate it against a man. See id.
9. Tillery, Ray, Cruz, & Waters, supra note 3, at 14.
10. Id. at 15.
474 THE GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF GENDER AND THE LAW [Vol. 25:473
Part II of this Article will examine domestic violence law at both the federal
and state level. On the federal level, it will discuss (1) the federal Violence
Against Women Act (“VAWA”) and its efforts to extend protection to immigrant
women, LGBT individuals, and Native American women; (2) the Lautenberg
Amendment, which prohibits people convicted of domestic violence from pos-
sessing a gun; and (3) Title IX provision, which imposes requirements on col-
leges in handling sexual assault and sexual harassment claims. Part II will also
discuss state criminal and civil domestic violence statutes. Part III will discuss
both concerns with and development of domestic violence law. This includes dis-
cussion of gender and cultural biases that survivors still face in court as of 2023,
despite movements like #MeToo increasing public awareness of domestic and
intimate partner violence. Part III concludes with a discussion of threats that sur-
vivors face in a digital age, including harassment by GPS and phone messages,
developments which are leading some legislatures to implement laws against
cyberstalking and nonconsensual pornography.
11
For conciseness, this Article will refer to people who inflict harm on their partners as “abusers”;
there is a recent trend in the domestic violence practitioner community towards using the term “people
who harm” or “people who cause harm” rather than abusers/batterers as a way to recognize that those
causing harm may themselves be survivors of domestic violence. See Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop
Interpersonal Violence, CREATIVE INTERVENTIONS, 74 (2012), https://perma.cc/Y743-A7AF.
II. CURRENT ORGANIZATION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAW
The majority of domestic violence law is state law.
12
Most of the federal law is
found in the various iterations of the Violence Against Women Act (“VAWA”).
13
In 1994, VAWA became the first federal statute aimed directly at combating gen-
der-related violence.
14
The bulk of VAWA’s provisions constructed funding
streams to support local resources for survivors of domestic violence, generated
ways to prevent domestic violence, and commissioned research to better under-
stand the dynamics of domestic violence.
15
Subsequent versions of VAWA incor-
porated changes to substantive law as well, including a controversial “civil rights
remedy” that was struck down in United States v. Morrison.
16
At the state level, there are both criminal and civil laws relating to domestic vi-
olence. There is no uniform codification of criminal domestic violence law (or
civil domestic violence law), thus states vary significantly in their statutory
11.
12. United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 618 (2000) (holding that “the regulation .. . of intrastate
violence not directed at the instrumentalities, channels, or goods involved in interstate commerce has
always been the province of the States”).
13. See generally Robin Runge, The Evolution of a National Response to Violence Against Women,
24 HASTINGS WOMEN’S L.J. 433 (2013) (examining the past and current versions of VAWA).
14. See id. at 433 (noting that VAWA 1994 was “the first comprehensive legislative effort to create a
national response to the epidemic of violence against women”).
15. See generally 34 U.S.C.A. §12291 (West, Westlaw through Pub. L. 118-41).
16. Morrison, 529 U.S. at 627.
2024] DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 475
