Doctoral Dissertation Research: Domestic Violence at the Crossroads: the interaction of the criminal, civil and child protection responses

本研究考察了三个独立但相互关联的法律程序，这些程序与家庭暴力的女性受害者经常互动，并且她们可能经历很大程度的机构管理——刑事司法系统、民事保护令程序和儿童福利系统。这项研究将研究那些被指控干预受害者案件的人如何命名和解释受害者的行为。将在刑事和民事法庭以及工作场所进行观察，并与加利福尼亚州旧金山的30名机构工作人员进行访谈。与30名与国家有关的受虐妇女组成的焦点小组将解释该系统的用户如何理解其功能。对20位全国家庭暴力倡导者的采访将讲述国家政策的发展如何为当地正在进行的工作提供信息。工作人员的叙述将提供丰富的数据，以检查如何解读受害者的行为，以及这些解读是否随着时间或机构之间的变化而变化，并将开发突出同时干预的关键时刻的地图。这些叙述和地图将使人们有可能确定体制进程内部和之间产生的矛盾，以及冲突发生时归咎于谁或归咎于什么。

This study examines three separate but interrelated legal processes with which female victims of domestic violence interact on a regular basis, and where they potentially experience a large degree of institutional managing -- the criminal justice system, the civil protection order process and the child welfare system. The research will study how the actions of victims are named and interpreted by those charged with intervening in their cases. Observations will take place in criminal and civil courts, and work sites, and interviews conducted with 30 institutional workers in San Francisco, California. Focus groups with 30 battered women who have been involved with the state will explicate how users of the system understand its functioning. Interviews with 20 nationally based domestic violence advocates will speak to how national policy development informs work that is being done locally. Worker narratives will provide rich data to examine how victim actions are read, and whether these readings change over time or between agencies, and maps that highlight key moments of simultaneous intervention will be developed. These narratives and maps will make it possible to identify contradictions that arise within and between institutional processes and to whom or what blame is affixed when conflicts arise.