When Freud famously asked, "What do women want?" he couldn't have anticipated the nearly unanimous replies of abused women in Family Law Court. But if there were any doubt before, now we know that safety is the paramount goal for abused women using the Family Law Court system.
Available at www.kccadv.org, "I Just Wanted to Be Safe: Battered Women's Experiences With the Family Law System in King County," was produced by the King County Coalition Against Domestic Violence (KCCADV) in cooperation with the City of Seattle's Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Office. KCCADV is an advocacy organization for agencies serving abused women. It focuses on community and agency education and government policy.
The paper describes the perspectives of selected participants in focus groups who discussed abused women's successes and failures in achieving their goals in Family Law Court. Merril Cousin, KCCADV director and author of the report, emphasizes that the evaluations of those survivors, advocates, batterers' treatment providers and judicial personnel by no means constitute a scientific sample. But their conclusions are remarkably consistent with each other and also with those found in quantitative studies in other parts of the country. The findings will enable KCCADV to identify areas in need of policy change and improvements in advocacy.
The document will be helpful to anyone working directly with an abused woman and relying on the judicial system to ameliorate damage caused by an intimate partner. Summaries of a number of topics are interspersed with direct quotes from each of the participating groups, whose voices add spice to the narrative. There is some repetition, as certain subjects turn up under several headings, but each topic is clearly headlined, enabling the reader to easily find information likely to be most helpful.
Focus-group leaders asked attorneys, advocates and perpetrator treatment providers what they would consider a "successful outcome" in Family Law Court for domestic violence survivors and their children. Many agreed with survivors' evaluations of their experiences, which prioritize safety.
"When I think of a successful outcome for DV survivors, I think of safety. Minimizing contact between the abuser and victim is key."
Family Law Attorney
Narrowly defined, "safety" usually refers to physical safety, but emotional and financial security may loom as even more important, and physical safety can sometimes be achieved only by negotiating away financial rights.
"I just wanted to be safe. I didn't care about the money or child support."
A Survivor
Many batterers view monthly child-support payments as invitations to contact ex-partners and harass them directly or to repeatedly petition the court for decree modifications. A court order that requires a survivor to maintain any kind of contact with the perpetrator may place her in jeopardy. Nearly all respondents spoke to the crucial role of lawyers in helping survivors in such situations achieve their goals.
- Those with legal representation throughout all court procedures fare reasonably well - when the attorneys understand domestic violence.
- Those who are on their own typically do not achieve their goals.
- Most do not have legal representation.
- Many judicial decisions are not definitive, which necessitate repeated court appearances.
- Pro bono lawyers commonly are available only for consultation or for one court procedure.
A number of survivors and their advocates say that when their attorneys understand the dynamics of abuse, their competency enables the women to reach their goals, but a number of attorneys were said to be "not DV competent." "DV competent" means, at the very least, understanding batterers' complex manipulations, including their willingness to use courts to further their ends, and comprehending the breadth of dangers that haunt abused women's lives.
When decrees are unclear or inconclusive, and either a judge's order or manipulation by the abused woman's ex-husband necessitates a return to court, that is not simply an irritating turn of events. Each time she has to face the perpetrator in court, a survivor's fears are likely to be reactivated. Every court appearance can compromise her safety.
Several survivors expressed concern that courthouses are not secure. Those consequences may be precisely the perpetrator's intention. Persistent petitioning to modify a court decree or failure to comply with an order may be part of a perpetrator's campaign of "court harassment," as some call it. With each required court appearance, more of a survivor's financial security - if there was any - may be drained away in legal fees.
"I see outcomes where the losses (jobs, home, car, everything) continue to pile up for the woman so that eventually she is forced to go back to her abuser."
Corrections Supervisor
An attorney in a focus group pointed out the dichotomy between a survivor's goal of safety, which requires minimizing contact with the abuser, and a court's goal of maximizing contact with the non-custodial parent.
"Court-ordered visitation becomes another vehicle for victim-stalking by the perpetrator."
Batterers' Intervention Provider
The report is not entirely bleak. Some survivors and some advocates reported situations in which survivors achieved what they wanted in Family Law Court: the husband was paying child support; clients were awarded custody and child support. Judges in the Unified Family Court system reportedly tend to understand domestic violence and they typically review perpetrators' compliance with decrees.
Protection-order advocates, shelter-based legal advocates and legal-aid attorneys specializing in work with survivors received high praise from survivors and other providers. Some survivors had positive experiences with Family Court Services and were pleased with the thoroughness of assessments and lack of bias.
"My attorney knew what DV was.É He introduced me to New Beginnings.
A Survivor
By identifying problems survivors face and places where the system works well, the report is the first step in considering what system changes might provide abused women with improved services in the justice system. The next step, Cousin says, has been to convene a group of King County domestic violence advocates, attorneys and other professionals to develop specific recommendations for action.
Participants will evaluate and choose priority areas for policy or statutory changes and explore funding of legal services at local and state levels. They also will identify specific training needs for professionals in the family law system and potential training opportunities and resources. Finally, they will develop a plan for how to move training agendas forward.
Twenty pages of the report are devoted to appendices, which provide information on local resources, descriptions of related research, a bibliography and more. The report is a useful tool for studying immediate problems encountered by survivors, their advocates and legal professionals, and for exploring ways to address them. It offers food for thought to all readers who care about the safety of women and children. It can propel King County communities a good part of the distance toward recognizing their next tasks and galvanizing the energy to take them on. n
Ginny NiCarthy is a Seattle psychotherapist in private practice (www.ginnynicarthy.org), and the author of several books for abused women and those who work with them (www.abusedwomen.org). She is a member of the Board of Directors of Chaya, which serves South Asian abused women and a recent board member of the King County Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
