Specialized domestic violence courts are designed to improve victim safety and enhance defendant accountability. They emerged as a problem-solving court in the 1980s and 1990s in response to frustration among victim advocates, judges and attorneys who saw the same litigants cycling through the justice system again and again.
Background on domestic violence
The FBI estimates that a domestic violence crime is committed at a rate of once every fifteen seconds. According to conservative estimates, one million women are battered by an intimate partner annually. These numbers and the efforts of domestic violence advocates have led, over the last 20 years, to changes in the criminal justice response to such offenses. Some of the greatest changes occurred in the 1990s, with the passage of the federal Violence Against Women Act. This increased attention to domestic violence resulted in, among other things, the passage of mandatory arrest laws, an increase in funding for services for victims, and the creation of special domestic violence prosecution and police units. At the same time, there was a parallel movement taking place within state court systems as judges and attorneys began to search for new tools, strategies, and new technologies that could help them address difficult cases where social, human, and legal problems collide. New York’s chief judge, Judith S. Kaye, articulated, with co-author Judge Susan Knipps, the thinking behind the development of domestic violence courts in an essay published in Western State University Law Review: “One possible judicial response to the current situation is to continue to process domestic violence cases as any other kind of case, and to continue to observe systemic failures. Another response, however—the problem solving response—is to try to design court programs that explicitly take into account the special characteristics that domestic violence cases present. If domestic violence defendants present a particular risk of future violence, then why not enhance monitoring efforts to deter such actions? If victims remain in abusive situations due to fear for their own and their children’s well being, then why not provide links to services and safety planning that may expand the choices available to them? If cases are slipping between the cracks of a fragmented criminal justice system, then why not work together to improve coordination and consistency?” Today, there are nearly 300 courts nationwide that have special processing mechanisms for domestic violence cases. Three sites were the subject of a study by the Vera Institute of Justice: Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; Washtenaw County, Michigan; and Dorchester District in Boston, Massachusetts. Starting in 1999, judges and attorneys, advocates for women and batterer intervention specialists, probation officers, police, and others in those jurisdictions banded together in an ambitious effort to improve criminal justice and community responses to domestic violence. The three sites were selected to participate in the Judicial Oversight Demonstration Initiative—a national demonstration project funded by the ’s —have spent the past five years working to enhance victim safety and the oversight of offenders in their communities. The Center for Court Innovation is funded by the Office on Violence Against Women to provide technical assistance to courts interested in developing or enhancing their domestic violence programs. The Center for Court Innovation also has a grant from the National Institute of Justice to document the number and types of domestic violence courts in the United States.
Benefits of domestic violence courts
Justice system practitioners, victim advocates, and researchers have cited the following major benefits of domestic violence courts:
Enhanced coordination of cases and consistent orders in different cases involving the same parties.
More comprehensive relief for victims at an earlier stage of the judicial process.
Advocacy services that encourage victims to establish abuse-free lives.
Greater understanding by judges of how domestic violence affects victims and their children.
More consistent procedures, treatment of litigants, rulings, and orders.
Greater availability of mechanisms to hold batterers accountable for the abuse.
Improved batterer compliance with orders.
Greater confidence on the part of the community that the justice system is responding effectively to domestic violence.
Greater system accountability.
Concerns about domestic violence courts
Susan Keilitz notes a number of concerns about domestic violence courts. The need for judges to specialize, for instance, may lead to a loss of neutrality among judges or “the assignment of judges who are not motivated to acquire the knowledge and skills required to be effective in these cases, or to loss of judicial effectiveness from the stress of fast-paced decisionmaking in difficult and emotionally charged cases every day.” Another concern is that greater efficiency in prosecution may lead to “assembly-line justice that ignores the special needs of victims,” Keilitz wrote.
In New York, the typical domestic violence court features a single presiding judge, a fixed prosecutorial team, and enhanced staffing to monitor defendant compliance and provide assistance to victims. In order to ensure compliance with court orders, New York’s first domestic violence court, the , launched in 1996, instituted a procedure that required parolees to come back to the court for a formal review of the terms of their order of protection. There are now over 35 domestic violence courts in New York, including courts in the Bronx, Queens and Westchester Counties, the city of Buffalo, and smaller cities like Clarkstown and Binghamton. An impact evaluation of 24 New York domestic violence courts found reduced re-arrests among convicted offenders. New York State has also created where a single judge handles criminal domestic violence cases and related family issues, such as custody, visitation, civil protection orders and matrimonial actions. In addition, the New York court system has three that work with teenage defendants.
