Survey of Prosecutors' Views on Children and Domestic Violence in the United States, 1999
Description
This survey of prosecutors was undertaken to describe
current practice and identify "promising practices" with respect to
cases involving domestic violence and child victims or witnesses. It
sought to answer the following questions: (1) What are the challenges
facing prosecutors when children are exposed to domestic violence? (2)
How are new laws regarding domestic violence committed in the presence of
children, now operating in a small number of states, affecting
practice? (3) What can prosecutors do to help battered women and their
children? To gather data on these topics, the researchers conducted a
national telephone survey of prosecutors. Questions asked include case
assignment, jurisdiction of the prosecutor's office, caseload,
protocol for coordinating cases, asking about domestic violence when
investigating child abuse cases, asking about children when
investigating domestic violence cases, and how the respondent found
out when a child abuse case involved domestic violence or when a
domestic violence case involved children. Other variables cover
whether police routinely checked for prior Child Protective Services
(CPS) reports, if these cases were heard by the same judge, in the
same court, and were handled by the same prosecutor, if there were
laws identifying exposure to domestic violence as child abuse, if
there were laws applying or enhancing criminal penalties when children
were exposed to domestic violence, if the state legislature was
considering any such action, if prosecutors were using other avenues
to enhance penalties, if there was pertinent caselaw, and if the
respondent's office had a no-drop policy for domestic violence
cases. Additional items focus on whether the presence of children
influenced decisions to prosecute, if the office would report or
prosecute a battered woman who abused her children, or failed to
protect her children from abuse or from exposure to domestic violence,
how often the office prosecuted such women, if there was a batterers'
treatment program in the community, how often batterers were sentenced
to attend the treatment program, if there were programs to which the
respondent could refer battered mothers and children, what types of
programs were operating, and if prosecutors had received training on
domestic violence issues.
Resources
| Name |
Format |
Description |
Link |
|
0 |
ICPSR03103.v1 |
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03103.v1 |
Tags
- children
- court-cases
- policies-and-procedures
- prosecuting-attorneys
- battered-women
- child-abuse
- treatment-programs
- family-violence
- domestic-violence