According to Riger, Bennett & Sigurvinsdottir (2014), domestic violence is an offense which entails acts that are criminal in nature and are often committed by a particular member of the family against the other. The offenses related to domestic violence include reckless endangerment, assault,harassment, and telephone harassment, breach of the domestic protection orders, destruction of property and threats using a weapon.
There are a number of things which usually happens in the domestic violence courts. One key thing which happens in the courts entails, a compulsory arrest of the offenders. According to the law, an offender of domestic violence should be arrested by a particular police officer and this is especially there is a particular reason to believe that the act was committed within the last four hours (Tam, Tutty, Zhuang & Paz, 2016). The individual offenders who have breached the contact orders must also be arrested by the police officer in charge of the domestic violence incidents. When one has been arrested for domestic violence offense, he or she will be held in the prison for a period of twenty four hours and later taken to the domestic violence court.
The other thing which usually happens in the court entail the dropping of charges against the offender. Generally, even with no particular arrest being made by the police officer, he or she must provide a report which is to be reviewed by the office of the attorney (Richards, Jennings, Tomsich & Gover, 2014). After a report has made and provided in the domestic violence court, the prosecutor will go through the charge sheet to decide on whether to drop the case or not. Also, the dropping of the charges by the prosecutor must be approved by the judge of the court. However, the victim is not usually allowed under any particular circumstance to drop the particular charge.
Further, there is usually no contact order made in the domestic violence courts. Such an order enables the protection of the other party from contact by the defendant typically after the arrest of such a person. The order may also constitute certain elements such as contact through writing, third party or even phone (Mahdzir, Rahman, Rahim & Ismail, 2016). The removal of the contact order can only be done by the domestic violence court and not even the victim of the particular case. The party which has been protected has to request for a no order contact and without which, such an order can be lifted by the court. When the no court order has been breached by the defendant, especially if entails an assault, it is considered as a gross misdemeanor offense.
Such a violation can, therefore, be filed in the court as a felony offense. The convicted individuals of domestic violence typically undergo a supervision by probation officers for a period of two years (Pinchevsky, 2017). The counselors of probation review and hence ensure that orders of the court are completed. At times, the offenders of domestic violence may undergo through certain programs such as parenting classes, drug counselling, and sexual deviancy treatment.
According to Gutierrez, Blais & Bourgon (2016), the domestic violence court aims to improve the safety of various victims, accountability of the offenders and service coordination among the various community partners and other government agencies which have either direct or indirect contact with the particular court
There are also four certain goals of the domestic violence court and they entail the following as indicated below;
There are usually two particular rotating judges concerned with monitoring the program. The judges typically must have a specialized training on the dynamics happening in the domestic violence cases. Further, there is usually a docket court which is used by the judges for both the post-sentence and pre-trial hearings (Elizabeth, 2015). The accuracy of information used in the courts is enhanced by the overconcentration of the judicial oversight. Such accurate information used in decision making by the judiciary helps in improving the monitoring of the offenders on the basis of their compliance with the orders made by the court. Apart from the above mentioned use of accurate information by the judges, the information aids in the processing of the domestic violence cases in a consistent and time effective manner (Elmquist et al., 2014).
According to the recent statistics, there are numerous domestic violence cases ranging from 700 to 800 which have been processed using the specialized system (Cattaneo & Goodman, 2015). The external and internal assessments on the case have displayed that the domestic violence courts have typically successfully increased the level of safety of victims of domestic violence. Also, it has reduced the level of recidivism.
Conclusion
In summary, the domestic violence courts have helped in the reduction of the cases of domestic violence. Most of the cases relating to the domestic violence have been now processed quickly and this was unlike in the past where there were cases of delay and thus delay in justice for the victims. Also, the courts have enabled the victims of domestic violence to receive justice since the whole process has been made effective, accurate and thus reliable due to the support the courts receive from a variety of agencies all over the world. The above mentioned aspects generally form the fundamental implications of the domestic violence courts on the society. The critical goals of the domestic violence courts relate to Encouraging of accountability of the offenders and also the interventions to ensure that the cycle of domestic violence has been stopped completely. The other goal entails, enhancing the response to the safety planning and needs of the victims by the criminal justice system.
References
Cattaneo, L. B., & Goodman, L. A. (2015). What is empowerment anyway? A model for domestic violence practice, research, and evaluation. Psychology of Violence, 5(1), 84.
Elizabeth, V. (2015). From domestic violence to coercive control: Towards the recognition of oppressive intimacy in the Family Court. New Zealand Sociology, 30(2), 26.
Elmquist, J., Hamel, J., Shorey, R. C., Labrecque, L., Ninnemann, A., & Stuart, G. L. (2014). Motivations for intimate partner violence in men and women arrested for domestic violence and court referred to batterer intervention programs. Partner abuse, 5(4), 359.
Gutierrez, L., Blais, J., & Bourgon, G. (2016). Do Domestic Violence Courts Work? A Meta-Analytic Review Examining Treatment and Study Quality. Justice Research and Policy, 17(2), 75-99.
Mahdzir, N., Rahman, A. A., Rahim, A. A., & Ismail, C. T. M. (2016). Domestic violence court: a new model to combat domestic violence against women in Malaysia. UUM Journal of Legal Studies, 7, 95-105.
Pinchevsky, G. M. (2017). Understanding decision-making in specialized domestic violence courts: can contemporary theoretical frameworks help guide these decisions?. Violence against women, 23(6), 749-771.
Richards, T. N., Jennings, W. G., Tomsich, E., & Gover, A. (2014). A 10-year analysis of rearrests among a cohort of domestic violence offenders. Violence and victims, 29(6), 887-906.
Riger, S., Bennett, L. W., & Sigurvinsdottir, R. (2014). Barriers to addressing substance abuse in domestic violence court. American journal of community psychology, 53(1-2), 208-217.
Sullivan, T. P., Price, C. E., & Pugh, N. E. (2017). CRIMINAL PROTECTIVE ORDERS AS A CRITICAL STRATEGY TO REDUCE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
Tam, D. M., Tutty, L. M., Zhuang, Z. H., & Paz, E. (2016). Racial minority women and criminal justice responses to domestic violence. Journal of family violence, 31(4), 527-538.
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