Legal Responses to Wife Assault : Current Trends and Evaluation

While there is an evident trend towards increasing legal responses to wife assault in North America, any change that has occurred has met with controversy, and the challenge remains to improve the circumstances of battered women.

This book offers in-depth coverage of four major themes that address this issue: the historical framework of legal responses to wife assault; police attitudes and action; prosecution, mediation and treatment within the court system; and victims as defendants and participants in the legal system. Each chapter examines past and present policies of a specific branch of the legal system, and discusses their merits and demerits.

An increase in the legal response to wife assault is evident in North America, largely in reaction to earlier calls for greater responsiveness by the legal system. However--not one change has occurred without controversy. Legal Responses to Wife Assault offers in-depth coverage of four major themes: historical framework of legal response to wife assault; police attitudes and action (or inaction); prosecution, mediation, and treatment within the court system; and victims as defendants and participants in the legal system. Chapters examine past and present policies of specific branches of the legal system, discuss the merits and demerits of those approaches, and explore implications for the future. The authors not only pull together recent evaluation research in an accessible form, but they highlight their own work as well. Human services and legal professionals, as well as students and researchers in these areas, will find the book invaluable.